People that grew up before the internet age, how was life different? (1 Viewer)

[baymen]

No legend there big boy.....keep driving. 

 

[belljr]

Stash of stolen Playboys in the woods

 

[belljr]

Before answering machines you'd call your buddy and if his family wasn't home the phone would just ring and ring and ring. You give up after about 6-7 rings. If I called his house and the was no answer I'd keep the phone off the hook and check it every 15 minutes or so. If the phone was still ringing I knew he wasn't home yet. If I heard a dial tone I knew someone had answered and he was home. So I hear the dial tone and call him right away. I'd say "Hey, what's up? You just get home?" He's like, "yeah, how'd you know?" Guy thought I was psychic. Hours and hours of ringing phones eventually drove his dogs insane.

The single ring - I made it to wherever

 

[ChiefD]

WTF would you take a road trip TO Minnesota? 

98 degrees here.

75 degrees there, great fishing, a quiet cabin with no TV and internet, and 10 days with my kids, my bros, and beer.

 

[Koya]

Weekends were all about knowing where the parties were slated to be.  Other than talking on the phone, which gets old quick (at least for most dudes), there was no way to communicate other than being together in person... 

So, all week the buzz would be where you'd hang out over the weekend. If there were small parties (where a group of friends / clique would hang) or a kegger at the house where parents were away.  Friday night especially, there was a franticness just after dinner, as final plans were made.

Now, if you weren't home when your friend called (and not like you could leave a voicemail saying "kegger is at the golf course!"), you'd be SOL. That would mean driving around, either on your own or with one or two close friends, and "looking" for the party. Literally, we'd look for cars we'd know, and then just walk in if it were a close friends house with a few parked cars, or someone not as close with a #### load of cars and an obvious party.

This extended to college, though there life was a bit more confined and communication circles much more tight. We'd call around on the phone since everyone had one in their room, but there'd be a lot of wandering around "hoping" to find a happening spot, and sometimes it would amount to driving/walking around, downing a few 40's and smoking some weed, then just not finding much and going back to play Tecmo Super Bowl. 

 

[belljr]

Planning stuff around TV Schedule.

GrandPOP we need to be home by 8 so I can watch The Dukes of Hazzard

 

[tommyboy]

biked everywhere.

had 5 channels on TV

spent most of my free time outdoors playing

zero parental supervision

read a lot of comic books, mad magazine, newspapers, books

rummaged through the recycle center for old playboys, penthouse type mags

everyones mom knew everyone elses moms phone number

had to type on typewriters

had to go to the library

had to go to kinkos to make copies

 

[Koya]

Stranger Things is a pretty good approximation of my life.  

That, and as we got a little older, Dazed and Confused.  That was essentially my high school existence (as I noted above, we had Gold Course parties, which were the equivalent of the moon party spot).

We also had a few "main drags" where people would hang.  As a beach town, that was a popular spot, as we could chill at the beach and there was a long road that went by the main beach, with back-in parking along that stretch from which you could watch the sunset from your car.  It was called "the Boulevard" (actual street name), and it began in the 50's-70's when people would "cruise the boulevard" and by the time it hit us in the '80's, we'd just chill there.

 

[glvsav37]

my kids still don't believe me when I tell them that cartoons were only on for an hour after school and on Saturday mornings. 

 

[Ned]

What's sex like now? We most certainly did not live with the avalanche of porn available now.   I have to think it's pretty meh to finally feel a boob when you've been watching sex and what not constantly for the past few years before actually getting to experience it.  

My Link  

 

[BigJim®]

Probably more of a mobile/internet thing than internet, but I had a vehicle break down out on a highway over the weekend and was able to arrange a tow, confirm there were no local car rentals open, text a friend and uber 2 towns away for $30 to get to the friend's car. I was thinking how differently it would have been to be in that situation 10 years ago.

 

[jb1020]

use to go to the arcade with a sandwich bag full of actual quarters. And when you were out, you were out. None of this, "dad, reload my card" crap. 

If I got dropped at the arcade with a $20 I felt like i could play for hours.  This new fangled card business is out of control.  

