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04-04-2014, 01:50 PM - 2 Likes   #1
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Childhood as it used to be....

The current Atlantic Magazine has a great article on a sort of playground in Wales, of all places. When I read it I was reminded of the sort of childhood experiences that I and my brother Dean and sister Mary enjoyed as kids, back in the early '50s. My wife Flora also noted similarities to her childhood. This was long before “play dates” and such nonsense, we kids walked and rode bicycles everywhere. Our parents allowed us increasing freedom as we showed increasing sense and responsibility.

I recall learning to ride a bicycle when I was perhaps 6 or 7, and the bicycle either didn’t have training wheels, or they were totally useless and were soon removed. I’d scrape an elbow or knee, and go home bloodied, and my mother would patch me up and send me back out. Dean and I would walk to the movies, about a mile away, for the Saturday matinee, which cost all of nine cents!! We could walk down the hill, several blocks away, to mess around in a creek and catch crayfish, or perhaps a snake, which we brought home. Nothing fazed our mother, not crayfish, not snakes, certainly not neighborhood kids in and out of the house all day long. We camped out in a little tent in the front yard, and made pea shooters out of bamboo stalks and pestered the little kids with purple privet berries.

My father built us what I recall as a huge swing set out of 2 x 6 timbers. He secured the A frames to the ground so we didn't have to worry about turning the thing over. The swing seats were 1 inch stock, and were suspended on Manila rope which he periodically inspected. The swings were the best in the neighborhood, so our yard swarmed with kids.

We had pick up baseball games in the grassy parking lot of the Presbyterian church up the block. Since we rarely had eighteen kids to make up two teams the rules were flexible, to put it mildly. The minister's daughter was probably the best ball player in the neighborhood. I wasn't terribly good, but everyone got to bat. Great fun!

When we moved to a suburban area when I entered the 4th or 5th grade Dean and I tried out for Little League. After warming the bench for a week or two we decided that we had better things to do, like tramping in the woods with our sister Mary. Dean and I would ride our bicycles the 8 or 10 miles to a nearby state park for swimming and just messing around.

Life was good in most ways. I think kids today are missing a lot by not being allowed to “run free.” Kids need at least the feeling of freedom and self determination, not having parents always hovering and organizing every last minute of every day.

Thus endeth the rant.

Oh yes, here’s the link:

The Overprotected Kid - The Atlantic

04-04-2014, 02:15 PM - 1 Like   #2
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Oh yes, I remember all those great times, and all those same things we did when I was a kid. I particularly liked playing with the ministers daughter...but will still keep my promise to her not to tell!

We might be gone a day or two, camping and swimming down by the creek, but all my Mom worried about was that I might come back home. It was a different time, a different world, with less "virtual reality" and tons more genuine reality just outside your door waiting. You are so right, kids today don't have a clue as to what they are missing.

Cell phones, X boxes, TV, and computers have closed off the world we once knew. We communicated with tin cans and a string....from my next door neighbors window to mine, and got high tech with our homemade crystal radios. All gone.....isn't it a shame?

Regards!
04-04-2014, 02:55 PM   #3
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Not so sure it is all due to computers, etc. as much as getting locked up in jail for letting your 6 year old wander around outside with no adult supervision. By today's standards my parents would have had their 3 kids taken away and put into foster homes.

I feel bad that my 1 year old will grow up in a much more restrictive world except where we are outside the US for vacation, etc.
04-04-2014, 05:21 PM - 1 Like   #4
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I grew up in a different world.
In the summer, went outside and didn't come back home until dinner. We rode our bikes until our legs gave out and sometimes miles away. Campouts on the beach, bonfires. My parents never knew where we were but it seems somebody did because we never got away with anything.

There was nothing worth watching on the TV during the day. Going to the movie theater cost a quarter and the same for the roller rink. Any vacant lot or piece of property without trees was a potential baseball field and we always played with hard balls. Fishing was a daily pastime if there was nothing else to do and often if I was bored because nobody was around, I would grab my pole and head to a favorite spot and often would find friends there. If not, that was ok because I would have more fish to myself.

