Remember when.

[Zuljin]

We were more into playing soccer in the back yard. It was kind of weird with the tree, and later a swing set in, the middle of our soccer field.

That swing set was possibly demonic. It had that swinging carriage that could seat four. I was pushing my sister and and other girl in it, slipped, and got run over by it. The bolts protruding from the bottom stripped long stripes of skin off my back. Oh that hurt so bad.

And then, when my best friend and I got into the most epic fight ever, he bashed my head pretty good with the silde. It was forever warped after that. We denied any knowledge of it. Must've been the sun warped it.

 

[harleybug88]

I had a banana seat, but not a frame tube shifter.

Wore more Rustler and Husky than Toughskins. Damn. Those jeans would stand up by themselves.

Ah, youth.

Yeah, I remember wearing Husky jeans with the reinforced knees, and scuff proof shoes too.

Also, two photos (not very good one's) of me and my brother in our youth, with banana seats, shifter and sissy bar.

 

[passedpawn]

We were more into playing soccer in the back yard. It was kind of weird with the tree, and later a swing set in, the middle of our soccer field.

That swing set was possibly demonic. It had that swinging carriage that could seat four. I was pushing my sister and and other girl in it, slipped, and got run over by it. The bolts protruding from the bottom stripped long stripes of skin off my back. Oh that hurt so bad.

And then, when my best friend and I got into the most epic fight ever, he bashed my head pretty good with the silde. It was forever warped after that. We denied any knowledge of it. Must've been the sun warped it.

Yep, those things were evil. Nowadays they are all plastic and padded, you can't even jump off a teeter-totter and watch the other guy smash into the ground.

I tore the end of one of my fingers off on a rusty swingset.

I also got to lay on a couch all day with frozen peas on my nutsack. I had shimmied up one the supporting legs of the large swingset at the park, then slid down. My crotch found a horizontal bar that I forgot was there. My grandma took me to the doc. Frigging humiliating.

 

[Hamaki]

I didn't get a sticky finger till I was about 20.

We used to get our bikes up to a good speed and then slam on the coaster brake and let the tire make out a long, loud squeal, and leave a long swervy mark on the pavement by our house.

My friend had an old bike with a banana seat. It was pretty choice.

We called that "laying a hooker" and had contests to see who could make the longest skid mark. Chain came off unexpectedly once just as I was about to hit the brakes and I lost it going about 20 mph. I still have scars from the asphalt and from my older sister yelling, "don't hit my car!"

 

[Zuljin]

Yep, those things were evil. Nowadays they are all plastic and padded, you can't even jump off a teeter-totter and watch the other guy smash into the ground.

I tore the end of one of my fingers off on a rusty swingset.

I also got to lay on a couch all day with frozen peas on my nutsack. I had shimmied up one the supporting legs of the large swingset at the park, then slid down. My crotch found a horizontal bar that I forgot was there. My grandma took me to the doc. Frigging humiliating.

We used to have this thing called the spider chair. Imagine a giant chair, maybe 12-15 feet tall, made of chains linked together like a cargo net. The chains were covered in like pieces of radiator hose.

We would climb to the top, swing over the top bar, and drop to the hose covered chain seat of the chair. Roll off, and run around to do it again.

Then, we had monkey bars that had two poles at the end. I don't know why. We would climb on top the money bars, jump to the poles, and swing/slide to the ground.

I missed the pole one day. Fell flat on my back and knocked the wind out of myself. That was scary. I couldn't breathe and it was like I was experiencing the world from the bottom of a metal coffee can. The school nurse sent me home. We couldn't afford a doctor visit, so my dad took me to his horse vet friend. He told me not to pee blood and I'd be okay.

And then, we had the monkey dome. It was steel bars constructed in a dome. I was playing on it one day when it was wet. Slipped and chipped a tooth on a bar. That really hurt. Wow, did that hurt. Raw pain. It mostly stopped hurting later that night. No dentist. My dad figured it was a baby tooth and would fall out soon anyway. It did about week later, but for that week, I had to learn to eat and drink without touching that tooth.

Man, the good old days sucked.

 

[passedpawn]

We used to have this thing called the spider chair. Imagine a giant chair, maybe 12-15 feet tall, made of chains linked together like a cargo net. The chains were covered in like pieces of radiator hose.

We would climb to the top, swing over the top bar, and drop to the hose covered chain seat of the chair. Roll off, and run around to do it again.

Then, we had monkey bars that had two poles at the end. I don't know why. We would climb on top the money bars, jump to the poles, and swing/slide to the ground.

