# Good old days!!



## Alaskan Brown Bear Killer (Feb 22, 2005)

My Mom used to cut chicken, chop eggs and spread mayo on the 
same cutting board with the same knife and no bleach, but we didn't seem to get food poisoning.
My Mom used to defrost hamburger on the counter AND I used to 
eat it raw sometimes, too. Our school sandwiches were wrapped in wax paper in a brown paper bag, not in ice pack coolers, but I can't remember getting ecoli.
Almost all of us would have rather gone swimming in the lake 
instead of a pristine pool (talk about boring), no beach closures then.
The term cell phone would have conjured up a phone in a jail cell, and a
pager was the school PA system.
We all took gym, not PE... and risked permanent injury with a 
pair of high top Ked's (only worn in gym) instead of having cross-training 
athletic shoes with air cushion soles and built in light reflectors. I can't recall any injuries but they must have happened because they tell us how much safer we are now.
Flunking gym was not an option...even for stupid kids! I guess 
PE must be much harder than gym.
Speaking of school, we all said prayers and sang the national 
anthem, and staying in detention after school caught all sorts of negative 
attention.
We must have had horribly damaged psyches. What an archaic health system we had then. Remember school nurses? Ours wore a hat and 
everything.
I thought that I was supposed to accomplish something before I was allowed to be proud of myself.
I just can't recall how bored we were without computers, Play Station,
Nintendo, X-box or 270 digital TV cable stations.
Oh yeah... and where was the Benadryl and sterilization kit when 
I got that bee sting? I could have been killed!
We played 'king of the hill' on piles of gravel left on vacant construction sites, and when we got hurt, Mom pulled out the 48-cent bottle of Mercurochrome (kids liked it better because it didn't sting like iodine did) and then we got our butt spanked.
Now it's a trip to the emergency room, followed by a 10-day dose 
of a $49 bottle of antibiotics, and then Mom calls the attorney to sue the
contractor for leaving a horribly vicious pile of gravel where it was such a threat.
We didn't act up at the neighbor's house either because if we did, we got
our butt spanked there and then we got butt spanked again when we got home.
I recall Donny Reynolds from next door coming over and doing his tricks on the front stoop, just before he fell off. Little did his Mom know that she
could have owned our house. Instead, she picked him up andswatted him for being such a goof. It was a neighborhood run a muck.
To top it off, not a single person I knew had ever been told that they
were from a dysfunctional family. How could we possibly have known that?
We needed to get into group therapy and anger management classes? We were obviously so duped by so many societal ills, that we didn't even notice that the entire country wasn't taking Prozac! How did we ever survive?
LOVE TO ALL OF US WHO SHARED THIS ERA, AND TO ALL WHO DIDN'T- 
SORRY FOR WHAT YOU MISSED. I WOULDN'T TRADE IT FOR ANYTHING
:beer:

P.S. One of my childhood buddies sent this to me today and thought it was worth sharing.


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## Alaskan Brown Bear Killer (Feb 22, 2005)

If your older than say....35 you know this brings back memories.


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## Ranger_Compact (Nov 2, 2005)

I tried finding something in that post that pertained to my childhood...nothing.
I'm a product of the Sega days...:wink:










But really, I was an outside kid myself, didn't care much for video games-aka:my sister never let me have a turn!  When I wasn't inside playing house with my *cough* dolls *cough*, I was outside riding my bike around all day long. My dad still remembers the infamous car ride home from a family vacation once. All the way from Rapid City to Grand Forks, didn't sleep one second, I said over and over again in a loud, whiny voice- "I wanna ride my bike! I wanna ride my bike!" (My dad actually does a really funny impression of this!) When we got home at around two in the morning, my dad was sitting out in the driveway, watching me ride my bike up and down the block for an hour!


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## buckseye (Dec 8, 2003)

with ya all the way AlaskaBBK....

R_C...You didn't really whine that long did you, must be why so many modern parents put their kids on drugs.


