Hmm, I'm still here

[oZ]

Those of You Born   
1930 - 1979

First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they were pregnant. They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, Tuna from a can and didn't get tested for diabetes.
 
Then after that trauma, we were put to sleep on our tummies in baby cribs covered with bright colored lead-base paints
. 
We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, Locks on doors or cabinets and when we rode Our bikes, we had baseball caps  not helmets on our heads.
 
As infants & children, we would ride in cars with no car seats, no booster seats, no seat belts, no air bags, bald tires and sometimes no brakes.
 
Riding in the back of a pick-up truck on a warm  day was always a special treat. 
We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle.
 
We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and no one actually died from this.

We ate cupcakes, white bread, real butter and bacon.. We drank Kool-Aid made with real white sugar. And, we weren't overweight. WHY?  Because we were always outside playing...that's why! 

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.
 
No one was able to reach us all day. And, we were O.K.
 
We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps And then ride them down the hill, only to find out We forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes  a few times, we learned to solve the problem.

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo's and X-boxes.  There were no video games, no 150 channels on cable,  no video movies or DVD's, no surround-sound or CD's,  no cell phones,   No personal computers, no Internet and no chat rooms.
 
WE HAD FRIENDS And we went outside and found them!
 
We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.
 
We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.
 
We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays, made up games with sticks and tennis balls and, although we were told it would happen,  we did not put out very many eyes.
 
We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just walked in and talked to them.
 
Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment.   Imagine that!! 
The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!
 
These generations have produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever.  Hell we ride Valkyries.

The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.  We  had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all.
 
If YOU are one of them CONGRATULATIONS!

Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors.

The quote of the month is by Jay Leno:   
"With hurricanes, tornados, fires out of control, mud slides, flooding, severe thunderstorms tearing up the country from one end to another, and with  the threat of swine flu and terrorist attacks.  Are we sure this is a good time to take God out of the Pledge of Allegiance?'

[Jack]

   Both parents worked full time and was raised by my older siblings.  Big sister was in charge of the house and we were either at school, doing chores, or out in the woods playing in a stream or walking thru the woods.  No money so we picked up pop bottles on the side of the road when we wanted a treat from the neighborhood gas station 2 miles up the road.  Bottle deposit was a 1/2 cent.

[john]

          "Bottle deposit was a 1/2 cent"
           what a jip ... i got three cents for the small bottles
      and a nickle for the big ones         

[oZ]

In California it was 3 cents for any soda bottle, and 5 cents bought a Snickers! Woop!

[old2soon]

I had a paper route-helped dad-we were junk men-cut our grass in the summer with a push mower-no engine or motor-removed snow from the front and back walks and the driveway with a shovel-and painted the trim on the house with dad-helped mom plant the garden-and weed it-but i also got to eat the freshest veggies in the world.  Made my own bed-learned how to do dishes-laundry-and how to cook-not just open a can and heat something up.  Mom and Dad tried their damndest to make sure we were ready to go out in the world and be productive members of society.  I believe it may have worked.  And i DO NOT hold it against them for being parents-ass whippings when needed and a kind word when needed.  I now truly understand when they said-this will hurt me more than it hurts you.    Thanks Mom and Dad.  RIDE SAFE.

[czuch]

^^^^^^^^^^^^ZAKTLY^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Good times when TV was safe and toys were dangerous.
Lawn darts anyone??

[tonyfan70]

^^^^^^^^^^^^ZAKTLY^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Good times when TV was safe and toys were dangerous.
Lawn darts anyone??

I found a set of these at my Grandfathers house. Jarts, they were called. They are still in the origonal box, great big HEAVY pointy steel tipped darts. I'm sure they'd go right through your foot if you aren't careful.

I'm keeping them!

[BigAl]

BB Gun at 8,,,35 caliber Marlin Rifle by 12.

First real motorcycle a CL100 Honda at 12.

Hit a Station Wagon on my way to a pool party on a XL125 at 14.

Had my own boat by 13, with a motor.

Traveled anywhere I wanted as I was raised on the river/lake.

This was atypical even in 1970, but I am still here.

[Challenger]

I remember when our cousins would visit from Chicago, Their parents would not let them play in the hay mow, climb trees with us, walk the fence around the hog lot or race their bikes down the gravel hill, We could not figure it out.