I'm often asked by people why I live in the Adirondacks of NY after growing up in Florida. The biggest reason is that every square inch of real estate where I grew up is paved over and built on. All that "swampland" that people joked about decades ago was actually a cool place to grow up. Other than the climate, the town where I now live (pop. 2000,appox.) is very similar. No ocean but we have mountains, rivers, and lakes everywhere. Kids play outside and everyone looks out for one another. I wanted my kids to grow up in the same kind of place I did. Yep, we're old fashioned rednecks and proud of it!

04-04-2014, 11:53 PM   #5
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Very interesting article
04-05-2014, 12:27 AM   #6
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04-05-2014, 12:32 AM   #7
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This reminds me of the time when I used to live in Bulgaria, where I was born. My friend and I could play and go anywhere when we were just tiny little kids and our parents let us without a problem. Almost 9 years ago, when I was 10, I moved here, to the USA, and things were much different...many more restrictions, I couldn't stay out past a certain time, couldn't go anywhere by myself (this was also due to the large distances between places here in Las Vegas, you can't go anywhere without a car). I really miss my childhood games and adventures, now as I see my 6 year old brother sit in front of the computer and play games all the time, not really going outside, and I fell bad for him because he won't know and experience the freedoms that I did when I was around his age. Many places around the world, especially in Europe and South America do not have a lot of restrictions for children, and to me, that's a great thing because it actually lets the kids have a lot more freedom and they can experience a lot of good things that the kids here can't....nobody will let a 12 year old wander around with a couple friends away from home after 10PM for example....

04-05-2014, 06:50 PM   #8
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We used to go to the Drive In a lot.......now there are only a few left in the entire nation....this is one of them. Fun times!


Regards!
04-05-2014, 08:21 PM   #9
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We still have a few drive in's in the area and they do a good business all summer.
04-05-2014, 10:13 PM   #10
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QuoteOriginally posted by grhazelton Quote
The current Atlantic Magazine has a great article on a sort of playground in Wales, of all places. When I read it I was reminded of the sort of childhood experiences that I and my brother Dean and sister Mary enjoyed as kids, back in the early '50s. My wife Flora also noted similarities to her childhood. This was long before “play dates” and such nonsense, we kids walked and rode bicycles everywhere. Our parents allowed us increasing freedom as we showed increasing sense and responsibility.

I recall learning to ride a bicycle when I was perhaps 6 or 7, and the bicycle either didn’t have training wheels, or they were totally useless and were soon removed. I’d scrape an elbow or knee, and go home bloodied, and my mother would patch me up and send me back out. Dean and I would walk to the movies, about a mile away, for the Saturday matinee, which cost all of nine cents!! We could walk down the hill, several blocks away, to mess around in a creek and catch crayfish, or perhaps a snake, which we brought home. Nothing fazed our mother, not crayfish, not snakes, certainly not neighborhood kids in and out of the house all day long. We camped out in a little tent in the front yard, and made pea shooters out of bamboo stalks and pestered the little kids with purple privet berries.

My father built us what I recall as a huge swing set out of 2 x 6 timbers. He secured the A frames to the ground so we didn't have to worry about turning the thing over. The swing seats were 1 inch stock, and were suspended on Manila rope which he periodically inspected. The swings were the best in the neighborhood, so our yard swarmed with kids.

We had pick up baseball games in the grassy parking lot of the Presbyterian church up the block. Since we rarely had eighteen kids to make up two teams the rules were flexible, to put it mildly. The minister's daughter was probably the best ball player in the neighborhood. I wasn't terribly good, but everyone got to bat. Great fun!

When we moved to a suburban area when I entered the 4th or 5th grade Dean and I tried out for Little League. After warming the bench for a week or two we decided that we had better things to do, like tramping in the woods with our sister Mary. Dean and I would ride our bicycles the 8 or 10 miles to a nearby state park for swimming and just messing around.

