Remember when....

[RandySF]

Last edited Sat Oct 13, 2012, 04:03 PM - Edit history (1)

- you had to get up off the chair or sofa to change the television channel (ABC, CBS, NBC, various UHF channels)?
- instead of making play dates, you walked or rode to your friend's out to see if they can play?
- friends and family driving over unannounced to visit?
- drinking out a garden hose in the yard or water fountain at the park?
- easting paste and sniffing magic markers at school?
- sleeping in the back seat of the car while on vacation?
- riding your bike without a helmet?
- being sent to the store to buy household items?

[RebelOne]

1. Remember those times well.

You must be as old as I am, which is ancient.

[femmocrat]

2. Yes, all of them.

That is how childhood used to be. We were outside from dawn to dusk, only coming in when our mothers called our names from the front porch.

[madinmaryland]

3. Heh! Remember having to adjust the antenna so that you could watch the tv without

it flickering! Depending on the weather, if you held it, you would get better reception!

[RandySF]

10. Our antenna was on the roof.

We had a roatary device that sounded like a grinder to turn it.

[Tobin S.]

4. Get off my lawn!

What were you saying? Oh, yes, I remember that stuff well.

[RandySF]

11. My dad would say that to me about stepping on our own lawn.

He was so obsessive about it.

[TwilightGardener]

5. Or riding in the way-back of the station wagon. No seat belts!

But no one cared. We used to lie down on blankets back there on longer trips and watch the telephone lines swoop by.

[Redlo Nosrep]

6. Yep, Everything You Listed

Can I add a few?

- Dialing on a rotary phone and hearing those satisfying little clicks as each number registered?
- Hearing clocks tick away the minutes?
- Wearing your pajamas to the drive-in theater and falling asleep in the back seat halfway through the first feature?
- Playing jacks, marbles, and hopscotch with the neighborhood kids?
- Taking pictures with your Instamatic or Polaroid camera?
- Reading the World Book Encyclopedia as research for your student term papers?
- Flipping through the card catalog at the library?

Just what went through my 65-year-old mind when I read your thread -- thanks for the trip down memory lane.

[DearHeart]

16. I was thinking of the pretty much the same things!

Especially the rotary phone and the pajamas at the drive-ins, black and white TVs, TV dinners, Jiffy-Pop popcorn, going to the dimestore for penny candies, playing Mother May I, Red Rover and Hide and Go Seek.

What great memories!

[Arkansas Granny]

17. I also remember that the rotary phone was on a party line with 7 other families.

[sadbear]

7. Damn, I miss those days.

What the hell happened? Has this country just been scared to death of everything?

[Aristus]

8. I loved the fruity scents of the El Marko-brand magic markers.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

9. If I had a kid over the age about 10 or so, I would not hesitate to let him or her

fetch things from a neighborhood store, walk to school, or ride the bus alone.

Sad to say, so many kids these days are growing up in suburbs where they can't go anywhere unless an adult drives them.

City kids are luckier in that respect. They have actual places to go

It's a TV-inspired MYTH that there are child molesters and kidnappers behind every tree. There were child molesters and kidnappers when I was a child. I can remember some murders from my childhood--two little girls abducted and murdered from their own neighborhood, another little girl abducted from a picnic, a 13-year-old snatched out of the house where she was babysitting. But parents didn't act as if they thought that it was only a matter of time before some sicko killed their particular kid.

[marzipanni]

12. I remember when pencils didn't crumble when you sharpened them

and their erasers actually erased, and lasted for a while.
That was when they were made in the USA.

[blueamy66]

13. how about.....walking or riding your bike or taking the bus to school

instead of being dropped off after your Mom/Dad waited in line and held up traffic for 20 minutes...

[HopeHoops]

14. All of those. I remember the first VCR remote had a long cord and I slept for a week in my car.

Long, long ago, in a Maverick far, far away,...

7th St. in Ocean City, MD didn't have parking meters. I duct-taped towels to the windows, had the back seat out with a sleeper-sofa mattress thrown down, and opened up the cardboard covering the holes in the floor board for circulation. It was too hot by 6 in the morning, so I'd just spend all day on the beach, often flying a two-string stunt kite. The kite proved to be a chick magnet.

As for bike helmets, a shocking number of kids on bikes, electric scooters, and skateboards of course, don't seem to know what one is, or at least never wear them. It's a requirement in our house.

[HappyMe]

15. Yeah, I remember all of that.

Good times.

[Mr.Bill]

18. How about being sent to the store by dad for cigarettes

and taking a note from him to give to the clerk so they would sell them to you.

I did everything on the OP's list but eat paste. Never wanted to do that. Saw other kids do it, though.

[texanwitch]

19. All that and more.

We got to be kids and learned how to be adults at the same time.

Freedom.

There were bad guys back then, we knew how to be safe.

If any man tried to take one of us he would have been beaten up.

There were always large groups of kids out and about.

We used to take a bus from the neighborhood, and go to downtown.

We would go to malls on the bus, far from home.

Our Mom's always didn't know everything we did.