[Chrisj CMA]

OZ you must have been spying on me as I was a kid........you described just how we "rolled"  You did leave out the underground forts............we made some elaborate tunnels covered with cardboard and plywood and roofing tin and whatever then cover with dirt so no one could tell where you were then pop up and throw dirt clods at the enemy.........ya we got hurt a little but like you said, we got over it and no one got sued!!!!

the good old days

[FloridaValkRyder]

I just love to remember the childhood days. What have we raised now..and why? I have no kids, just never got around to it. But my childhood was as Oz described almost to a "T". And here I sit, still alive, still kicking and still riding my Valk. My relatives were from Lucedale, MS, farmer types, they ate Fried steak, lard biscuits, bacon from their pigs, pies, cakes, homemade ice cream, eggs by the ton, gravy, lots and lots of fresh veggies and whole milk from their cows....and lived to be in their 90's. We have undoubtedly killed ourselves with our technology and innovation! Sad somehow...

[gregc]

  How about the pea shooters, and apple fights.  Just don't pick up the apple covered in yellow jackets.

[Jess Tolbirt]

I often think that I wish I could have told my parents that I had a great child hood growing up...
on Christmas eve Santa would come about 6pm at my Ninny and Granddaddys house then we would go home and Santa would come again in the middle of the night.. one year i got a new Schwinn at Granddaddys and and 22 rifle at home..I made a scabbard for that gun and rode all over the place with it.. shot squirrels and rabbits,, Mama would clean em and cook em..Daddy told me not to shoot anything that lived that i wasn't prepared to eat..there was a junk yard down the road and the owner, mr wilson, would let me shoot all the windows i wanted to as long as the car had a big red X on it..
o yea the memories,,,

[BradValk48237]

One word why these things are no longer the norm....

Sorry Oss....

Lawyers....



I do miss BB gun fights...... Still have 3 of mine...... Crossman 10 pump always got their attention. And the wind dropped apples mage great grenades... especially the squishy ones!

Brad

[NEHI]

    And lets not forget Mercury, we used to rub pennies with it to make them look like dimes. Now you drop a thermometer in a school and they call the Hasmat team and shut the school down.

[BF]

Born '53.  Sounds EXACTLY like my childhood.  

Grew up in a house without air conditioning.  Even had to get up to change the channels on the black & white TV......and remember the big box on top of the TV with the huge dial on top of it that rotated the TV antenna.  Depending on the weather, we could sometimes get up to 4 channels.  Had to pick up the phone and check to see if the neighbors down the street weren't already on the party line before making a call.  The prefix for all the phone numbers was a fruit.......orange (or), cherry (ch), etc.  6 oz cokes in the green glass bottle were a dime.  Five & Dime stores.....Piggly Wiggly, the local butcher that had hoop cheese sitting out with mold growing on it (uuuum, greasy cheese), the local drug store that had a soda fountain, saturday afternoon at the movie matinee watching black & white alien monster movies........the good old days.  

Thanks for the trip down memory lane OZ.  

[wiggydotcom]

How about Fizzies, wax lips and Neeco wafers--but only the chocolate ones, right? And seeing what we could blow up with cherry bombs and M80s. Yes, there were a lot of crazy things we did back then and survived.

In conclusion Oz, we don't conform to the mainstream crowd. Maybe that's why we ride Valkyries!?

But even though we survived,.....pardon the grammar, "We ain't RIGHT!"

[YoungPUP]

Was only born in '82, but aside from the car seat, sounds just like my childhood too.  That looks like a good written plan for my 2yr old twins too!

[Jess from VA]

How about going barefoot all summer........ feet like Goodyears.

Farm next door had three boys and we were the four musketeers.  Rode sheep and a mean, nasty Shetland pony (for two seconds before being bucked off), collected eggs, made forts up the hay loft, did battle with (but mostly ran from) two huge attack geese, and fished a pond so overstocked we'd get 70 bluegill and a few catfish a day.  (Valpo Indiana, '59 - '62)

[art]

OZ you must have been spying on me as I was a kid........you described just how we "rolled"  You did leave out the underground forts............we made some elaborate tunnels covered with cardboard and plywood and roofing tin and whatever then cover with dirt so no one could tell where you were then pop up and throw dirt clods at the enemy.........ya we got hurt a little but like you said, we got over it and no one got sued!!!!

the good old days

Yup the good old days

[art]

I had a valkyrie in 1957.It was called a schwinn corvette.It had chrome all over an more lights than my valk.A spring fork and tank in the cross bars with a electric horn,a little generator for the lights,mud flaps.I guess It was predetermined that I was going to have something like a valk

[oZ]

Dudes!
You are freaking me out!  Our childhoods have so much in common and what’s absolutely weird I was raised in a suburb just outside Los Angeles, and yet so, so much in common.

Like Jack both my parents worked full time, very unusual when I was growing up all my buddies had mom’s at home. My sibling, my older brother by 5 years was in charge, he tortured the hell out of me.