 

[Angry Beavers]

Being in college you either made plans ahead of time or just went to usual hangouts and you were bound to run into someone.  Comminication was definately harder so as a result you had to plan better.  

Of course, that also meant it was tougher for your parents to keep tabs on you if you were smart. 

 

[glvsav37]

If I got dropped at the arcade with a $20 I felt like i could play for hours.  This new fangled card business is out of control.  

and we played for high scores...to get your initials on the home screen...none of this 10K tickets for a 6-inch plastic ruler

 

[Koya]

Also, going to the mall was a thing. Mall, food court, mall arcade. Get picked up by parents.

Did a #### TON of outdoor sports.  I'd say 80% of my days were shooting hopes, playing stickball, finding a pick up game of football or something.  Again, you couldn't coordinate schedules easily, especially outside of your core friend group, so plenty of times I'd just dribble up to the courts a half mile from my house, and if no one else showed, I'd shoot hoops. More often than not, if you went at "active" times, you'd get in on a pick up game or two.

Hung out in front of 7-11 (or, before we had one, "Super 7"), drank a whole lotta Slurpees or huge Deli Iced Teas in styrofoam cups.

 

[Koya]

Holy crap - Battle of the Planets - G-FORCE!!! So awesome!

Don't know why this doesn't get more play nowadays. SO much better than weak ### Voltron. 

Speed Racer primed me for G-FORCE.  

Also loved Penelope's Gang... but HATED Mr. Magoo.  When in kindergarten and first grade, I'd wake up at like 6:30 to watch cartoons. Mr. Magoo was on at 6. If I got up early, I'd literally turn the TV off, go back to my room, then go back to the TV after Mr. Magoo.

 

[gianmarco]

"Hello, you have a collect call from 'Mom, come pick me up from practice', do you accept the charges?" 

To avoid this, we had a system where I'd call and give some other famous fake name. My mom would reject and know to pick me up. If I ever gave my real name, she knew she had to accept because it was really important.

"You have a collect call from Jose Feliciano. Do you accept?"

 

[gianmarco]

Oh, and I LOVE this thread.

 

[Sabertooth]

That, and as we got a little older, Dazed and Confused.  That was essentially my high school existence (as I noted above, we had Gold Course parties, which were the equivalent of the moon party spot).

We also had a few "main drags" where people would hang.  As a beach town, that was a popular spot, as we could chill at the beach and there was a long road that went by the main beach, with back-in parking along that stretch from which you could watch the sunset from your car.  It was called "the Boulevard" (actual street name), and it began in the 50's-70's when people would "cruise the boulevard" and by the time it hit us in the '80's, we'd just chill there.

Getting a solid map to somebody's camp for a party was an essential part of my weekly school routine.  

 

[crusty crab]

A couple of things that always stick out in my mind. The mosquito poison-spraying truck driving around the neighborhood was an event. A few kids would ride bikes behind it to enjoy that refreshing, toxic mist. Roller skating rinks were where a lot of kids hung out, especially on weekend nights. Also, we stepped in dog poop, a lot. It was impossible to avoid it in the 70s. Everyone was adept at cleaning it out of their shoe treads with little sticks, if they were even wearing shoes. If not, they'd find find a hose and rinse it off. Wearing shoes was something a lot of kids didn't even do in the summer, so you'd get lots of stubbed toes and step on broken glass, which was also around a lot more. 

 

[Sabertooth]

Probably more of a mobile/internet thing than internet, but I had a vehicle break down out on a highway over the weekend and was able to arrange a tow, confirm there were no local car rentals open, text a friend and uber 2 towns away for $30 to get to the friend's car. I was thinking how differently it would have been to be in that situation 10 years ago.

#### it, think 30 years ago when you actually may have been able to fix the car.  Nowadays not so much.  

 

[bosoxs45]

Im curious if @#1 Fan of Nigel Tufnel has any stories.

 

[Kanil]

How was life different before the internet? Im a “ millennial “ and am curious how did you guys stay in touch?  Phones and for the rich kids, pagers!

