What kids don't do anymore

Matthew said:
I think our practice, when confronted with that behavior, was to let the dirt-clods and crabapples start flying.
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yeah. I got hit by one of those dirt clods in one of our dirt clod fights, for fun. 3 stitches under the eye. I didn't like that game.

Crabapple fights, with snow saucers for shields, now THAT was fun.

Some friends played Vietnam in a bamboo forest down by the creek with bb guns. Incredibly, they stole safety goggles from Industrial Arts for eye protection (incredible in the sense that at least they worried about protecting their eyes). One guy had a bb buried in his cheek for weeks. I didn't hang with them very often.
 
flyersfan31 said:
yeah. I got hit by one of those dirt clods in one of our dirt clod fights, for fun. 3 stitches under the eye. I didn't like that game.

Crabapple fights, with snow saucers for shields, now THAT was fun.

Some friends played Vietnam in a bamboo forest down by the creek with bb guns. Incredibly, they stole safety goggles from Industrial Arts for eye protection (incredible in the sense that at least they worried about protecting their eyes). One guy had a bb buried in his cheek for weeks. I didn't hang with them very often.
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Yeah, I know. It's always fun until someone gets hurt.

When I was 10 or 12 some of us used to goof around in an area in the woods with railroad tracks nearby. We usually left the tracks alone, but once in a while we'd put pennies on the tracks and go back looking for them later. Never really thought too much about it.

One day couple of neighborhood kids about 5 or 6 years old wandered off, and ended up playing on those same tracks. One of them was killed.

I never went back.
 
Girls don't wear pigtails (white girls don't) or dresses with sashes that tie in the back.
 
Matthew said:
Yeah, I know. It's always fun until someone gets hurt.

When I was 10 or 12 some of us used to goof around in an area in the woods with railroad tracks nearby. We usually left the tracks alone, but once in a while we'd put pennies on the tracks and go back looking for them later. Never really thought too much about it.

One day couple of neighborhood kids about 5 or 6 years old wandered off, and ended up playing on those same tracks. One of them was killed.

I never went back.
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So ban all fun and destroy quality of life for all becuase of one unfortunate incident? I hope that is not your point.

Sh*t happens. Five year olds shouldn't be allowed to walk around train tracks alone. That's a parental issue, not a societal one.
 
wsuffa said:
Anyone remember Jarts?
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Yard darts? Oh yea. Those were fun. Apparently they got pulled from the market because stupid people were standing downrange near the target area and getting hit. Dummies.


Before those existed, we use to go out with a bow and arrows and played a yard darts type game. It wasn't 30 or 40 feet though. It was setup as far as we could shoot.
We would also shoot arrows straight up. The first shot was about 10ft. The next 15 or 20, the next just barely within sight. Half the game was to catch them by hand when they came back down though that was limited to about 30ft. Beyond that, it was just too dangerous to be standing around.
Then there was the full pull and run to hide under something very thick and solid game. They could bury themselves up to the feathers sometimes. We would hide under things for minutes sometimes because we didn't know how long until it was safe to come out. The ones that went into the pond probably got halfway to the Indian Ocean before they stopped.
 
fgcason said:
Yard darts? Oh yea. Those were fun. Apparently they got pulled from the market because stupid people were standing downrange near the target area and getting hit. Dummies.
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They were an early victim of the "government must protect people from themselves" CPSC.
 
One rainy Saturday we drove from Jersey to some body's campground in Eastern PA. We walked to the edge of a hill where there was a hole in the ground.

Started crawling in and exploring -- was amazing once you squeezed through the narrow opening -- big rooms, streams -- the works.

Until we decided to squeeze through a tiny hole to see a very deep pool of water. I was halfway through and realized I was stuck. I wriggled free finally and made it to the pool. wow, cool.

I was 6'1 and about 160 at the time, so it wasn't fat rolls getting me stuck -- it was just that narrow.

From time to time that comes back to me and gives me the hibbly-jibblies.

Kids -- sheese.
 
Things are different:
Kids are spending greater than a typical work week (40hrs) using electronic gadgets! Get out there and go play in a muddy stream!


http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2010-01-20-1Avideokids20_ST_N.htm
The findings, out today in a Kaiser Family Foundation survey of 2,002 people ages 8 to 18, show that young people spend seven hours and 38 minutes using media in a typical day
 
dmccormack said:
From time to time that comes back to me and gives me the hibbly-jibblies.
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There's plenty of that going around when thinking about some of the things we did.

