The spoiled under-30 crowd!!!

[fund razor]

homemade rafts built for world travel... departing from the swollen creek behind the houses across the street. Got any bleach bottles?

(note: that dam creek drained into the ottawa river, which drained into maumee bay, which fed into Lake Erie and up the St. Lawrence we could have gone. The creek was an international port.)

[fund razor]

S and H green stamps and the awesome catalog.

[fund razor]

The ice cream truck, except that it was a backward trike. 2 wheels up front, one in the back.

[fund razor]

Even the crappy toys were made in the us, and mostly of wood and metal.

[fund razor]

bb guns

wooden baseball bats

[fund razor]

Everybody played sports, some people just sucked.

[Buoy]

anybody else have the cassette player that actually slid into the 8 track player, ?

Yep.

How true all of this is.
I'm not even that old. 37.

Also remember, Mothers stayed home to raise the kids.
If I got caught pulling some kind of crap while Dad was at work, I was terrified into "wait till your Father get's home"... Not really too sure how much trouble I was facing, or if I bit off a bit too much this time...

[BY U BOY]

everybody played sports, some people just sucked.

lmfao

[fund razor]

Yep.

How true all of this is.
I'm not even that old. 37.

Also remember, Mothers stayed home to raise the kids.
If I got caught pulling some kind of crap while Dad was at work, I was terrified into "wait till your Father get's home"... Not really too sure how much trouble I was facing, or if I bit off a bit too much this time...

If you did something stupid in the neighborhood... the adults would get a crack at you before you even got home. Your dad wasn't going to sue the neighbor because you are a dumbass.

[fund razor]

Everybody played sports, some people just sucked.

Seriously... kids that weren't "jocks" still had basketball hoops, baseball gear, every imagineable sport accessory. (I mean, even a tennis raquet.)
I'll bet that we put 50 miles a day on our bikes.

Even the cool toys were really sports. I mean, come on. My first taste of speed was at 4 years old on a Big Wheel. Seemed like 50mph.
I would pedal that sob like there was no tomorrow and throw it into a J turn with that brake. Those poor tires.
Knock knock.
What? A blacktop driveway down the street has a light sheen of rain on it?
Let me get my big wheel. I'll be right there.

OMG... I am an enormous kid and my big wheel is a mercedes 560sl.

[DollaBill]

S and H green stamps and the awesome catalog.

Man, I forgot about those. Wow. The rest is true too. Your friends dad would smack both of you THEN call YOUR dad so when you got home you got it again!

How about tree houses. I used to build some awesome ones. That reminds me of a good story...

My buddy and I built this tree house one summer. I guess we were about 10 or 11. Well his dumbazz older brother comes over and paints a nazi swaztika (sorry sp?) on the side that faces this busy street without us knowing. Next thing you know within a day or two all hell breaks loose. Police are investigating, school psychologist is on the phone with mom. LOL. What a mess

[fund razor]

Man, I forgot about those. Wow. The rest is true too. Your friends dad would smack both of you THEN call YOUR dad so when you got home you got it again!

How about tree houses. I used to build some awesome ones. That reminds me of a good story...

My buddy and I built this tree house one summer. I guess we were about 10 or 11. Well his dumbazz older brother comes over and paints a nazi swaztika (sorry sp?) on the side that faces this busy street without us knowing. Next thing you know within a day or two all hell breaks loose. Police are investigating, school psychologist is on the phone with mom. LOL. What a mess

Your dad would thank the other dad for kicking your ass in advance and getting it warmed up for him, maybe even trade pointers.

My tree house at that age overlooked the international port creek. Huge trees. Huge houses. Mine was not covered, as many around us were... but it was high and large. We hoisted up chairs, ran electric from the back porch, and I brought my MCS stereo combo unit (LP, Tape, radio) for tunes up there.
It ended when we snagged some miller lites out of the fridge in advance of our eigth grade graduation and had a party up there. My Mom didn't like it anyway and that was all she needed.
My sister was a narc.

[phragle]

kids actually flunked a grade if they didnt have it together. remeber them selling savings bonds in school??

[fund razor]

kids actually flunked a grade if they didnt have it together.

We had an eigth grader with a mustache. He was a proponent of the beer party.

