What was life like when you were a kid?

[NCcarguy]

The "things kids born in 2011 won't know" topic made me think of things the way they were when I was a kid growing up. I thought I would share a few, and see if some of you would as well.

My dad was a captain on the Raleigh police department...I think his badge number was either 12 or 13 if that tells you anything. My life was very much like an episode of Andy Griffith, which I think is STILL one of the better shows ever on TV. The road we lived on was gravel until I was probably 5-6, when my dad called a buddy of his with DOT and they came out and paved it. We had one vehicle in our family for the longest time, until my dad bought an old Studibaker pickup truck and rebuilt the engine. I can still remember going to get some wood to cut for the fireplace, and riding along and being able to see the road below my feet through the rust holes on the floor. There were 4 of us kids in the house, so when it got to be dinner time....you didn't DARE take something you weren't going to eat!! After I was about 12, many of my summers were spent living with my grandmother and helping my uncle and cousin on the tobacco farm. The first few years I was in the field priming, which is one nasty job, but later on they bought a harvestor, so I moved to the bulk barns to hang racks. We didn't use the winch like most farmers did, me and my uncle just manhandled them to the barn.

After the work was done, we all would go to Grandma's house for a late lunch, then grab the fishing poles and be off to catch fish.....I would love to be able to go back to that simple time in life!

 

[jmbeck]

From birth to age 2, I looked for things to chew on.

From age 3 to age 6, I looked for things to kick.

From age 7 to age 12, I looked for things to shoot.

From age 12 on, I looked for things to....well, I looked for the ladies.

 

[Supe]

Two letters, three words sum up my entire childhood:

TV and Hot Pockets.

 

[snickerd3]

growing up in the Chicago burbs we didn't have the woods to play in but we playing in the yard until lunchtime, then went right back out. My parents front yard was the largest on the block, a pie shaped parcel of land on a curve in the road. 3 Trees and the corner of the flower garden formed a perfect diamond for kickball games. The sugar maple was home plate, the corner of the flower bed was 1st, the magnolia tree(later the sunken area where the magnolia used to be) was 2nd, and the birch tree (later the sunken area where the birch tree usedto be) was 3rd. There was even a homerun fence at the back. (chain link fence separating the neighbors lawn from ours). I later road my bike into the fence post of said fence. I scrapped up my knee real bad from that. The bike lost half a reflector and the fence wasn't phased one bit.

 

[FusionWhite]

Like Sapper I grew up as an Army brat living in Germany (12 years total). After that it was typical small/medium town life.

To sum it up: Average.

 

[Road Guy]

it sucked, only child, parents were poor teachers who whined alot, like the teachers today

 

[Capt Worley PE]

Grew up on a farm, 250 acres of woods and fields. Walked a mile to the pool every day during the summer. No AC in my Grandmothers house, but it stayed cool enough in there. Probably would whine and complain about it now adays.

Water from a well, septic tank, oil heat. No cable TV, no video games.

 

[NCcarguy]

Sappers post reminded me....We had a black and white TV until I was about 12 I think....3 channels. ABC, CBS and on good days NBC. We didn't have AC until I was about 16. I got to the point that I spent many nights laying on the floor in front of a fan my parents would put in a hallway that seperated the rooms.

Grandma's house didn't have AC either, but for some reason never seemed to be miserably hot???

Went to the beach maybe 3 times before I was 21....got blistered EACH time from lack of knowledge about sunscreen!

 

[NCcarguy]

another favorite memory....in 1977 my family went on our FIRST and ONLY family vacation! My dad bought a brand new 1977 Thunderbird, and the salesman suggested that he take a road trip to break it in...so, ALL 6 of us piled into that 2 door car and went to the mountains. It was about a 5 hour drive. Got there LATE on Saturday, so we couldn't really see any mountains, checked into ONE hotel room, where once again I slept on the floor, then got up the next morning and drove back home.

I'm serious too....that was it.

 

[Capt Worley PE]

We camped a lot. Had a Nimrod pop up trailer, and a TON of Coleman camping gear. I don't recall ever staying at a hotel.

I truly believe the remote control is causing a decline in birth rates. I would swear my parents had me and my sister to turn the channels and adjust the antenna.

Oh, and to mow the yard.

 

[NCcarguy]

^ lol.....I can actually remember cutting the grass with a push mower when I was too small to push it from the top bar. I would stand in the middle of the handle and push from the middle bar, while pulling from the top bar.

 

[snickerd3]

we would go to a Holidome for the weekend maybe once a year for vacation. We didn't have a really family vacation until I was in 3rd or 4th grade when we took a disney cruise, using inheritance $.

 

[Master slacker]

Up until about age 8 or 10, my summers were spent with the neighborhood kids doing what neighborhood kids do.

I started swimming year 'round at 8. The majority of my childhood after that was spent in the pool training, not for recreation. Except for trips to Disney World at age 2 and 8, my family's vacations were spent at swim meets. We went to some pretty neat places (for me, at least) - San Jose, Colorado Springs, U of Minnesota, Kentucky, UNC, Long Island, Orlando, etc...

 

[snickerd3]

we would spend 1-2 weeks at my aunts house each summer. She worked for the park district so we got free swim lessons.

 

[Supe]

When I was 18 I went to evil medical school. At age 25 I took up tap dancing. I wanted to be a quadruple threat...

 

[Capt Worley PE]

^ lol.....I can actually remember cutting the grass with a push mower when I was too small to push it from the top bar. I would stand in the middle of the handle and push from the middle bar, while pulling from the top bar.

Dad had an L Model Graveley. The beast dragged me around the yard every Saturday and two days during the week every summer from the time I was 11 to the time i was 22. Then I left home.