Czuch, it was good times when TV was safe and toys dangerous and yea as unbelievable as it seems we had and loved Lawn Darts, we all lived as I guess common sense prevailed and we figured it not cool to chuck them at each other. Jarts, yea that’s them Jarts could you imagine a company making those now?

Chrisj CMA yup we made tunnels, we tunneled under the cement driveway, stupid yes, fun yup.

Gregc, pea shooter yup, apples no – not in L.A. no apple tree could survive the smog I figure.

Mercury, we called it Quick Silver and NEHI we did coat us some pennies. I loved that stuff, one question though, how the he11 did we get it? For the life of me I can’t remember.

BF, dude did you grow up in Arizona without air-conditioning????  No air at our house but not a big problem as contrary to what a lot of folks think Los Angeles is got pretty moderate, or temperate weather. I’d still like to live a year somewhere that has seasons, when I was a kid our four seasons in L.A. were Earthquakes, Fires, Mudslides and Riots.

Wiggydotcom, you hit it big-guy. I haven’t thought of wax lips, Fizzies or Neccos in years but all were part of my life as a kid.  We survived and yea… we aint right, can I get an amen?

Art, when I was 11 my pops got me a bike, the most awesome, cool transport a guy could get. Got myself a Schwinn Corvette in 1961. Chrome fenders, blue frame but no lights or tank in the cross bars, no electric horn, no generator or mud flaps. DUDE I got ripped off!

Did yours look a little like this?
http://www.trfindley.com/fl_bike_pages_pics/crsrdlx.jpg
Mine look just like this
http://images.craigslist.org/5V45Q05Ke3E63Kd3F9c7475be6cc7b89b18c8.jpg

[junior]

wow you guys are old..............one thing i didnt see quoted was "moms arm was my seatbelt" or "dad always had loaded guns in the house and non of us never got shot" and "we were taught at an early age what "NO" ment and the consiquences of not following the rules of NO

[shooter64]

Heck yeah. I remember having bb gun wars using trash can lids for shields. How about playing stretch and chicken by throwing your pocket knife. Stretch was throwing your knife next to the foot of an opponent and he had to stretch to it. Chicken was throwing to the inside of the foot until your feet got so close together somebody would chicken out. I still keep up with my knife throwing today. Just a single flip into a log.

[Jabba]

I was born in 1968.  I grew up walking distance from my county school.  You could see it from the house.

I ran traps as a kid, back when you could make some dough at it.  A coon brought $30-$35 and a fox over $100.  And this was about 1980. 

I would walk the road, with a .22 at 12 years old.  Or later on ride my 1983 3 wheeler with the rifle slung on my back... and the Deputies would just wave at me... within sight of the school.

Today... it'd be NATIONAL news.

It wasn't a big thing to ride my bike to a girls house 6-7 miles away. 

Most of ya'll are older than I am... but my parents were born in '29.  I am a generation older than most of my peers.

Jabba

[Jess Tolbirt]

How about Fizzies, wax lips and Neeco wafers--but only the chocolate ones, right? And seeing what we could blow up with cherry bombs and M80s. Yes, there were a lot of crazy things we did back then and survived.

In conclusion Oz, we don't conform to the mainstream crowd. Maybe that's why we ride Valkyries!?

But even though we survived,.....pardon the grammar, "We ain't RIGHT!"

Guess what i got?? I have the last 10 root beer fizzies known to mankind,,,there are 60's candy stores and no one has root beer fizzies,,,i might be willing to sell them, or trade them for a Valk!!

[JohnD]

How about Western Auto stores, bought .22s for if I remember right at .27cents a box and ordering Bernadelli .380 auto thru the mail at 13 years old. Lived all above and more raised 18 miles west of Chicago in the 60's. any body remember Souix Falls army surplus catalog-better than any Sears.
Making lead bullets on moms stove for our black powder guns, oh yea black powder in quart cans.

[BradValk48237]

I got a Schwinn Stingray in 1971, Bananna seat and Ape hangers... Musta put 20,000 miles on it (well it seemed like it)

Mom won it at our school raffle and it was too tall for me at 6 years old even with the seat down (and Dad did not believe in "training wheels')..... but that didnt stop me!  I used the front porch to get started and off I went... If I got off or fell over, I just had to find a fence or something to get going again... by the next year I could touch the ground... had that bike until I was like 13 when I bought  10 speed Schwinn Varsity (with my own money and Dad wouldn't let me buy any other brand- Huffy, Raleigh, etc)... Wish I still had it because it was mint -Dad made us wash n polish em' regular... and no playing cards in the wheels- he said it would loosen the spokes!... they can now sell for Several HUNDRED $$ in good condition and are considered a collectors item... My younger brother got a Grey Ghost.... Basically a Stingray with the springer front end with the little front wheel and shifter on the cross bar...... ditto on having that one!