There were quite a few things I did that before I started the movement, I KNEW it was going to result in a pretty violent stop..then did it anyway. I'm quite certain that I'm too chicken now to put myself in a position to fall almost 30 feet to the floor in the barn again when touching the ridgepole and the haybail castle wall shifted under me. That kind of stuff wasn't too bad because part of the engineering process involved the "how to not get really hurt doing this" routine.

Then there are THOSE THINGS we did, almost did, or barely avoided. You know the ones. The stuff you don't like thinking about because you'll wake up screaming hysterically at 2am in a cold sweat even 30 years later.
 
fgcason said:
Then there are THOSE THINGS we did, almost did, or barely avoided. You know the ones. The stuff you don't like thinking about because you'll wake up screaming hysterically at 2am in a cold sweat even 30 years later.
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Ohhhhh yeah...

I still get cold sweats remembering skin diving in a lake in the Adirondacks, using a BIG rock to help the descent, got 30' down, and felt back of trunks get caught on a sunken tree.

Then the summer after I was a rec director, one of the guys was out playing on a stream -- big, athletic kid -- slipped on a rock, fell backward -- died. :frown3:
 
Great thread. The most fun I had in elementary school was playing Butt Ball at recess. I don't think they'd allow kids these days to intentionally throw a hard raquetball at a kid's butt because he didn't make it to the wall before the ball after mishandling a catch. We played it with this very motivating variation:

In one variation of the game, a runner who does not reach the wall before the thrown ball hits must, in addition to receiving an out, stand facing the wall and allow the thrower to "peg" him or her with the ball (usually with all possible force).
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fgcason said:
There's another one about halfway around from Australia.
http://www.jessicawatson.com.au/
She's taken quite a beating the last couple days including 4 knockdowns.
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Man that's serious stuff. Gotta wonder....are they tethered? If not should they fall overboard....it's game over. Even if they are tethered and fall obd - then what? Dragged til the sharks take interest?
And if she needs any kind of real help...how long a wait is likely?
I wonder if they have any security concerns with all the pirating we read about and if they are packing.
 
That's something I wanted to do but it has to be done by the time you are 40. The south 40s are exhausting. I hope these two young women make it.

The S&S 34 would also be my singlehanded choice.
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
Man that's serious stuff. Gotta wonder....are they tethered? If not should they fall overboard....it's game over. Even if they are tethered and fall obd - then what? Dragged til the sharks take interest?
And if she needs any kind of real help...how long a wait is likely?
I wonder if they have any security concerns with all the pirating we read about and if they are packing.
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One of the pictures of her on deck in bad weather gear had a tether running somewhere. Help for her is probably the same for anyone else sailing solo in the South Atlantic/Indian/Pacific Oceans. She's been in communication with another RTW boat nearby so there's at least potential help in the area.

Pirates? So far it looks like she's mostly sailing far from land. I'm not sure how smart it is to sail solo in shipping routes since you have to sleep sometime. It's a big 3 oceans she's crossing.

Safety, blah, blah, blah. IMHO, it's far more honorable to be lost at sea during a great adventure than to be splattered all over the local quickie mart's parking lot by a cellphone driver.


Personally if I had a kid and was faced with handing her $30 for a night at the mall to go to the movies with friends or sending her to sea, well, her birthday present would be a EPIRB and sailing lessons.
 
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fgcason said:
I'm not sure how smart it is to sail solo in shipping routes since you have to sleep sometime.
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Yeah; what happened to the idea of 'keeping watch'? Must have been outmoded by electronics! I mean a lot can happen during 10hrs of sleep. Hopefully there is some way to notify if you are about to run aground/come against a storm/hit a tanker.
Not to diminish the immensity of the undertaking but with all the electronics and comm gear.....it seems to me like they probably don't do a lot of the tactical planning. Dad can call them by sat phone and say what to put into the autopilot, based on a review of weather conditions from his living room.
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
Yeah; what happened to the idea of 'keeping watch'? Must have been outmoded by electronics! I mean a lot can happen during 10hrs of sleep. Hopefully there is some way to notify if you are about to run aground/come against a storm/hit a tanker.
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Anyone who sleeps 10 hours straight while running solo on a boat is suicidal. If she's in open water, running aground isn't much of an issue. Tankers could be a problem. I wonder if most of her routing is out of the major shipping lanes or not. There's an advantage being close..and far away.
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
Another kid with fantastic dreams!
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Cool!