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## djleye (Nov 14, 2002)

We used to leave the house at 8:00 am on a sunny saturday morning and be gone until 8:00 at night and our parents didn't know where we were and really didn't have to worry........Think that would ever happen now!!!!!


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## h2ofwlr (Feb 6, 2004)

:withstupid:

Back when color TVs came out it was WOOOOOOW. And they were a whopping 19" too

And vehicles had points and condensors VS electronic ignition.

And if you had a 14' Alumacraft boat with a 6 hp OB--you were living the high life of fishermen. And most hunting boats were wood yet.

Back when most guys still used wood decoys too.


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## RiveRat (Sep 19, 2004)

Cut it out! you guys are making me cry. R-C, I had one like you, the word is "FOCUSED". I wouldn't trade him for anything.


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## 94silverado (Oct 16, 2005)

This doesn't only pertain to age you know it also pertains to the size of the town too well it does for me anyway.


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## honkbuster3 (Jan 11, 2006)

I miss the good ol' days.


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## RiveRat (Sep 19, 2004)

94 Silverado - you're absolutely right. It's all a state of mind.


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## 94silverado (Oct 16, 2005)

Yeah i had a classmate who was goofing off in shop class and cut his thumb pretty bad on the band saw. The school was worried about being sued for not watching him better when useing the tools and when the parents came to pick him up all they said was don't worry we'll give him his punishment when we get home. All i can do is laugh whenever i think of that compared to things i see on tv about people getting sued for selling hot coffee. :lol:


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## gooseboy (Sep 13, 2005)

There was this kid that tryed to sue the school because he purposly ran into a pole....

And although i never lived them i wish i did. Why does everyone call the cops if the kids is blasting his music to high or something instead of calling the parents?


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## dlip (May 16, 2004)

> Why does everyone call the cops if the kids is blasting his music to high or something instead of calling the parents?


Because if the parents are letting them blast their music to loud in the first place, why bother when all they'll get is a slap on the wrist?


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## gooseboy (Sep 13, 2005)

Thats another thing. I mean im not talking about myself i dont blast my music but i know alot of kids whose parents wont do anything. I know a couple kids whose parents smoke weed. There are kids whose parents will let them skip school every now and then if they just feel like it. I know i sound like a dr. phil and im only a kid but alot of parents dont discipline there kids anymore.


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## njsimonson (Sep 24, 2002)

Ah yes, Childhood.

- Bike races around the block. NO HELMETS! Amazed none of us ended up with head injuries. Though we all acted like we had them from time to time.
-Everyone from near your block was cool. Everyone from more than two blocks away was "weird" "a bully" or "lame." 
- Playing "guns" or "army" or "storm the fort" with fake machine guns and pistols. 
- Wading knee-deep in the Sheyenne looking for crayfish, turtles, fish and frogs.
- Fishing for hours on end, for bullheads, or bluegills, and haulin arse on the bike back home when someone caught a "big fish" like a five pound pike, or worse, a snapping turtle, to let the folks know.
- Kick the can
- Ditch or sardines at night
- Lemonade stands, then using the profits to buy a new tape, a couple bags of chips and a six pack of pop and having a "block party" with all the other kids that night after a hard days work. 
- Making up games, like SOFA (a dodgeball-type game) or Astroball (another dodgeball-type game), or other dodgeball-type games.
-Kickball, baseball, or in fall, football. The best was winter football, full contact out-and-out tackle "you're gonna get a bloody nose, deal with it" in two feet of snow, FOOTBALL. Using the mini-football for extra long "bombs" on fourth instead of punting. We were an inventive group!
-Using terms like "rad" That's RAD. RAD, also the BMX show, everyone wanted to be on RAD. Ha. Funny stuff.

We may not have the same experience, but good lord almighty, it was still fun. Damn Nintendo though. Nothing ruins a childhood like a video game machine, curse you up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, b, a, start OR 007 373 5963, OR Sorry Mario, the Princess is in another castle, OR you found the boomerang. Ugh. What a waste of time.


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## Ranger_Compact (Nov 2, 2005)

kick the can and sardines were the best!


