Things we did as kids for entertainment

[Borngeechee]

We ran around local parks in playing cops and robbers, army, etc. We had toy guns that look like real guns and didn't get shot by the police because of it. We even ran into construction sites and get yelled at by the security guard. I would lay pennies on the train tracks and come back later to find thin copper plates. We would turn over rocks and catch what we can find. Worms, snakes, snails, slugs. We burned ants with magnifying glass and blew up slugs with firecrackers because, yes, it was legal for an 10 year old boy to buy firecrackers back then. Tons of stickball and baseball. Ride our bikes over to other counties. We gathered PVC pipes and attached a balloon to the end of it and shoot beans at each other with it.

When kids were kids

Geechee born and Geechee bred

[Al Bundy]

My dad had a Case lawn tractor, and a small wagon that was towed behind. Pretty beefy for a lawn tractor. NYS canal was a few miles away. I had a flat bottom Jon Boat, a 7.5hp outboard and the tractor. The jon boat fit just about perfect turned upside down and laid on the wagon. Outboard, cushions, poles, cooler all fit great in that wagon. One day I was at a red light all loaded up on the way to the canal.  This pickup pulls up and I see the guys pointing and kind of laughing.  I cracked a big grin and was like yup... im going fishin..

[Culvercreek hunt club]

The invention of home video games was just the first snow ball.  The invention of online gaming was the avalanche.  When it was still just a stand alone console, you had to go over to one persons house and take turns if there were more than 2 of you and that wasn't quite as fun.  Now, everyone can play against or with each other from their own homes.

oh youngin!!! stand in line to put you hard earned quarters in...lol. Those were video games. 

[Elmo]

oh youngin!!! stand in line to put you hard earned quarters in...lol. Those were video games. 

 

I'm getting up there in age.  I grew up on Pacman, Donkey Kong, Centipede, Ghouls and Goblins, Q-bert, and Galaga.  I was also a Street Fight II champion in my early high school years.  Many a quarters were spend by me.

[philoshop]

"Tree parachuting".

Climb a tall skinny tree on a steep hillside, rock it back and forth until you could get it headed downhill, and enjoy the ride.

 

"Canoeing".

Find a dead log along the Canandaigua Outlet and ride it downstream until someone points out that we have to walk back to our bicycles..

 

"Hide-n-seek".

Done in standing cornfields. No crying allowed. Pay attention to your surroundings or you will surely suffer.

 

"Get a peek at Jenny's panties".

No comment.

[ants]

Oh man…sand lot base ball, street hockey, tackle football, chase, water balloons, B-B guns, sling shots, mini bikes, jumping regular bikes off of home made ramps (that NEVER ended well), Cox cars, swimming at the local pool and hoping the life guard didn't remember you from the day before, fireworks….. The list goes on and on and thats just in the summer time. In the winter there was sledding, skating, pegging cars, hopping cars, snowball fights, X-Mas light grab, piling enough snow in the middle of the road so a car couldn't get by…..I'll think of more...

[Two Track]

Grew up playing army or cowboys & Indians with a couple neighbors, made forts in sand box for the plastic troops.  Had a couple brush forts with tree-based look-outs for full-scale play across the road.

 

We had quick-draw gun-fights using holstered cap pistols.

 

When in town played Pacman, Donkey Kong, Centipede, Q-bert, or Galaga at a pizza place or bowling alley.  

 

Had friend with an actual pinball machine down the road - his dad was a game vendor, so an older machine would come home for a month or two and get swapped out again.  really nice having those blanks to use instead of quarters.  would walk or ride bike 1/3 of mile or so to his house without any parents in tow, or in line of sight.  Did have to make the call home, that I got there using an actual telephone that had to be plugged into the wall.

 

Built models of planes and tanks from WW II.

 

Built models for, and ran my HO train set (passenger and freight service).

 

Catch lightning bugs in the summer and use them as a night-light (set them free in the morning)

 

Rainy days or night time, hide-n-seek in the house, spent time reading books (yes actual paper books), watch TV, or play Atari, or watch those ancient things called VHS tapes. If went over to my girlfriend's, had to rent Beta-max tapes.

 

Weekends at grandparents farm meant hide-n-seek around the barn, walking 1/2 mile to the field pond to fish, picking apples, peaches, and blackberries, and hunting (rabbits, deer, arrowheads, spear points, axe-heads, & grinding stones).

[Culvercreek hunt club]

Oh man…sand lot base ball, street hockey, tackle football, chase, water balloons, B-B guns, sling shots, mini bikes, jumping regular bikes off of home made ramps (that NEVER ended well), Cox cars, swimming at the local pool and hoping the life guard didn't remember you from the day before, fireworks….. The list goes on and on and thats just in the summer time. In the winter there was sledding, skating, pegging cars, hopping cars, snowball fights, X-Mas light grab, piling enough snow in the middle of the road so a car couldn't get by…..I'll think of more...

If that is the same as we used to do, we called it "skitching". Sneak out, grab the bumper and off to the races with feet sliding on snowy roads. Bare/melted spots added an entirely new dimension and level of difficulty . lol. but it beat walking everywhere. 

[The_Real_TCIII]

One Summer some friends and I got word of a body near the train tracks by the Back Harlow Rd. So we packed up some supplies and headed out down the tracks to try and find it and be heroes. Little did we know some local hoods were also coming to find it but it wasnt fair, THEY CAME IN A CAR! Anyway, yada yada yada, neither of us got credit for finding the kid and I got a leech on my package for my trouble.