How did you find out where to meet people? You planned ahead.  Meet me at X at 6:30.

What did you do at night without a TV to watch? We had TV but no streaming.  You watched what was on live or you didn't watch it.

How did you get around the city in which you lived? This really has not changed.  You eventually get to know the area you live and don't need to follow a map.

What kinds of clothes did they wear? Bad ### ones, that's what kind. 

What kind of food did they eat? The edible kind.

Basically, how did you live? Life was much slower.  Easier in some ways, harder in others.

 

[The Commish]

The internet exposes the "true" person it seems.  People act different on the internet than they do in real life apparently.  I think it's along the same line as "The measure of a true man is how he treats his wife when no one is watching".

 

[Sabertooth]

All said, no way I'd trade my youth for my kids' youth.  We had it made. 

 

[bosoxs45]

All said, no way I'd trade my youth for my kids' youth.  We had it made.  My daughter had to take her bike to the Orthodontist today (another thing holy crap do kids all have braces now) any she was all worried that somebody would steal her bike.  

How was using public transportation back then?

 

[Zegras11]

A couple of things that always stick out in my mind. The mosquito poison-spraying truck driving around the neighborhood was an event. A few kids would ride bikes behind it to enjoy that refreshing, toxic mist. Roller skating rinks were where a lot of kids hung out, especially on weekend nights. Also, we stepped in dog poop, a lot. It was impossible to avoid it in the 70s. Everyone was adept at cleaning it out of their shoe treads with little sticks, if they were even wearing shoes. If not, they'd find find a hose and rinse it off. Wearing shoes was something a lot of kids didn't even do in the summer, so you'd get lots of stubbed toes and step on broken glass, which was also around a lot more. 

This.  We lived on a culd-de-sac street.   It made for a perfect stadium to play baseball with a tennis ball.   The LF wall was the wrought iron low fence that separated the driveway from the front yard at one house.   I remember making a great HR saving catch in my bare feet while my toes caught that fence. Blood gushing everywhere and I only cared about making that catch.
 

 

[Sabertooth]

How was using public transportation back then?

I live in a town of 15000.  Public transportation wasn't really used.  We just rode our bikes usually.  

 

[Koya]

Oh, want to know what we used for google maps?

####### PAPER BOOKS OF MAPS.

Thomas Guides for the West Coasters?

AAA flip books where you could go to a AAA location before a long roadtrip, and they'd print up a customized book with directions/maps for you to use.

Want to know what you did if you took a wrong turn and didn't know where you were? You panicked. That what.  You ####### panicked, and prayed. 

 

[Sabertooth]

Oh, want to know what we used for google maps?

####### PAPER BOOKS OF MAPS.

Thomas Guides for the West Coasters?

AAA flip books where you could go to a AAA location before a long roadtrip, and they'd print up a customized book with directions/maps for you to use.

Want to know what you did if you took a wrong turn and didn't know where you were? You panicked. That what.  You ####### panicked, and prayed. 

Yep.  And your parents #####ed at each other until they got back on a highway.  Both of them chainsmoking. 

 

[Sabertooth]

Cigarette burns were a real hazard for kids. 

It got zotted quite a few times during my misspent youth.  

We were allowed to drink (discreetly) at family function around the age of 14 or so.  My dad gave me my first beer at 12 or 13 I think.  All the parents needed was plausible deniability.  

 

[Nipsey]

Before caller ID and *69, crank calling was a staple of our lives. There was an old guy who was in a local commercial for a fast food fried chicken place. An actual customer, they put his real name on the screen. He said something like the, "the biscuits are always fresh and delicious". We found his number in the phone book and called him every week or so for months pretending to everyone from the corporate office to the "biscuit company" to other chicken restaurants looking to get his business. We're like 10 years old, calling this guy using our best adult deep voice asking him a million questions about the biscuits. "Do you ever dip the biscuits in your soda?" "Do you listen to music as you're enjoying our biscuits at home?" All improvised, ridiculous questions. He'd stay on the phone for 15-20 minutes and answer everything. Laughing so hard typing this. His name was Bert Wogman.

