Things We Did as Kids

This post from Tyler Durden lists 25 things we did as kids that would get us arrested today. Or if not arrested, then in serious trouble. I did most of them. I also had a chemistry set and did lots of things that seem forbidden these days. I was able to procure pure sodium (kept in a jar of kerosene), hydrochloric acid, and phosphorus. I sent away for them, but had to get my mother’s signature. We also rode our bikes on the Crosstown Freeway in Minneapolis, not just on the shoulder, but in both lanes of traffic! Heh, ok, I’m pulling your legs. We did do that, but that was before the freeway opened, so there was no traffic on it. Later on when it did open, we went to a bridge over it, chewed some Red Hots, and then spit on the cars whizzing by below hoping that an ugly red blotch of saliva would end up on their windshield. I recall playing a lot of tackle football (without any padding), endless games of cops and robbers, flashlight tag at night, Capture the Flag, biking everywhere we could get to, playing with matches we stole from our parents, throwing snowballs at cars, building tons of forts, helping to build a go-cart with a gasoline engine (which I think was from someone’s lawn mower), and just plain having lots of adventures.

Too bad that the nannies are ruining it for kids today.

Comments

[Charles N. Steele]

I did everything on Durden's list except numbers 2 and 21 (staying out dawn to dark and eating pop rocks and pop together). But perhaps these deficits were made up by me going out running at midnight when a teenager (to beat the summer heat) and eating rhubarb leaves with my brothers because we heard they were poisonous and wanted to test this claim. (We all survived, "the dose makes the poison.") (My parents kept telling us not to, but we tried the test several times.)

But here's one for you: when I was in junior high (East Junior High School, Great Falls MT, "urban" by Montana standards) for costume day I went as Teddy Roosevelt as a Rough Rider, complete with BB gun. But that was nothing. One of my classmates went as General Patton, and his get-up, which was very convincing, included a real Colt .45 Single Action Army revolver, unloaded. No one -- teachers, students, administrators -- batted an eye over this.

[Charles N. Steele]

I was driving with a friend on mountain track in MT, and he pointed to a big clearing by stream and told me his parents used to load up the pickup with gear and an icebox of food, and drop him and his brothers and sisters there on a Friday evening. Parents would then return on Sunday afternoon to pick up the kids. (Need I point out there were o cell phones then, and even today no cell service there.) The kids loved it, of course, and all are now confident, self-reliant, successful adults.

The politically correct approach to child rearing will create a generation of scared, helpless, failures.

Needless to say

[John Pepple]

I lived in the city, where guns were forbidden in the schools, or at least in our school. I guess bringing guns to school was something done in rural areas (that is, what I would call rural areas!).

Also, we didn't have a river or stream in our neighborhood, and even if we had, it wouldn't have had have snakes in it, though no doubt I would have thrown rocks at them if there had been a river that had snakes in it.

What's pathetic about the list is that I was by no means the most adventurous boy in my neighborhood. I could be quite happy staying inside and reading a book. Nevertheless, I still participated in a lot of those activities.