[kpkot]

The neighborhood kids a few houses down used to shoot arrows straight up in the air and the other kid would try and catch it with a pizza box. Wish i was making this up. I never played but i wont lie it was entertaining to watch. They didnt have very good parents... DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME

[greg54]

Stayed out at my dads cottage for the whole summer every year right thru high school. It was on Lake Ontario so there was countless memories of fishing, boating and swimming. And those memories sure do last a lifetime!!

[Jeremy K]

If that is the same as we used to do, we called it "skitching". Sneak out, grab the bumper and off to the races with feet sliding on snowy roads. Bare/melted spots added an entirely new dimension and level of difficulty . lol. but it beat walking everywhere. 

We used to call it pogey , we had it down to a science . 2 guys would stand at the stop sign and pretend to be starting to fight each other ,once they realized everyone had a firm grip on the marks bumper they would laugh and keep walking , leaving the unsuspecting mark to drive away with kids in tow . 

[ants]

If that is the same as we used to do, we called it "skitching". Sneak out, grab the bumper and off to the races with feet sliding on snowy roads. Bare/melted spots added an entirely new dimension and level of difficulty . lol. but it beat walking everywhere. 

Yup thats exactly what it was…I use to love it!! Every night after dinner we would hop cars (as long as there was snow on the roads)  or go sledding. The local park, that was only a few blocks away, had huge hills that were lighted at night. You had to be sneaky, when hopping cars, because some drivers would get pissed and scream at you or chase you down. I remember these two hippies. (circa 1974) One was driving a van and towing a robins egg blue VW bug, with a chain. The other hippie was steering the bug. We tried to hop the bug and these two twenty something year old hair bags chased me and my two friends for a few blocks before giving up. 

a lot of people would see us and just point to their back bumper, as if to say "hop on". 

 

The good old days

[pt0217]

One Summer some friends and I got word of a body near the train tracks by the Back Harlow Rd. So we packed up some supplies and headed out down the tracks to try and find it and be heroes. Little did we know some local hoods were also coming to find it but it wasnt fair, THEY CAME IN A CAR! Anyway, yada yada yada, neither of us got credit for finding the kid and I got a leech on my package for my trouble.

I was thinking of that movie too! Lol!

[pt0217]

The neighborhood kids a few houses down used to shoot arrows straight up in the air and the other kid would try and catch it with a pizza box. Wish i was making this up. I never played but i wont lie it was entertaining to watch. They didnt have very good parents... DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME

My buddy and his buddy did that but would just run. The arrow came down and went through the neighbors convertible top. When he told me the story I couldn't stop laughing.

[Zem18]

We would plays "guns" and run around the woods. Lots of cool plastic toy guns back then. Lived on a dead end and plenty of woods to roam around in. Made BMX tracks out there too. Play in the creeks and swamps. Once it was winter we would play hockey on the frozen swamp. Neighborhood kickball games, manhunt, football with my brothers.Good times gone but memories for a lifetime.

[DirtTime]

Pretty much the same as most. Building forts, camping, fishing, hunting, bicycles, ATV's & dirt bikes, sledding, playing guns, paint ball, doing things with air guns we weren't supposed to do, sneaking beers, and just having fun. I played video games, but not a lot back then. If I was able to be outside I was.

[pt0217]

Zem,

Manhunt was great!

Edited April 7, 2016 by pt0217

[The_Real_TCIII]

I'll tell you one thing we never did, "hydrate". You drank water maybe once a day and it was out of a hose. And don't get me started on sunscreen

[BizCT]

Keg parties, lots of keg parties

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[coonhunter]

None of you guys ever dug holes? I can remember my buddy and I starting out digging a few worms for fishing, and ending up with a hole big enough to bury a body in a few times. Why? Darned if I know. We were kids.

 

All the stuff we did, involved getting ourselves there and home by ourselves. Money came from chores and farm work. There was no getting money from mommy or daddy. And if we went somewhere, we got ourselves back home too.

 

During the summer, it was no big deal to have 4-6 of us camping down on the river living off of fish, froglegs, and soda that we provided on our own. What a life I lived as a kid.  

[HuntOrBeHunted]

Pine cone wars in the junkyard lol. Yup, those were the days.

[pt0217]

Coon Hunter,

We used to dig holes too.

There was an old dump on our property. We would dig up all kinds of crap. Mostly bottles. If we got a whole bottle it was the find of the century. Funny all of the broken glass we would be playing in. Imagine kids today doing some this stuff. My wife would flip if my kids played in an old dump full of broken glass.

[pt0217]

My comment about porkies in the Fisher topic got me thinking of all the things we used to do as kids to stay entertained. For those of us who grew up prior to the tech generation, we had to make our own fun. I know my group of friends were always outside in the woods goofing around. I think I knew every lake, pond, stream and river in a ten mile radius. I would walk miles to be able to fish or hunt. Let's here some of the things you did growing up that molded your desire to be in the out of doors!!!!

CF,

Nice job with this topic. I'm having a great time reading everyone's posts. Adult life is so crazy, it's comforting to look in the rearview from time to time. What a treasure it is to be a kid.

[Jaeger]

My brother and I used to go bottle fishing for killies down at the local pond.  We also had a big woods behind the house that was owned by an "evil" lady with a really big (to us) dog.  Trick was to spend time in the woods and run from the dog!

 

Mom signed my up for swimming and archery lessons at an early age.  Todays Mom's just don't seem to do things like that for their kids.  A shame.