Growing up

[sureshotbob]

I was born in 1955 I grew up in a area that would be called low income today.
The project was called Cope Manor after the people that owned it.
It was built after WWII there were 2 four unit bldg.'s, 1 eight unit bldg.'s and 5 single family home's . It was built on a 55 acre lot that was field and a 25 acre sand pit.

Back in the day most mother's stayed at home to take care of the kid's. The mother's would gather mid day to sit and watch the kid's play in summer.
It was a great place to grow up as the ground's were alway's taken care of and there were a lot of kid's to play baseball,football and hide and seek .
Some of the parent's even got involved in the game's.

As I got older my friend's and I had the sand pit a pond and lot's of woods to play in. When I was older the sand pit was a great place to shoot as it was surrounded by 30 foot high banks.

The Cope's were nice people that had a house on a hill at the corner of the acreage every Easter they would have a Easter egg hunt for all the kid's in the area not just for the kid's in there apartment's.

My Dad used to work part time for the Cope's doing all kinds of maintenance work. He also helped The Cope's with a large garden that we got a lot of vegetable's from that my parent's use to can. I even got paid to mow there lawn as I got 10 years old or so.

As a child I remember sitting with Mr. Cope on his back porch with a sweet full stocked .222 rem. shooting wood chucks.

I feel bad for the kid's today as they don't know the freedom to go out and play having fun on there own.

I'm sorry for the long post but I'm feeling nostalgic tonight.

 

[Salty RI]

I have a grandson who doesnt know what the word play means. [emoji46] He does like to fish when I can get him off his damm lap top or phone. [emoji46]

Sent from my LGL52VL using Tapatalk

 

[gman51]

Yep we had to come home when the street lights came on or mom rang a cow bell so we knew it was time for dinner.
In the summer mom made us go outside and play. We had to take swimming lessons at the YMCA. Mom said she never learned how to swim and she was going to make sure we learned how. She grew up on a farm out in the country and there wasn't a YMCA around there.
If a person ever said "HEY" to mom she would get a big grin and say hay is for horses, grass is free, buy a farm and get all three. She got a kick out of saying that. I guess that was called country humor.
Yep we found things to do outside to have fun. We weren't allowed to just sit in front of the TV all the time.

 

[sureshotbob]

Yes TV was for rain or real bad snow days.
But even on snow days we would be out side sledding.
I can remember on snow days coming in to warm up and my Mom having fresh home made old fashion donut's and hot chocolate then going back out side to play.

 

[Old 44 Guy]

We had radio, No TV. I came in from play to listen to the Lone Ranger, Jack Armstrong, ETC, Big stuff as most neighbors did not have radios.TV came along when I was in high school.

 

[Ivan the Butcher]

My parents moved us to the country in 1964 to get away from so very bad influences! We had a 20 acre field that was sometimes in crops and a 20 acre woods with a large creek in it. The drive was gravel and about 800 feet long (Dad claimed 1000.) I measured it one summer, the next time he said a 1000 I said closer to 700-750, and the bet was on! We got out a 100 yard measuring tape and stakes and spent an hour measuring it 3 times, because 810' couldn't be right the first two times! Well I won! $1 and the right to fill in the pot holes and maintain the driveway! A couple years later we bought a International Harvester Cub ( ours was a High Boy) from 1959 and my brother then later spent 9 to 11 hours a week driving around in the sun mowing!

After being married almost 7 years, in 1984 I bought a small farm up the road a couple of miles. And eventually around 1990 bought a 1979 Cub (Low Boy). The oldest and youngest mowed grass with it (That is really how we learned to drive!) for hours every week, and that kept them too busy to get into serious trouble, just lime their dad and uncle!

Ivan