Another go-to move was ordering Dominos pizza for other kids in the neighborhood at 11PM on a random tuesday. See the kid at school the next day and ask how the pizza was. One school night, just before bed my dad and I are watching TV. Doorbell rings. Dad looks at me like who the hell is that? Opens the door and it's Dominos. Dad tells him we didn't order a pizza. The delivery guy's a little miffed. Poor guy. Probably about 20% of his deliveries after a certain time were fake orders. (They changed the policy soon after where before you could order they'd ask for your number and call you back.) Anyway, driver is walking back to his car, my dad looks at me and then calls after him, "Hey! Uh, what's on it?" Guy says pepperoni/mushroom. Dad tells him we'll take it. We ate pizza and watched Johnny Carson. What a night.

 

[Koya]

Both of them chainsmoking. 

As people did on Airplanes.  We were kids, so we'd be seated in the "non-smoking section" - which meant almost nothing, especially if you were one or two rows from the smoking section, since smoke didn't stop mid-freakin air.

Smoking in restaurants.  

But no seatbelts.

And HELMETS? LOL.  Seriously.  If you split open your head because you couldn't ride a bike, THAT'LL LEARN YA!

We also may not have had participation trophies, but we did have unfettered access to lawn darts.

 

[MAC_32]

Im not sure. Was a lot harder to procrastinate back then cause like you said you actually had to go and do the research, lot less fake news as well. And i actually listened to the entire cassette back then cause it was such a pain to find that certain song.

Unintended consequence of the way we now get music - the sequence of the album used to matter.  I miss those days.

 

[Sabertooth]

Before caller ID and *69, crank calling was a staple of our lives. There was an old guy who was in a local commercial for a fast food fried chicken place. An actual customer, they put his real name on the screen. He said something like the, "the biscuits are always fresh and delicious". We found his number in the phone book and called him every week or so for months pretending to everyone from the corporate office to the "biscuit company" to other chicken restaurants looking to get his business. We're like 10 years old, calling this guy using our best adult deep voice asking him a million questions about the biscuits. "Do you ever dip the biscuits in your soda?" "Do you listen to music as you're enjoying our biscuits at home?" All improvised, ridiculous questions. He'd stay on the phone for 15-20 minutes and answer everything. Laughing so hard typing this. His name was Bert Wogman.

Another go-to move was ordering Dominos pizza for other kids in the neighborhood at 11PM on a random tuesday. See the kid at school the next day and ask how the pizza was. One school night, just before bed my dad and I are watching TV. Doorbell rings. Dad looks at me like who the hell is that? Opens the door and it's Dominos. Dad tells him we didn't order a pizza. The delivery guy's a little miffed. Poor guy. Probably about 20% of his deliveries after a certain time were fake orders. (They changed the policy soon after where before you could order they'd ask for your number and call you back.) Anyway, driver is walking back to his car, my dad looks at me and then calls after him, "Hey! Uh, what's on it?" Guy says pepperoni/mushroom. Dad tells him we'll take it. We ate pizza and watched Johnny Carson. What a night.

Great memory! 

 

[Sabertooth]

As people did on Airplanes.  We were kids, so we'd be seated in the "non-smoking section" - which meant almost nothing, especially if you were one or two rows from the smoking section, since smoke didn't stop mid-freakin air.

Smoking in restaurants.  

But no seatbelts.

And HELMETS? LOL.  Seriously.  If you split open your head because you couldn't ride a bike, THAT'LL LEARN YA!

We also may not have had participation trophies, but we did have unfettered access to lawn darts.

  

Leaning up between the adult seats in the car to be part of the conversation.  No belts needed. 

My forehead is a mosaic of scars and gauges to this day from bike accidents.  

Sitting on the engine compartment in my mom's boyfriend's van was another one.  No belt and literally a foot from the windshield.

Also riding in the back of pickup trucks.  My kids nowadays think they are really breaking the law when I let them ride in the back at a campground when we go down to the lake or hit whatever.  