And Dad bought riding mower.

 

[NCcarguy]

16 posts before the topic was derailed. Not bad I suppose....but no one has YET to mention ****IES!

 

[cableguy]

I too was an on-the-bike off-to-the-woods kid. A big Saturday (when I was 10-12) was trekking across a neighboring field, down the railroad tracks (probably 2 miles) to the 7-11. A Big'Un microwave hamburger. This was Food of the Gods when I was 11. Wash it down with an RC.

I walked to/from school, or rode my bike - probably 1 1/2 miles - just about every warmish day as a kid. In Jr high, I walked home 3 miles daily (no bus, as I lived out of district). Where I live now, there's no way I'd let my kids walk to school - traffic is just too crazy on my small country roads (elementary, middle, and high school are all next to each other - so high school kids are driving on the roads that the kids would have to walk along.... no way!). I was in band, and even rode the bike with my trumpet no sweat (started band in 4th grade).

I discovered computers in 8th grade (circa 1983), working on the junior high mainframe. We'd stay after school, writing programs in BASIC. Bought my VIC-20 shortly thereafter. I was a mall rat in 1984, I'd walk around to every BASIC compiling computer (like the TI99-4A etc) I could find and write:

10 PRINT "EAT A BOOGER ";

20 GOTO 10

Run

I bombed precalculus in 1986, and hated math. Swore I didn't need it. 2 years later, I changed my tune a bit.

I also mowed our 1/2 acre lot with a push mower Jacobsen. Dad never has owned a rider.

Me, I own a 48" SCAG. 3/4 acre in 45 minutes. I don't let my son run it though. He'd kill the dog and knock down the fence with it...

 

[Dleg]

I don't remember much until I was about three, when Mom kicked me out of the bed and told me to dig my own cave. She gave me a mammoth femur to help, but what really helped was the cold and dark, and the circling saber tooth tigers. I was pretty motivated and got my cave dug pretty fast.

Dad taught me to make fire when I was maybe 5. Up until then, I just borrowed a little from him, or darted out into the numerous thunderstorms to grab hot coals from the lightning strikes.

I killed my first T-rex at age 8. It took me several tries, and really I didn't have any luck until I finally tamed my mammoth, and could ride him into battle. Before that, the best I could manage was a a few lost spears and a hell of lot of running away and hiding under tree roots.

But those were good times..... good times.

 

[MA_PE]

Monty Python's Flying Circus -

"Four Yorkshiremen"

[ from the album Live At Drury Lane, 1974 ]

The Players:

Michael Palin - First Yorkshireman;

Graham Chapman - Second Yorkshireman;

Terry Jones - Third Yorkshireman;

Eric Idle - Fourth Yorkshireman;

The Scene:

Four well-dressed men are sitting together at a vacation resort.

'Farewell to Thee' is played in the background on Hawaiian guitar.

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:

Aye, very passable, that, very passable bit of risotto.

SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:

Nothing like a good glass of Château de Chasselas, eh, Josiah?

THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:

You're right there, Obadiah.

FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:

Who'd have thought thirty year ago we'd all be sittin' here drinking Château de Chasselas, eh?

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:

In them days we was glad to have the price of a cup o' tea.

SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:

A cup o' cold tea.

FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:

Without milk or sugar.

THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:

Or tea.

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:

In a cracked cup, an' all.

FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:

Oh, we never had a cup. We used to have to drink out of a rolled up newspaper.

SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:

The best we could manage was to suck on a piece of damp cloth.

THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:

But you know, we were happy in those days, though we were poor.

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:

Because we were poor. My old Dad used to say to me, "Money doesn't buy you happiness, son".

FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:

Aye, 'e was right.

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:

Aye, 'e was.

FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:

I was happier then and I had nothin'. We used to live in this tiny old house with great big holes in the roof.

SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:

House! You were lucky to live in a house! We used to live in one room, all twenty-six of us, no furniture, 'alf the floor was missing, and we were all 'uddled together in one corner for fear of falling.

THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:

Eh, you were lucky to have a room! We used to have to live in t' corridor!

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:

Oh, we used to dream of livin' in a corridor! Would ha' been a palace to us. We used to live in an old water tank on a rubbish tip. We got woke up every morning by having a load of rotting fish dumped all over us! House? Huh.

FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:

Well, when I say 'house' it was only a hole in the ground covered by a sheet of tarpaulin, but it was a house to us.

SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:

We were evicted from our 'ole in the ground; we 'ad to go and live in a lake.

THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:

You were lucky to have a lake! There were a hundred and fifty of us living in t' shoebox in t' middle o' road.

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:

Cardboard box?

THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:

Aye.

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:

You were lucky. We lived for three months in a paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six in the morning, clean the paper bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down t' mill, fourteen hours a day, week-in week-out, for sixpence a week, and when we got home our Dad would thrash us to sleep wi' his belt.

SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:

Luxury. We used to have to get out of the lake at six o'clock in the morning, clean the lake, eat a handful of 'ot gravel, work twenty hour day at mill for tuppence a month, come home, and Dad would thrash us to sleep with a broken bottle, if we were lucky!

THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:

Well, of course, we had it tough. We used to 'ave to get up out of shoebox at twelve o'clock at night and lick road clean wit' tongue. We had two bits of cold gravel, worked twenty-four hours a day at mill for sixpence every four years, and when we got home our Dad would slice us in two wit' bread knife.

FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:

Right. I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night half an hour before I went to bed, drink a cup of sulphuric acid, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad and our mother would kill us and dance about on our graves singing Hallelujah.

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:

And you try and tell the young people of today that ..... they won't believe you.

ALL:

They won't!