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This isn't really "dangerous" stuff, but my wife and I were walking down the wintry streets yesterday when we heard and then saw kids of all ages sledding down a little hill. But, unlike when we were children, there were lines of parents standing at the top, giving advice on how to slide, telling the kids when it was time to leave, etc.
My wife and I had to laugh, but it was a little sad, as we realized these kids (not just tiny ones, but 10-12 years old) would never have the experience of running around the neighborhood unsupervised like we did.
We experienced this in addition to: campfires and overnight camping with just older kids; helmet-less bicycling; unattended creek swimming; hikes in the woods; trick or treating in groups without grownups; riding in the back of open pick-up trucks, etc., and lived to tell the tale!
My son brought our old radio flyer sleds to the sledding hill and the other kids were enthralled (and terrified). Runner sleds are awesome even if my little brother did get a serious concussion by riding one into a tree. He revcovered and is not a genius. I tell him it is becuase I let him run into that tree.
Those modern sleds are mostly lame.
I avoid the sledding hill, I end up serving as a mule most of the itme.
When I was young my uncle owned a bar in a small town up north, our parents left us in the car sleeping when they went in to drink. They waited until they thought we were out, then we snuck out of the car a ran around the town, we had cousins and friends that lived up there, they never knew we ran around and they never came out to check, until it was time to go.
This isn't really "dangerous" stuff, but my wife and I were walking down the wintry streets yesterday when we heard and then saw kids of all ages sledding down a little hill. But, unlike when we were children, there were lines of parents standing at the top, giving advice on how to slide, telling the kids when it was time to leave, etc.
My wife and I had to laugh, but it was a little sad, as we realized these kids (not just tiny ones, but 10-12 years old) would never have the experience of running around the neighborhood unsupervised like we did.
We experienced this in addition to: campfires and overnight camping with just older kids; helmet-less bicycling; unattended creek swimming; hikes in the woods; trick or treating in groups without grownups; riding in the back of open pick-up trucks, etc., and lived to tell the tale!
I used to sled down this huge hill on our block but the problem was there was a big blindspot, if you were going down as a car came up you had like 5 seconds to move or you were dead. I skidded into a ditch numerous times due to that situation!
Same thing with the camping. We would take our bikes all over the campground and would show up for dinner. Then disappear to play manhunt in the dark.
We used to lay in the back window of my Gramma's car while she drove around. We never wore bike helmets. We swam in lakes and rivers without anyone knowing where we were. We ran naked and shoeless through the woods next door, skinny dipped in the creek, and built fires to cook left over burgers on. We ate dandelions and bamboo. I "borrowed" my mom's car in the middle of the night when I was 12, got pulled over and laughed at by the cop. I babysat the neighbor's toddler when I was 10 years old. I walked a mile to the city bus stop and rode the bus to the greyhound station in the seedy part of town. We talked to the bums when we got there (fascinating conversations btw). We got caught shoplifting and were simply told to put it back by a smiling clerk. We ran across 5 lanes of freeway in the middle of the night because the place across the way had better video games. We drank the raw Kahlua my mom made and lived to tell the tale.
We had great times... a few near-death experiences... and made tons of memories when we were kids. Would I let my kids do some of the things we did? Hell NO!!
Kids smoked all the time, bought cigarettes, nobody cared.
Of course, we never wore any sort of helmet or belt or knee pads or any of that foolishness!
When it snowed, my dad would chain our kiddie pool to the back of his truck and he'd drive us all over the neighborhood.
My dad also carpeted the back of that truck, and then put a camper shell on it, and that's where us kids rode - no belts, no protection - rolling around back there like two BBs in a tuna fish can!
My mom never had any idea where we were all summer - we just had to come in when the street lights came on.
We rode our bikes everywhere - MILES from home - any given day.
My brother brought a fake grenade to school and threw it down the aisle toward the teacher's desk once. Everyone thought it was funny. Today he'd be committed or arrested.
My grandparents lived an hour away, and my parents used to lay the backseat of the station wagon down and make a bed for my little sister and me so we could sleep on the way home. One night we were rear-ended by another car on the freeway. No one was hurt, but that was the end of that. Thinking back, if our car had rear-ended someone else, my sister and I would have easily hit our heads as we lay in the back and slid forward. Probably asking for spinal damage.
When I was very little, I used to ride on the middle armrest of my grandma's Oldsmobile. I may have worn a lap belt but this was by no means a safe place to sit. When I was a baby (living in another state), my grandmother held me in her arms in the car ride from the airport to my parents' house.
In junior high during recess I took off my roller skate and slammed the back of the head of a boy named Richard Fox. He deserved it! Got a talking to but one teacher pulled me aside and told me I had done the whole student body a great service.
Once got talked into putting a white lab rat in the desk of a very nervous substitute teacher. She almost croaked when she opened the drawer. nobody told on me and I got away with it.
We used to drink a really gross concoction called purple jesus which was grain alcohol and grape juice. It's a wonder we all didn't die.
Hid from the cops while drinking in the Blue Ridge parkway while in college.
BTW all these great stories are told at high school reunions and we all laugh till we wet our pants but if our own kids or grandkids did anything half as bad today they would be in jail, especially the assault with a roller skate!
My friends use to light off smoke bombs and throw 'em in the locker room. Probably go to Gitmo as a terrorist these days. Okay, that might be blowing it up a bit.
My grandparents lived an hour away, and my parents used to lay the backseat of the station wagon down and make a bed for my little sister and me so we could sleep on the way home. One night we were rear-ended by another car on the freeway. No one was hurt, but that was the end of that. Thinking back, if our car had rear-ended someone else, my sister and I would have easily hit our heads as we lay in the back and slid forward. Probably asking for spinal damage.
My parents did the same thing when we drove from NJ to SC. I think my brothers in the middle seat would have been happy to switch places with me. Remember the station wagons with the rear facing 3rd seat? I always thought that would be a death trap in a rear-end collision.
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