 

[Zegras11]

As people did on Airplanes.  We were kids, so we'd be seated in the "non-smoking section" - which meant almost nothing, especially if you were one or two rows from the smoking section, since smoke didn't stop mid-freakin air.

Smoking in restaurants.  

But no seatbelts.

And HELMETS? LOL.  Seriously.  If you split open your head because you couldn't ride a bike, THAT'LL LEARN YA!

We also may not have had participation trophies, but we did have unfettered access to lawn darts.

My 4 yr old sister fell out of the back seat of our Ford Falcon as we entered our tract of homes.  Car ran over her hand and left some nice tire marks, and no injury at all.

 

[Sabertooth]

Unintended consequence of the way we now get music - the sequence of the album used to matter.  I miss those days.

Right.  One song naturally led into the next.  

 

[Pipes]

Some great posts here brings back a lot of memories.  A couple of things for me (47 years old)

Just like everyone in my neighborhood only dad worked and we had 1 car and not much money.  We literally went out to eat 4 times a year (someone's birthday) and it was to a wonderful place like Ponderosa (for a shoe leather steak) or my favorite Old Country buffet.  Once in a blue moon we'd order a pizza or get McDonalds but 99.5% of our meals were home cooked by mom.

Communication wasn't great for kids but mom's had some sort of special networking group because someone's mom knew where you were which meant your mom did to.  If I did something wrong my mom found out before I'd get home.  LOL at buying smokes for parents.  My best friends dad would send us to the corner store a few blocks away and we'd buy his cigs...I'm talking 2nd, 3rd grade.  It got to the point we didn't need a note and we'd get to keep the change and buy baseball cards.  When I was older like 12, 13 etc we'd buy swisher sweets or Skoal (got sicker than a dog on Copenhagen) and spend the day at the lake fishing.

Had a great childhood and except for the tobacco part wished my kids would've experience what I got too.

One last thing about the lack of cell phones. Some of the best night in college happened because we didn't have them.  Supposed to meet some friends at bar X and I'd beat them there.  Start drinking and talking to other people and having a great time.  I met my wife that way.  Not sure that would've happened nowadays, probably would've just sat there on my phone texting when are you going to get here?

 

[Yankee23Fan]

I could write pages and pages about how things are different.

The overriding one though, for the most part, is that we had to have an imagination.  Mom said get out of the house and play and we ………… just did.  I remember things like finding a golf club that someone had put out for garbage becoming the club to hit anything game where we would just find round things to hit with the golf club - whoever hit whatever it was the farthest won.

There was one place in the city that was kinda of like a storm reservoir area that had, over time, suffered to much overgrowth and dumping from contractors that us kids managed to turn the area into a bike course with jumps.  There was this one jump that was very close to the edge of the drop into the water that was probably only 7 or so feet but I vividly remember it looking like a never ending pit of death if you missed that jump.

And then there was baseball.  Every good baseball movie about kids (Sandlot) just getting together to play was my childhood.  Wiffle ball against the garage of the guy on the corner who would just come outside to watch us play.  Corking up a wiffle ball bat with wet newspaper to use to hit tennis balls in the street where the cars were the bases; stickball in the low income apartment complex's parking lot where a big homerun meant you hit the ball into someone's backyard and you had to the do the walk of shame to ring their bell if they were home to get your ball - or climb there fence if they weren't home.

Broke every streetlight on my street multiple times with tennis balls and real baseballs playing until all hours.  And then the baseball fields where we all played little league was out main meeting place.  Whoever showed up just played together.  Sometimes we had a full team sometimes there were ghost runners and automatic outs for hitting it to left field.  But we always played the game as long as we could. 

 

[Zegras11]

As people did on Airplanes.  We were kids, so we'd be seated in the "non-smoking section" - which meant almost nothing, especially if you were one or two rows from the smoking section, since smoke didn't stop mid-freakin air.

Smoking in restaurants.  

But no seatbelts.

And HELMETS? LOL.  Seriously.  If you split open your head because you couldn't ride a bike, THAT'LL LEARN YA!

We also may not have had participation trophies, but we did have unfettered access to lawn darts.