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## yellar (Nov 26, 2004)

Back in the day when it was to cold to go outside we would get to be inside watching TV and my brother and I were the remote control "Go change the channel, so to the TV I went turning the channel physically with my hand, click, click through the whole 13 channels and then the folks would say ok you can leave it on that channel and I would go and sit down until they wanted the channel changed again.


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## Trois_Beaux_Canards (Dec 14, 2005)

njsimonson, I think you and I are about the same age. I also think that we are truly the last of a generation that AKbrownbear is describing.
Bike helmets? of course not! We rode around in the back of pickups with no seat belts and no problems. We also go nothing for a bee sting, save for a lil' ice.
I may not be older than 35, I can certianly identify iwth many of the previous points. It's amazing what a litigious society we live in. If you got hurt in a neighbors yard when we were youg...it was your own stupid fault, not the neighbors who would be sued.


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## Ranger_Compact (Nov 2, 2005)

Trois_Beaux_Canards, speaking of getting hurt in a neighbor's yard, I have a couple funny stories about that. One time we were playing baseball in our neighbor's yard, they were an older couple, but enjoyed looking out the window and watching little kids playing. Anyhoo, a ball went over the fence, and I climbed over it really fast (like I had done a thousand times before) and my shoelace loop got caught on the top of the fence and hung me straight upside down! My body was a bit too long for the fence hanging though, because the first thing to hit the ground was my wrist, and I sprained it. But not too long after having an ice pack on, I was out later that night to play sardines! Another funny one-I was playing sardines on a different night a few months later, and we were running outside through some trees in the dark, under some evergreens. There were three other kids running in front of me, the one directly in front of me being my cousin, and when he realized he couldn't duck under one of the branches, he pushed it out in front of him, and as I was running behind, THWAP! Got the tree branch square in the eye, we were also having a neighborhood block party that night, and my eye was bleeding so greatly, my mom and the other parents were sure I had lost all the vision in it, until we got home and realized I got nailed right under my eye. Next day in school, I told all my friends that my shiner was from getting hit with a hockey puck playing goalie in street hockey, but my cousin informed everyone of the real story before I got there.


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## DRYLOK (Nov 29, 2005)

I saw that posted somewhere else a while back. I just turned 28 last week, so I'm right on the edge of that era. Yes I did all of those things.I was King of Pitfall on the Atari! I had a rubex cube, but I took the stickers off. I watched MTV for a few years when they still played music. Now it should be called RTV. My Dad told me if I ever got in trouble at the school or with the law that they would be the least of my worries and I believed him. We went to church on Sunday morning played football and cooked steaks on Sunday afternoon. I can remember when my Dad got his first cell phone. It was a bag phone of course. It was about that time when things started changing for me. I put the Nintendo in the closet, threw away my stickerless rubix cube, and Dad bought me my first shotgun. That was 13 years ago and that is still the only gun I shoot. Shortly after I bought my first few decoys.I was so proud of those 2 dozen standard flambou. In highschool when we got out of school on Fri afternoon all the kids were off to get their party plans made and so forth. Me, I would have my fishing boat/duck boat already tied on and be heading for the lake.I am thankfull for the accesories that we have today, but I'm glad I got to live in the simple days even if only for 10 -15 years.


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## buckseye (Dec 8, 2003)

I know I'm old, what kind of game is sardines? Is it a game?


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## djleye (Nov 14, 2002)

I maybe am too old for it also...but what is sardines!!!!!!?????


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## g/o (Jul 13, 2004)

No idea what sardines is. But played a lot of capture the flag


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## MOB (Mar 10, 2005)