Life was good in most ways. I think kids today are missing a lot by not being allowed to “run free.” Kids need at least the feeling of freedom and self determination, not having parents always hovering and organizing every last minute of every day.

Thus endeth the rant.

Oh yes, here’s the link:

The Overprotected Kid - The Atlantic
Oh wow, brings back memories of growing up in Ironton, Minnesota. Rode my bike two blocks to school, home for lunch, then to the Post Office to collect our mail, then home and back to school. Winter naturally eliminated my bike. And also the post office run--left that to Dad at end of his work day. The creek was my favored playground in summer. And I kind of was intrigued by the played out open pit mine filled with water that was a startling opaque blue color. Did not drown, as Ma warned could happen. Then my pals and Imwould bike to the "other" old open pit that was used by Ironton and Crosby as an open cess pool. This was 1953 or so. Our "fun" was to throw rocks into the 300+ acre abandoned iron mine and count how many seconds it took for the rock to vanish. Most round rocks sank in less than one second. I believe my friend Andrew skipped a flat rock that never sank before we all had to go home for dinner. Andy had a red fox in a cage that his Father had found in the woods one spring and brought home. I hated that fox. Little shxx was not tame and it's only response to humans involved teeth.
04-06-2014, 10:39 AM   #11
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Oh yeah! Those were the days! I didn't have a fox, but I had pet hamsters and guinea pigs. When one died me and my pal Joe would prepare a big funeral out in the garage, with a fancy coffin and flowers stolen from Mrs Roden's lovely yard. Admission was .10 cents.....25 cents if you wanted to handle the dead rodent before burial.

I spent a lot of time roaming down at Bachman Lake, just at the base of Love Field, and only a 1/2 mile from my house. I caught the cutest little black snake there, took him home and put him in an old aquarium. Fed him crickets and grasshoppers, mice when he got a little larger. One day I heard my dad yelling out in the garage.... "What the hell! There's a full grown Cottonmouth out here and he's in a glass cage". That was the end of Freddie, R.I.P.

We walked for miles in the city storm drains, never thinking that if it came a flash flood we would all drown. Yes, we were lucky to make it through our youth!

Regards!
04-06-2014, 10:46 AM   #12
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What fun. I could have fed Freddie the white lab rat I adopted from 7th grade biology class. Pa hated Snowflake because the cage I built was wooden and a mite too absorptive for rodent residence.
04-06-2014, 01:08 PM   #13
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Yeah, we kids walked to and from school, a mile each way, uphill all the way, in the blowing snow under the blistering sun. After mowing grass one summer I was able to buy an "English Racer" bicycle, 3 speed Sturmey Archer rear hub and caliper brakes front and rear. On my first test ride I hit the brakes ... hard! ... and the front grabbed better than the rear! I went over the handle bars while the bicycle flipped over me, landed on its wheels and rolled into the ditch.

Fortunately it was a dirt road and I was mostly unhurt. A few scrapes and scratches. The bicycle was totally unharmed! Mirabile dictu!

I took that bike to college and rode it regularly, till some low-life fellow student stole it.

Dean and I built a snake cage and a snake stick and noose for capture. We kept a copper head a few days, but decided that a venomous serpent in the basement was a bit much. The 4 foot blacksnake we kept in our room was a different story! We came home from school one day and our mother ordered us to be more careful. She'd had to catch and return that bad boy to his cage after he'd got out. Her father had run the U. of Michigan Biological Station on the Upper Peninsula and nothing fazed her. As she said of herself when she was in her 80's, "I'm a tough old bird." She lived to 96, my father to 87. I miss them both greatly....

Funny thing, last summer I took my seat at the console in Command Central, the computer room, looked down and there was a black snake coiled around the chair leg! Command Central is on the second floor.... I caught the fellow and saved it in a pillow sack to show my wife Flora. She approved of the snake, and we let him go outside. How did he get upstairs...?