There were three of us on our cul-de-sac.  One guy used to be QB for both sides and we'd play offense/defense all day long during FB season.  One day we got the bright idea to do this on our ten speeds.  I can still picture riding with no hands, making the catch for a TD, and then instantly hitting the curb at the end of the cul de sac and sent flying onto the lawn of the QB's house. Such good times.

 

[Koya]

Before caller ID and *69, crank calling was a staple of our lives. There was an old guy who was in a local commercial for a fast food fried chicken place. An actual customer, they put his real name on the screen. He said something like the, "the biscuits are always fresh and delicious". We found his number in the phone book and called him every week or so for months pretending to everyone from the corporate office to the "biscuit company" to other chicken restaurants looking to get his business. We're like 10 years old, calling this guy using our best adult deep voice asking him a million questions about the biscuits. "Do you ever dip the biscuits in your soda?" "Do you listen to music as you're enjoying our biscuits at home?" All improvised, ridiculous questions. He'd stay on the phone for 15-20 minutes and answer everything. Laughing so hard typing this. His name was Bert Wogman.

Another go-to move was ordering Dominos pizza for other kids in the neighborhood at 11PM on a random tuesday. See the kid at school the next day and ask how the pizza was. One school night, just before bed my dad and I are watching TV. Doorbell rings. Dad looks at me like who the hell is that? Opens the door and it's Dominos. Dad tells him we didn't order a pizza. The delivery guy's a little miffed. Poor guy. Probably about 20% of his deliveries after a certain time were fake orders. (They changed the policy soon after where before you could order they'd ask for your number and call you back.) Anyway, driver is walking back to his car, my dad looks at me and then calls after him, "Hey! Uh, what's on it?" Guy says pepperoni/mushroom. Dad tells him we'll take it. We ate pizza and watched Johnny Carson. What a night.

1. I remember life BEFORE Dominos.  Local places would delivery, chinese food would deliver - but delivery was just not that common a thing. I'd say we probably picked up far more than delivering, unless it was for a party or large group.

2. Prank calls... CRANK CALLS... whatever you called them.  Our high(low)light was calling folks to tell them they'd been selected as a random winner for some radio station.  We were probably 11-12, so had enough experience to custom tailor the call to whomever picked up.  We never quite knew if it worked, but one time we are all but assured...

This old lady picks up. I'm the one speaking. I knew a rock station or something would do no good, so I asked "Do you listen to 1010 WINS News Radio?" and she said, "why yes, I do" 

"YOU ARE OUR LUCKY WINNER OF OUR FIRE ME UP LISTENERS CONTEXT!!!" BLAH BLAH/... 'ohh, ive never won anything this is so exciting"...  "Yes, to claim your $1,000 prize, all you need to do is call our winners hotline at 516-something and declare "IM ON FIRE! THREE TIMES and they will take your information down and get you that money!"

The number we gave her was the non 911 number for the local firehouse.  God we were idiots.  But damn, fun times.  She was SO excited to get off the line with us to make that call!

 

[MAC_32]

Before caller ID and *69, crank calling was a staple of our lives. There was an old guy who was in a local commercial for a fast food fried chicken place. An actual customer, they put his real name on the screen. He said something like the, "the biscuits are always fresh and delicious". We found his number in the phone book and called him every week or so for months pretending to everyone from the corporate office to the "biscuit company" to other chicken restaurants looking to get his business. We're like 10 years old, calling this guy using our best adult deep voice asking him a million questions about the biscuits. "Do you ever dip the biscuits in your soda?" "Do you listen to music as you're enjoying our biscuits at home?" All improvised, ridiculous questions. He'd stay on the phone for 15-20 minutes and answer everything. Laughing so hard typing this. His name was Bert Wogman.