Alas, Abby's tech problems force abandonment of goal
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She's still going for the "youngest to sail around the world solo" goal, just removing the "nonstop" part. Looks like Jessica Watson will hold on to the record for more than a few months. :yes:

BTW - A teenager with that many eyes on her making such a smart decision - She'd make a great pilot!
 
I like the guy that told me that he didn't have Nintendo when he was a kid so he collected old Model T's (they were everywhere) and assembled various parts to making working cars. I think he said he started doing that when he was about 9 or 10 years old.
 
Build firecrackers into model battleships, float them in a large ponding rain puddle at a construction site just to watch them blow up.
 
Anthony said:
Build firecrackers into model battleships, float them in a large ponding rain puddle at a construction site just to watch them blow up.
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Kids don't do that anymore? What a shame. Good times!
 
flyersfan31 said:
Kids don't do that anymore? What a shame. Good times!
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How about model schoolhouses and M80s (if kids tried that now, they'd be considered terrorist suspects). ;) Or building bottle rockets out of Estes rocket motors and M80s (likewise). Back when they were both relatively available. (not that I'd ever do such a thing, mind you.... :rolleyes:)

We have too much nanny "you can't do this" for "our safety" and "our protection" these days. It's a wonder that any of us survived childhood as dozens of the things we used to do would be verboten these days.
 
When I was in 4th grade I had planned on spending the night at a classmate's house. His father was taking us hunting the following morining. I brought my pellet gun to school and the teacher just set it in the back of class until 3:00. No one thought anything of it. I'm guessing that wouldn't go over so well today.
 
brentee said:
When I was in 4th grade I had planned on spending the night at a classmate's house. His father was taking us hunting the following morining. I brought my pellet gun to school and the teacher just set it in the back of class until 3:00. No one thought anything of it. I'm guessing that wouldn't go over so well today.
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I remember a school assembly in high school when the stage crew members occasionally wandered across the stage dressed as Mexican banditos and fired a volley of blanks (.30-06 and similar). Do you have any idea how loud that is in an auditorium? And how ballistic people would go over it today? In 1970 it didn't bother us at all.
 
Ghery said:
I remember a school assembly in high school when the stage crew members occasionally wandered across the stage dressed as Mexican banditos and fired a volley of blanks (.30-06 and similar). Do you have any idea how loud that is in an auditorium? And how ballistic people would go over it today? In 1970 it didn't bother us at all.
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What'd you say?

EDIT: I remember going with the Boy Scouts to "Range day" with the local police force.

Lots of beer, lots of .38s, lots of, "Point it that way and pull"

No safety brief, no sight picture training, no worries about alcohol and guns...

Yeah, the "good ole days" weren't so good....
 
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Ghery said:
I remember a school assembly in high school when the stage crew members occasionally wandered across the stage dressed as Mexican banditos and fired a volley of blanks (.30-06 and similar). Do you have any idea how loud that is in an auditorium? And how ballistic people would go over it today? In 1970 it didn't bother us at all.
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Did he then hand out bag of Fritos?
 
ScottM said:
Did he then hand out bag of Fritos?
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No. Just a half dozen guys in sarapes and big hats with bandoliers over their shoulders. Saunter on stage, fire and sauter off. You're thinking of the wrong bandito. :D
 
flyersfan31 said:
Kids don't do that anymore? What a shame. Good times!
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I use legos and firecrackers to teach my daughter about demo. They work great. Then we build a car, put bottle rockets on it, and it goes flying down the driveway and explodes. The only difference now is she uses a butane lighter with a long reach to light the fuses instead of a match the way I did.
 
TMetzinger said:
I use legos and firecrackers to teach my daughter about demo. They work great. Then we build a car, put bottle rockets on it, and it goes flying down the driveway and explodes. The only difference now is she uses a butane lighter with a long reach to light the fuses instead of a match the way I did.
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DISQUALIFIED.

No adult supervision allowed!
 
Because they are all inside playing video games when not totally supervised by their overbearing parents. :)
 
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