And they both came Darkside! Had the squared off slick on the back- talk about dangerous........ ..

Now its sorta Valk related!

Brad

[sergbutton]

How about going barefoot all summer........ feet like Goodyears.

Farm next door had three boys and we were the four musketeers.  Rode sheep and a mean, nasty Shetland pony (for two seconds before being bucked off), collected eggs, made forts up the hay loft, did battle with (but mostly ran from) two huge attack geese, and fished a pond so overstocked we'd get 70 bluegill and a few catfish a day.  (Valpo Indiana, '59 - '62)

When I was a kid I thought I was missing out because all the other kids in town had a pizza place and baseball fields, but I was the lucky one with a pond, a barn full of hay, horses, chickens and a back 40 you actually get lost in (well my cousins could get lost in). Nearest neighbor was 2 miles and I rode my bike all day long.

Mom and Dad still live there, and it brings back such good memories when I go home to visit.

[Jack]

Never heard of "Fizzies" but did a web-search and found that a shop in Eureka Springs has them.  May have to try them out during InZane. 

Two Dumb Dames, Inc.
33 South Main Street
Eureka Springs, AR, 72632, USA

[Chrisj CMA]

One time when we wre like 10years old....me an my friend were at his house....he had an older sister that was starting the change to womanhood.....we put a strawberry fizzy under the toilet seat in her bathroom so when she sat down it would break and fall in.........

We got beat

[MacDragon]

Wow... I can relate to just about everything here.  I remember when I would call my friends house and only have to dial 5 numbers.  Had the Lawn Jarts and we would underhand throw those things as hard as we could straight up into the air, sometimes losing site of them.  It's a wonder that one or two of us aren't dead.
The toys, of choice for inside play was Lincoln Logs, and a semi-large collection of cowboys and indians complete with horses etc. Clothes and shoes were sometimes, hand-me-downs.  
You better be able to fix your own bike, aka: put one together from different bike parts.  
Penny candy was usually 2 for a penny.  We'd bring our pennies, bottles, cans to the store and get as much candy as we could for the proceeds.
JAWBRAKERS were around... (Don't know if they still are) Could barely fit them in your mouth. Had to lick the hell out of it to get it to a managable size.
Knockers... two large balls on a string that you held from the middle and started knocking them together and try to keep it going, knocking them at the bottom and top.  Most of the time knocking myself in the head with a fast moving 1 lb ball. (at least it felt like a pound or more)

Just some of the things I remember that weren't spoken of yet.

[Jess Tolbirt]

One time when we wre like 10years old....me an my friend were at his house....he had an older sister that was starting the change to womanhood.....we put a strawberry fizzy under the toilet seat in her bathroom so when she sat down it would break and fall in.........

We got beat

dad gone it,, wish i would have thought of something like that,,i could do that today with a co-worker of mine here, its a guy that is a germ and illness hypochondriac..that would be priceless,,,

[NEHI]

   I also was able to buy 1Qt. cans of Ether at the local drug store. I mixed it with gas in my Rupp minibike, until one day I went a little to far and fumes got into the crankcase, it blew the bottom end of the engine from the mounting flange to the bottom of the cylinder right off the bike. I then graduated to a BIG bike, a Bridgestone 90....

[old2soon]

I have a little handy mart in Pomona Mo that has the Necco Wafers. Grape Nehi-Orange Crush that had fruit in it-Squirt that had fruit in it-R C Cola tasted better than Pepsi or Coke. In the winter snowball fights and sometimes there might could be a rock center in the snowball!!  We made our tunnels in the winter in the piles left from plowing. A good friend of mine growing up built a bike out of spare parts and when he was airborne off the jump the front wheel came off. Busted both lips and lost two teeth with that escapade but we laughed about it for a long time after. Do something wrong thinkin you got away with it and the neighbors would rat you out.  Ran barefoot all summer long on gravel and paved roads. Rode my bike barefoot too. I remember walking 2 and a 1/2 blocks to get the mail cause they didn't go door to door. Air conditioning-the big stores had it. Thats why we had screens in the windows-catch that summer breeze.  Another friends house had a glass beer mug on the electric box above the water spigot on the back of the house and every kid in the hood drank from the same glass. None of us ever got sick from it. And we had apple trees in Illinois. Rather eat them than turn them into weapons.  The cores were another matter entirely.  RIDE SAFE.