Flora as a kid in Florida used to catch snakes and then sell them to her little friends ... returns, but no refunds! Naturally they were usually returned, netting her a nice little income stream till her parents put an end to it. She's a neat lady, wish I'd met her when I was much younger.... Truly, better late than never. A wonderful lady to spend my second childhood with!
04-06-2014, 02:31 PM   #14
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QuoteOriginally posted by grhazelton Quote
Yeah, we kids walked to and from school, a mile each way, uphill all the way, in the blowing snow under the blistering sun. After mowing grass one summer I was able to buy an "English Racer" bicycle, 3 speed Sturmey Archer rear hub and caliper brakes front and rear. On my first test ride I hit the brakes ... hard! ... and the front grabbed better than the rear! I went over the handle bars while the bicycle flipped over me, landed on its wheels and rolled into the ditch.

Fortunately it was a dirt road and I was mostly unhurt. A few scrapes and scratches. The bicycle was totally unharmed! Mirabile dictu!

I took that bike to college and rode it regularly, till some low-life fellow student stole it.

Dean and I built a snake cage and a snake stick and noose for capture. We kept a copper head a few days, but decided that a venomous serpent in the basement was a bit much. The 4 foot blacksnake we kept in our room was a different story! We came home from school one day and our mother ordered us to be more careful. She'd had to catch and return that bad boy to his cage after he'd got out. Her father had run the U. of Michigan Biological Station on the Upper Peninsula and nothing fazed her. As she said of herself when she was in her 80's, "I'm a tough old bird." She lived to 96, my father to 87. I miss them both greatly....

Funny thing, last summer I took my seat at the console in Command Central, the computer room, looked down and there was a black snake coiled around the chair leg! Command Central is on the second floor.... I caught the fellow and saved it in a pillow sack to show my wife Flora. She approved of the snake, and we let him go outside. How did he get upstairs...?

Flora as a kid in Florida used to catch snakes and then sell them to her little friends ... returns, but no refunds! Naturally they were usually returned, netting her a nice little income stream till her parents put an end to it. She's a neat lady, wish I'd met her when I was much younger.... Truly, better late than never. A wonderful lady to spend my second childhood with!
Very nice story. Flora sounds magnificent and intelligent!
04-06-2014, 08:32 PM   #15
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The article is certainly exposes a strong contrast between how kids grew up "back then" vs. "today". Somewhere along the way society decided that the world is a dangerous place so we told our kids to stay inside and play with computers. So they played with computers only to discover the internet. Now parents say that the internet is dangerous too and that needs supervision. There is always a danger to be uncovered with everything.

I live in a rural town and I noticed that the kids here tend to be a bit more adventurous than the kids in bigger towns and cities (like where my nephew lives). Maybe it's because it's easier to escape the trappings of a "safe" and "comfortable" in a rural town. I don't know. My kids are 7 and 5. They are starting to get to the age where they are wanting to explore and escape on their bikes. I'm OK with it - meaning I'm not terribly afraid of kidnappings and brutal things like that. The kids still haven't fully developed their sense of direction but I know it's coming. When it does arrive then I think there will be little stopping them when they want to go explore the surrounding fields of sage brush and the burbling rivers, creeks, and ditches. Right now we go on many hikes and explorations in our nearby national forest. They scamper up and down the cliff-like drops and rises on either side of the trail.



The shot was taken with a F 35-70mm zoom (gotta make it Pentax related here) at 70mm and a strong crop. They're pretty far and pretty high up. I'll admit that it's a little freaky to watch how fragile they look when they are so far away from me but I think it's just as important for me to see them play as it is for them to be playing.

I had a lot of freedom growing up too although it was delayed a few years. It does make you feel empowered and fearless to a point. I liked it but it sure hurt when something burst your bubble! You discovered how fragile you really were though. That's a good way to get centered.

Life is risky, but what isn't it?
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