Stuff we used to do back then that you couldn't do now

When you saw that switchbox......

sheepdawg said:
How about spankings. My dad wasn't one to fool with when we were out. At the Sears back when I was eight I thought it would be funny to turn the escalator off when people were riding it, I mean the on/off switch was right there, easily reachable to eight year old hands, why not? Well it was funny to see the people tumble and try to keep their balance when it all of a sudden died, real funny, till my dad showed up. I got the beating of my life right there in front of all my victims. I still remember that one 55 years later. A month ago I was in the same store, could go to the same spot by the same escalator, kind of grinned when I saw the on/off switch was encased in a locked plastic box but to be honest I never thought of trying to get a laugh by turning the escalator off, no way, nope.

How about school. Back then you screw up and get caught you got licks. I must have set a record for licks in the eighth grade and if it was one of the coaches that gave you licks you couldn't sit down for days. Then you got home praying that your parents wouldn't find out cause if they did chances are you were going to meet the belt.

Today all of this is called child cruelty. Today you get a timeout, no wonder the world is going to ****. :rolleyes:
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The next time you saw that switchbox did you feel a searing pain between your waist and your knees even though no one was even near you???
 
After you got tired of them.....

Joe Hohmann said:
Back in the early '50s, at age 10, I was into the Highway Pioneers plastic car kits that cost 89 cents. The directions told you to take a lighted match to each axel, after putting on the wheel, and melt the plastic for a second...then put it out with a knife blade to form a hub.
I'm sure if a kid had shown up wearing a helmet while riding his bike, he would have been beat up.
One great playground was what used to be called "The Town Dump". We would love "playing driver" in rusted-out cars.
We kids in the "Old Days" had to entertain ourselves. The only video entertainment was cowboy movies at 4pm on TV.
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After a few weeks of playing with them did you stick a match to them and 'forget' to put it out??? I did that with a plastic Mustang and was disappointed when it immediately curled up instead of looking like a REAL car on fire.

My favorite gimmick.. Start a small fire with nails in it. Let the nails get hot. As great of a distance as you dared and a little downhill, light another small fire. Put out the first fire and pour some gas on the hot nails. Watch the white vapor cloud rise and spread out. As the vapor cloud approaches the second fire stand back. When the vapor cloud reaches the small fire be ready for a real show!!!
 
Carrying a Buck 110 on my belt in school.
Building a long rifle in shop class.
Riding a bike without a helmet
Driving a car with no seatbelts, a metal dash, and no power steering.
Shooting rats at the town dump with pellet rifles
Leave the house in the morning and not getting home till dark
 
I was playing 'flaming arrow'....

30-30remchester said:
A few have mentioned shooting arrows straight up into the air and see how close they came down next to us. This was a popular past time for me and my cronies. This was not challenging enough, we started doing it at night. Yea we were that smart.
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One time I was playing 'flaming arrow' and on the way down it got caught high in a tree in the front yard. I got out the hose and realized that the 15' it shot up couldn't reach the arrow. (hoses seemed to have a lot of kick until you really needed them and found out how inadequate they are. I was hoping and praying when the fire went out by itself.
 
Oh, I left out some of the bad things we did. On the beer thing, around our town we didn't buy 6 or 8 packs. But we had one old guy who would fill up our gallon jugs with draft beer. He was a good old guy and everybody's favorite. If we were camping out, we'd just stop and ask for a favor. It was nothing for him to buy 5 fill ups of those jugs. The beer was beyond awful. usually Burger or Wiedemans, sometimes Schoenling. But we were teens, so we just got drunker than all get out. Anyone watching could tell what we'd done the night before. If we were seen straggling in about 8 or 9 in the morning, we behaved ourselves. If at 11 or noon, we'd really tied one on.

And I learned respect for Unions back then, too. The local park was often rented out by a succession of unions for their summer picknics. Everyone knows union members are drunks. For the union picnic to be a success, they needed to provide a selection of bottled or canned beer. They'd pay someone to clean up the grounds on Monday. We had our work cut out for us, we had to be up and in the park well before 8:00 to get all the left over stuff. And then pack it out of sight before the crew arrived. Storage was easy, we had a spring fed creek that was our natural refrigerator. For a couple of years, we were in tall cotton. After we got the full ones away, we'd go back and scavenge the empties worth 2 cents each, along with the pop bottles. One year the clean up crew even offered us the full pop bottles. We thanked them. Can't drink beer at that age all the time.

And one of our buddies got a job in a beer store. He had the evening shift. He kind of had crush on a tall blonde girl who had him pegged as a pushover. She was under 21 by a few years, but could always buy beer if he was the only one on duty. It started with him being cool and telling her he had to see ID. She pulled up her sweater for him and asked sweetly "have you ever seen someone with a set like this and be underage?" Of course he'd never seen anything like that before. He couldn't speak but sold her the beer. So he told us the story, and we hung around the place waiting for repeat. The next Friday we were rewarded. Someone pointed out he could get arrested or fired. He said it was worth it. Some time passed and he got the nerve to ask her out. He was afraid she'd refuse, but she agreed. They went together for a few months.
 
Wow!! Fun times were had. Too bad we all weren't neighbors in the same town!! Now that would be something to recall. Just be thankful we all saw those great simpler times. Didn't know how great they were back then but we sure do now! $10 for beer, smokes, and a snack? I just paid $10 for a box of Newports!
 
mauser9 said:
Wow!! Fun times were had. Too bad we all weren't neighbors in the same town!! Now that would be something to recall. Just be thankful we all saw those great simpler times. Didn't know how great they were back then but we sure do now! $10 for beer, smokes, and a snack? I just paid $10 for a box of Newports!
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Do you really think that town would have survived? :eek:
 
johngalt said:
This isn't my memory, but a story from a former co-worker...

He was in the military during the later part of the Vietnam war. When he went overseas, he took his personal rifle with him. In those days, there were no security lines - he could just carry his cased rifle with him through the airport, get on the plane, and hang it up in the cloak closet. At the destination, he got it out of the closet and disembarked.
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Must've been an officer. They were/are the only ones allowed to take personal weapons into a combat zone.
 
mauser9 said:
Wow!! Fun times were had. Too bad we all weren't neighbors in the same town!! Now that would be something to recall. Just be thankful we all saw those great simpler times. Didn't know how great they were back then but we sure do now! $10 for beer, smokes, and a snack? I just paid $10 for a box of Newports!
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I guess I'm old enough to remember $10 for beer, smokes, a snack and a few gallons of gas to boot.

and still have change. :)
 
Donn said:
Must've been an officer. They were/are the only ones allowed to take personal weapons into a combat zone.
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I was in the 3/5 Cav, C troop BlackKnights Vietnam, 1969. Many of us had personal weapons in Vietnam. I had a model 10 S&W 38. Got my ammo from the helicopter pilots. They were issued 38s. A buddy of mine had his dads germen luger he had brought home from WWII. I also had a Thompson sub machine gun fully auto I bought on the black market for $20.00. We were a combat unit out in the boonies and no one cared.
 
mocha001 said:
buying beer with a fake id
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Where we bought beer you didn't need an ID. If you had money, you could buy beer. It was Jimmy's Night Spot. If they were closed, you went around back and rang the bell. Any time, day or night.
 
good ol days

Chuck24 said:
Taking your rifle to school and leaving it in the principles office so you could go shooting after school.
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I graduated in'87 . Most of us had gun racks in our trucks with loaded guns. That was Poudre High in Ft. Collins CO. I grew up in the mountain's west of Ft. Collins 100mile round trip to High school; always had a gun.
 
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