[BF]

BF, dude did you grow up in Arizona without air-conditioning????  

Grew up in Florida without A/C.  It's a wonder I'm still alive.   

[Black Dog]

Born in '56...  

Things I lived to talk about were - Waiting for the 'oil truck' to spray the dirt road in front of our house, then playing with the 'tar bubbles', from the heat (found out much later, that it was ‘used’ oil they sprayed, and now days, is a carcinogen)...  Swinging on a 'Tarzan' rope across the ditch that was dug to put in sewers (20' wide, and at least that deep)...  Too many bicycle crashes to count (got busted up pretty good, but was more worried what my folks would say about a bent bike)...  Picking worms for fishing by shoving a rod in the ground that was plugged in to an extension cord (laughed my butt off when our dog touched it with its nose)...  BB Gun fights...  Bottle rocket fights...  Taking a bow and arrow set, shooting straight up, and seeing how close the arrow would land to us (pre-Jarts)...  Climbing trees so high that nobody knew where you were…  Falling out of tree houses, and climbing right back up again…  Catching bugs, frogs, turtles, exploring anything and everywhere…

Only thing was that CHORES needed to be done first!  Beds made, rooms cleaned, dishes done, garbage out, and depending on the season, weeds pulled, leaves raked, or snow shoveled…  Once those things were done, my brother and I would be ‘gone’ till the sun went down…

Black Dog

[BF]

Wonder how many kids that ran behind the mosquito truck back in the late '50's and early '60's are still around?   I have to admit.....I'm still here.   

[Bigwolf]

Yes, I can certainly remember doing most of those things.  My first bike was a little painful to ride until my legs got long enough to keep certain body parts off the top of the frame when the peddle was all the way down.  Latter my brother and I took the peddle crank from a 20 inch bike and put it in a 26 inch bike so we could peddle deeper into turns thereby passing the other kids on their bikes when we were racing them.

I loved the drug stores. not just because of the soda fountain but because you could buy anything there.  I could and did buy all the stuff to make my own gunpowder which I used to make my own bottle rockets, smoke bombs, and various other fireworks.  They had other chemicals too which I could buy to use in my chemistry set.

We used to climb around thru a dump at the glass plant across the street from my house.  They made a lot of labratory glassware at that Corning plant and sometimes we could find unbroken beakers, test tubes, graduated cylinders and such.  Had to keep watching and listening to be sure we could get out of the way in time if a fork truck came out of the plant with a new load of glass to be dumped.

Since a lot of people were converting their gasoline powered washing machines to electric, small gasoline engines were plentyful.  I think I was about 5 when I mounted a discarded Maytag engine on the back of my Radio Flyer.  That was a prototype for some of my later endeavors.  It was a lot of fun riding in my Radio Flyer without having to have one foot out to push it along.

The engineers in the trains would always wave at us as they went by.

Our "Tarzan rope" was one of the wild grape vines hacked off close to the ground that we would then use to swing from the hillside out over that stinky creek that ran down the hollow behind the houses on the street.  There was no sewer system so the houses with flushies just let the waste run out of the pipe down into that hollow.  That was the source of water for that creek.  Once, the grapevine broke when one of my sisters was swinging and she landed right in that creek.  Mom was not very happy.

I was 6 when my dad decided it was time for me to know how to shoot guns.  A 12 guage with soild plastic butt plate kicks pretty hard for a little guy but I learned how to handle it and we went squirrel huntin.

When I was in first grade, everyone left the house before me while I washed the breakfast dishes for the 6 of us and then I walked to school.  By myself.

Probably 90 percent of what I did as a child would land a child in juvy and counseling today and put his/her parents in jail for neglect or abuse.  I am so glad I grew up when I did and had that opportunity to learn.

Thanks for the post oZ

Bigwolf

[wiggydotcom]

That's cool, Jess...I think the reason Fizzies faded out was because cyclamates and then saccharin got banned and that's what they were made with, or so I heard. Several yrs ago, some college kids re-created em with nutrasweet as a sweetener but they've never caught on big time..I guess sometimes it's hard to re-live the past.

How about Fizzies, wax lips and Neeco wafers--but only the chocolate ones, right? And seeing what we could blow up with cherry bombs and M80s. Yes, there were a lot of crazy things we did back then and survived.

In conclusion Oz, we don't conform to the mainstream crowd. Maybe that's why we ride Valkyries!?

But even though we survived,.....pardon the grammar, "We ain't RIGHT!"

Guess what i got?? I have the last 10 root beer fizzies known to mankind,,,there are 60's candy stores and no one has root beer fizzies,,,i might be willing to sell them, or trade them for a Valk!!