Ditto. Summers involved taking off on the bike in the morning. Coming home at dark. Crossing 6 lane busy highways. Riding through the woods with no idea exactly where we were. I don't know how my parents would have even ever found out what happened to me if we didn't make it back. Can't imagine letting my kid do that in elementary school.Virtually everything it feels like....
-latchkey kid at 9
-from ages 9/10 though 16 was out on bikes with friends going anywhere we wanted, no phones or way for parents to get ahold of us. Only curfews as a way for them to know when we’d be back.
- won’t even attempt to list all the stupid things we did at those ages, the list would be pages but will list one particularly stupid thing we did. We use to soak tennis balls in gasoline then light them on fire and play soccer with them in our cul-de-sac. How I survived my childhood I’ll never know. LOL
We used to play American Gladiator with the BB gun. Set the obstacle course up. Got dinged in the head a few times.Used to explore the storm drains under the streets. you could take them all over the city. Sometimes they were big enough to ride your bike through....sometimes you had to crawl on your belly to get through.
Rode bikes all over town to go to friends houses. This included going down steep hills and flying through neighborhood intersections without knowing if cars were coming or not.
Played 1-pump BB gun wars. Some would pump more than once "by accident".
6th to 8th grade, rode my bike 2 miles to and from. Most of it down a busy street with two full lanes each way.Walking 2 miles to and from school by myself in 7th grade.
I think we used alcohol because, you know, safety third. . . We use to soak tennis balls in gasoline then light them on fire . . .
This is what we loaded into the Polish Cannon. Could fire those things 2 blocks, and we would turn the cannon on each other. One time I got hit from 16ft away right between the eyes. Had PENN tattooed on my forehead for a few weeks.Used to spray tennis balls with WD40 or lighter fluid light them on fire and then kick them or hit with a golf club, was like a flying comet.
Pretty much the potato gun predecessor.What is this one?
kids today........Mother wouldnt let me pander unless i had cabfareFrom the age of about 10 or 11, would take public transportation into the city (SF) to get drugs and hookers.
We use to collect all the tumble weeds we could and pack them into the cemented water outlet on the Santa Ana River and torch those suckers with a can of raid blow torch. And then scurry across the field and hop the fence back into our yards with the HB police helicopter was in sight.I was a pyro, so lot’s of stuff.
Used to spray tennis balls with WD40 or lighter fluid light them on fire and then kick them or hit with a golf club, was like a flying comet.
Used to scrape all the gun powder out of whistler bottle rockets and make a big pile of it, then put a loose fuse, light and watch it explode.
We used tennis ball cansPretty much the potato gun predecessor.
Back when there was still steel soda cans, cut the top and bottom out of 6-7 cans, except the bottom can, that one you would only cut out the top and drill two small holes opposite each other at the bottom. Duct tape them together, put a tennis ball in the cannon, squirt lighter fluid in one of the holes at the bottom, roll it around to dissipate, then light it. BOOM! We could fire that ball 2 blocks sometimes.
When I got the ball off the melon, the blast was so big it blew the cannon apart and right out of my cousins hands, the ball bounced off my grape, over the house and over the street and I saw stars.We used tennis ball cans
Used to be a lady out here who did that. She carried an umbrella and whatever they were spraying rained down over her but she was protected by this umbrella. I always wondered what kind of cancer that caused.As a teenager I flagged for my crop dusting uncle. Sat on four-wheeler and moved forward 22 feet (if memory serves) to line up his bi-plane for the next pass. Just me, my Marlboros, and paraquat. ... and a world class tan thanks to my unfamiliarity with sunscreen.
We have a bush down the street that was filled to the brim with them every day.No helmets.
Ever.
Euphemism?We have a bush down the street that was filled to the brim with them every day.