Another go-to move was ordering Dominos pizza for other kids in the neighborhood at 11PM on a random tuesday. See the kid at school the next day and ask how the pizza was. One school night, just before bed my dad and I are watching TV. Doorbell rings. Dad looks at me like who the hell is that? Opens the door and it's Dominos. Dad tells him we didn't order a pizza. The delivery guy's a little miffed. Poor guy. Probably about 20% of his deliveries after a certain time were fake orders. (They changed the policy soon after where before you could order they'd ask for your number and call you back.) Anyway, driver is walking back to his car, my dad looks at me and then calls after him, "Hey! Uh, what's on it?" Guy says pepperoni/mushroom. Dad tells him we'll take it. We ate pizza and watched Johnny Carson. What a night.

Yeah, this one reminds me - one random weekday night every few weeks we would order delivery from like 7-8 different places 10:30 pm'ish to this one ##### bag's house down the street.  Just hang out on the porch and bend over in laughter as a half dozen different delivery drivers pull up within 5 minutes of each other to a chorus of obscenities from his old man.  Man, we were ### holes.  

 

[Pipes]

Oh a forgot riding in the bed of a pickup truck or sneaking into a drive in movie theater by hiding in the trunk of a car.  You haven't lived unless you've made out with a chick in the trunk of a car while your friends are sneaking you in.  fun times.

 

[Yankee23Fan]

There were three of us on our cul-de-sac.  One guy used to be QB for both sides and we'd play offense/defense all day long during FB season.  One day we got the bright idea to do this on our ten speeds.  I can still picture riding with no hands, making the catch for a TD, and then instantly hitting the curb at the end of the cul de sac and sent flying onto the lawn of the QB's house. Such good times.

Yes - steady QB games were awesome when only 3 of use could get together or there was an odd number.  Steady QB, 7 Mississippi blitz, and if you got tackled into a car you weren't down until your knee hit the street.  Literally drawing up plays in the grass strip on the sidewalk.  The times we actually had chalk we were like real football players.

 

[glvsav37]

My parents had an unfinished master bath in the hose and my dad kept his stack of playboys and other assorted guys mags in there. When we went ot sell the house, my mon tied them up in neat bundles and put them on the curb for trash day. She thought she was slick by tying them covers in so you only saw the random alcohol or tobacco ad on the back cover...but I knew exactly what they were.

So i summoned the boys and we did a raid. "Mom..going to joeys" and as we sprinted out of the house, we each grabbed a stack and booked it down the block. 

Sadly, my mother was no boy scout and her knot tying skills were lacking. Which cause a bundle to unwind about 3 houses down, spewing nudy mags all over the street and with every passing breeze, those GD little subscription cards blew everywhere. They were in neighbors bushes, under their cars, all over the place. We did our best to collect them but it was hopeless. 

 

[Yankee23Fan]

How about - snow storms in the city were awesome.  The bigger the storm the better.  The snow plows would just stack the stuff sometimes taller than what looked like a mountain.  And we would just take them over for forts and have snowball fights.  Snowballs flying everywhere.

Now that I am the shmuck that has to shovel..... I hate snow with a passion.

 

[nirad3]

My son (age 5) loves dirt, just like any other boy his age.  He was digging around in our backyard and found an old plastic Army figurine.  I wondered how long that sucker has been buried out there.  We don't live in my childhood home but it brought back memories of playing with those suckers out in the yard for hours on end.

 

[Sweet J]

Also, with the advent of the cell phone, NOBODY shows up to someone's house unannounced anymore.  It's insane how phobic we are about it now. 

On a given weekend morning, I may be out with my kids to walk to the farmers market or breakfast or where ever, and I'll say to them, "oh hey, let's pop-in on [another neighborhood family] and my kids will be horrified.  "you can't just go to their house without calling first!"

Screw that.  Now I'm just stubborn about it.  I tell them I'm reviving the pop-in.  Bringing it back, baby.

So that's one big difference.  We used to [gasp] show up at our buddies' houses to see if they wanted to hand -- without calling first!  Or maybe we called and it was busy.  Whatever.

 

[glvsav37]

Also riding in the back of pickup trucks.  My kids nowadays think they are really breaking the law when I let them ride in the back at a campground when we go down to the lake or hit whatever.  

NY to Maine in the rear facing seat of my grandfather's station wagon. One stop too short and we were goners.