I missed the pole one day. Fell flat on my back and knocked the wind out of myself. That was scary. I couldn't breathe and it was like I was experiencing the world from the bottom of a metal coffee can. The school nurse sent me home. We couldn't afford a doctor visit, so my dad took me to his horse vet friend. He told me not to pee blood and I'd be okay.

And then, we had the monkey dome. It was steel bars constructed in a dome. I was playing on it one day when it was wet. Slipped and chipped a tooth on a bar. That really hurt. Wow, did that hurt. Raw pain. It mostly stopped hurting later that night. No dentist. My dad figured it was a baby tooth and would fall out soon anyway. It did about week later, but for that week, I had to learn to eat and drink without touching that tooth.

Man, the good old days sucked.

Your monkey dome was our eagles nest. Half sphere of interlocking bars. We could fly through that like it wasn't there.

As a kid the worst injury I got was hitting my face on a stone birdbath while running for a pass. "Go long!". Stitch city. Funny, all the motorcycle stunts I did as a kid and never any real injuries except constant road rash from laying it down on gravelly streets. Nah, the good old days were a lot of fun. My dad sold tractors and took us to a lot of county fairs and such across the midwest. My brother and I would load up our little motorcyle in his van and haul ass all over the area while my dad was working. That was before they invented the helmet I think.

BTW, the birdbath scar is crisscrossed by a beating I took in college. That one was a leg off a couch that caught me across the same eyebrow. Youch.

 

[slym2none]

... a beating I took in college. That one was a leg off a couch that caught me across the same eyebrow. Youch.

Gangsta as ****.

 

[passedpawn]

Gangsta as ****.

Haha. Gansta victim. I'm a nurd.

 

[Zuljin]

We got in fights all the time. We'd be going at it like mortal enemies. When we got busted by a teacher, we'd both swear we were only "play fighting". It didn't matter over what. We'd cover with the same story. They actually made a rule that play fighting was against the rules.

By high school, that schtick had worn through, but we usually got told to break it up and go away. Unless it was a bad fight. Yeah. Sometimes you had to "voluntarily disenroll" so as not to have the cops brought in on this. And then they send you to a Christian cult school for only the best and brightest. And you get there to find the other kids who had been kicked out before you.

Now-a-days, kids get arrested for looking at each other cross.

Man, the good new days suck.

 

[day_trippr]

Among all the other random acts of insanity we kids indulged in, one of the most fun was BB gun fights - using soft clay pellets. You'd slap a chunk of modeling clay on the stock, pinch off a tiny bit, roll it in a ball, blow it down the barrel, cock, aim and fire.

While we noone ever had their "eye put out", if you got hit on bare skin it hurt like a yellow jacket sting and swelled up nicely, and the pellets still carried a punch at a hundred feet.

With a half dozen kids on each team vying to take the other side out by painful attrition, these battles went on for hours, with improvised forts, flanking action, the occasionally suicide frontal attack...the works.

I can't even imagine the number of adult strokes and heart attacks that would result from such a neighborhood escapade today...

Cheers!

 

[gratus fermentatio]

We used real BB's, but required eye protection, usually something like ski goggles or sunglasses. And no high powered or pump guns, no head shots, no crotch shots. We all lived & still have our eyes.

 

[FoamyTop]

We used real BB's, but required eye protection, usually something like ski goggles or sunglasses. And no high powered or pump guns, no head shots, no crotch shots. We all lived & still have our eyes.

They never say that in cartoons.

 

[unionrdr]

Seeing as how it's Friday & we're home brewers, here's some old-time HB fun...

 

[NickTheGreat]

Stooges and beer? Why have I not seen this!

 

[slym2none]

They never say that in cartoons.

Still... how many times did Daffy Duck get blasted in the face, at point-blank range, by Elmer Fudd's shotgun in the "Wabbit Season, Duck Season" episode? And yet none of us kids ever did that... that we know of, at least.

 

[unionrdr]

Stooges and beer? Why have I not seen this!

I remember this one from when I was a kid. Mom & dad turned us on to them back in the 50's. I remember pop laughing hard at this one...mom along with him! I guess they remembered stuff like this?

 

[Hamaki]

Still... how many times did Daffy Duck get blasted in the face, at point-blank range, by Elmer Fudd's shotgun in the "Wabbit Season, Duck Season" episode? And yet none of us kids ever did that... that we know of, at least.

I was hanging with an older kid, I think I was about 6 or 7 & he was a year or two older. This would have been during the mid 1960s. We were in his basement and he pointed his dad's shotgun at my head, inches away, and pulled the trigger. Fortunately it was not loaded so no cartoon hijinks ensued. When I casually mentioned it to my dad later he prohibited me playing with that kid anymore and began educating me at some length on gun safety.