This is a good thread, it really brought back some memories. In todays world of seat belts, bicycle helmets and other safety laws, why is it it's always somebody else's fault when someone hurts themselves? Maybe it's just me, but when I see kids wearing bicycle helmets, I wonder if they ever learn that maybe they should rely on their own smarts not to get hurt instead of relying on safety equipment. It seems to me that kids today are too pampered and overprotected at times and maybe this is why it's always someone else's fault when they hurt themselves. 
When I was in high school in the 70's one of my friends worked at a theatre. On weekends he had to clean the place up after the late show by himself. A group of us would show up and help clean and then play a game of "Zit Thomas" Tag in the pitch black theatre. The person who was "Zit" or "it" had a flashlight that he could have on for only 2 seconds at a time and could only tag someone with the light "off". It was kind of dangerous running full bore in the dark trying to avoid the chair arms and walls. You had to run with your arms extended to feel for the walls and hope nobody is ducked down in the row you're running down. It all ended when some fools brought their girlfriends and one of the girls ran into the wall and knocked her front teeth out. My buddy lost his job, but nobody got sued for dental bills.


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## Ranger_Compact (Nov 2, 2005)

SARDINES!!! :splat:

It is a game played outside when it is late at night, dark out. The person selected to be "it" goes and hides, kind of like hide-and-seek. Everyone else counts to 100 together, and when they are done counting they say, "ready or not, here we come". Everyone then splits up, and when you find "it" hiding, you hide with them, with a large group of kids they end up looking like packed sardines in a can. The last kid to find the can of sardines, is "it" next. Back when I played, my best friend and I used to always walk about 100 feet away from eachother (within loud whispering distance) this way, if one of us finds "it", we both get into the can before the other kids, and this way we were rarely ever "it". :lol: We were just sneaky like that! I miss those days...still best friends though!


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## njsimonson (Sep 24, 2002)

Ayup, that's sardines. Kind of like reverse hide and seek.

Oh, another great one, hot July days and watergun/waterballoon fights around the block.


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## celebrationmm (Oct 20, 2005)

I'm a product of that product. 24 now, but...

Spankings in Public, I got one at least once a week, and If I was really bad, a lickin. I haven't seen a child spanked in at least a year.
I didn't know what MTV was until High School, and in HS was forbidden to watch. I did know who Lawrence Welk was, and occassionally had the opportunity to watch "THe Grand Ol Opery!
My first tape player was a gift in Junior High, before that I used my parents record player and regularly listened to Seals & Crofts, Mamas & the Papas, Beatles, etc. My favorite was the Johnny Appleseed story.
Before my bb gun, we tried to catch things with boxes, sticks, and strings. Not to mention the neighborhood rock wars where we'd throw rocks at each other. I remember the first time someone was hit, it was also the last. I couldn't sit down for a couple days.
When I was 4, my dad took me goose hunting for the first time. We set out 36 shell snows, and 4 homemade windsocks. Oh yeah, they were all white, and we had no problem bringing in the singles and doubles. Every year after until the late, late 90s, we'd see the same 10 honkers every year and dream about getting a shot some day.
In the summer, instead of hockey camp, football camp, and all these other camp stuff, I'd wake up in the morning, have breakfast, tell mom where I was going, get on my bike, and get back home in time for supper.
If an adult told my parents I did something bad or wrong, they beleived every word they said. If a was told to watch it, I did, or else...
If I wanted something new after I turned 10, I had to earn it. Paper route.
Getting new clothes meant going out to mom's friend's place to pick up a couple garbage bags of clothes that her friend's boys had outgrown.
TVs with knobs, watching the 1986-1987 Fighting Sioux Hockey Team championship game on a black & white with rabbit ears.
And again, parents were the top of the pyramid. What they said, went. If I did anything against what they wanted, look out. And if they said, shame on you, it was on me.


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## Burly1 (Sep 20, 2003)

Spending all afternoon trying to lure a gopher out of his hole with a long green weed. Dirt clod fights with the neighborhood kids. Exploring places when you KNEW you were going to get your butt whooped for going there. Getting paid a buck for mowing the neighbors lawn, and feeling rich. Chewing fizzies. Staying out until after dark for the first time. Losing your report card on the way home. Liking a girl, even though you couldn't tell anybody 'cuz they'd think you were weird. Still being best friends with your buddy after he just punched you in the nose, and you kicked him in the nuts. Thinking that the neighbor with all the junk in his yard (that people said was an embarrasment to the whole neighborhood) was really a cool old guy. I miss it. Burl


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