[phragle]

I got those tree forts beat suckers!! when I was just 5 I wanted a fort, no tree in the yard. I designed it in my head and had my dad move the swingset. knowing that summer wouldnt last forever, I built my fort between the house and the swingset, using the house as one of the walls. the part of the house I used? the part with the window and dryer vent from the laundry room, sealed all the cracks with bumper stickers from pants galore. So at 5 I designed and built a 2 story fort with not only lighting, but central heat! and with an attached swingset too..........

[Buoy]

Jumping ramps, or anything for that matter with bikes.

Geez, I also remember having a 20" Huffy that I was always painting or swapping parts from other bikes.
I saved up my money to buy the very first "mountain bike" - 10-speed Murray Baja. Saw in the JCP catalog, and had to have it. $189.00. Not small change back then. My parents told me to keep the Huffy if I was going to go out jumping ramps.
Now, back then, if you could find a piece of flat lumber, and a couple cinder blocks or bricks, you had a ramp. Set that ramp up right in front of a puddle in the mud, and you could jump it!!!
Did this once in a parking lot. We split the 1x6 in half, so we found some masking tape to tape it back together. Got the ramp set to something close to a 50 degree incline. Of course, it was always the challenge to see who was going to be the first one to try it.
I was riding the "Baja" and, against my parents advice to jump only the Huffy, and how stupid this idea of a 50 degree incline was to begin with (and my own lack of judgement) I volunteered to try it first.
I came down right on the front wheel, throwing me off the bike, taking out a taillight on a '76 Monte Carlo with my forehead before hitting the (chromed steel) bumper, and knocking myself out with a concussion.
Woke up under the car with a buddy standing next to me crying because he thought I was dead and he was going to get into trouble.
The front wheel of the bike looked almost like a taco shell.
I had a knot on my noggin' the size of a golf ball.
Spent the afternoon in the ER being questioned about child abuse because I told everyone I fell off the bike (NO, I wasn't jumping the Baja...Honest Mom, I wasn't)...
Wait until your father get's home...

[fund razor]

Kid named Wierd Harold jumped a ramp made of a too thin piece of some kind of board riding my dad's old school single speed bike. The board broke, the wagon taco'ed, Harold went over the bars and ended up breaking his arm.

There was no lawsuit, and Harold was punished for breaking his arm.

He later dropped dead in the middle of a sand lot football game at age 13 or so with a heart attack. Had a condition that nobody knew about. Freaked us all out. 12 kids age 7 to 14 wondering if we were all ticking time bombs.

[Buoy]

I got those tree forts beat suckers!! when I was just 5 I wanted a fort, no tree in the yard. I designed it in my head and had my dad move the swingset. knowing that summer wouldnt last forever, I built my fort between the house and the swingset, using the house as one of the walls. the part of the house I used? the part with the window and dryer vent from the laundry room, sealed all the cracks with bumper stickers from pants galore. So at 5 I designed and built a 2 story fort with not only lighting, but central heat! and with an attached swingset too..........

SWEET!!!!

I grew up in a new subdivision. We were one of the first 10 houses. So plenty of construction scraps to work with, but no trees.
Found a wooded area in a field that we were able to build our fort.
Cinder blocks, plywood, an old stormdoor turned on it's side (the whole thing was only about 3-4' tall). Scrap carpeting. Shingles.
I had my first smoke, and my first beer there.
Had a stash of porn mags there.
I think we were afraid to go back after one of the guys accidentally set the whole field on fire...

[Buoy]

Kid named Wierd Harold jumped a ramp made of a too thin piece of some kind of board riding my dad's old school single speed bike. The board broke, the wagon taco'ed, Harold went over the bars and ended up breaking his arm.

There was no lawsuit, and Harold was punished for breaking his arm.

He later dropped dead in the middle of a sand lot football game at age 13 or so with a heart attack. Had a condition that nobody knew about. Freaked us all out. 12 kids age 7 to 14 wondering if we were all ticking time bombs.

Yeah, now I'm 37 and worried as hell about my blood-pressure after a visit to the eye doc yesterday...
Bought a monitor today.
Scaring the hell out of me.

[MacGyver]

The Sears catalog. Damn thing was 2-3" thick. I miss that catalog