Reminiscing. "Stuff we did that our kids wouldn't believe today".

[El Presidente]

 

A discussion from Tuesday's long lunch.  

Stuff we did that our kids wouldn't believe today.  Feel free to add yours. 

 

 

[El Presidente]

 

Buying my grandads cigarettes as he didn't speak english. I would walk up to the corner store and buy 2 packs at a time. He would give me enough change for an icecream. 

I was 10   

 

[...]

Similar, I have bought cigarettes for my mom many times, I was 6 or 7 the first time...

[Puros Y Vino]

Same. Bought my dad's cigarettes from the corner store without issue.  For my troubles I'd get to spend 25 cents. Which was good for either a bag of chips, 1 Lola, 1 Vachon cake, or two popsicles and wax lips.  😁

Other stuff. Walk myself to school from Grade 1.  Have battles with elastic guns. (luckily none of us lost an eye). 

[Fuzz]

Yep, bought my grandmother's cigarettes too up until I hit my teens, then they stopped allowing me to buy them. Also bought beer from the local when I was under 12, as the guy knew it was for my dad.

 

[El Presidente]

3 minutes ago, Puros Y Vino said:

Have battles with elastic guns. (luckily none of us lost an eye). 

We were too poor for elastic guns. 

We were not too bright either.  

Make your own slingshots from old bike tubes.  Find a nice smooth rock and shoot at each other from 10 paces. 

 

[Puros Y Vino]

7 minutes ago, El Presidente said:

We were too poor for elastic guns. 

We were not too bright either.  

Make your own slingshots from old bike tubes.  Find a nice smooth rock and shoot at each other from 10 paces. 

 

At the core of our elastic guns sas the classic clothes line pin.

1 to act as a trigger.  And from another, the metal spring to act as the ballistic portion for the elastic.  Granted. Most of our "wars" were without the metal clip. The metal clip was mostly used for target shooting. 

[Chibearsv]

I grew up in an affluent town. We shot each other with our Daisy BB guns 😁. Lots of close calls but no eyes lost either. 

[Fuzz]

1 hour ago, Puros Y Vino said:

At the core of our elastic guns sas the classic clothes line pin.

1 to act as a trigger.  And from another, the metal spring to act as the ballistic portion for the elastic.  Granted. Most of our "wars" were without the metal clip. The metal clip was mostly used for target shooting. 

We just used our finger.

You could loaded up 3 shots at a time.

[Bill Hayes]

Buy fireworks at the Milk Bar and have war games with trenches while shooting baby rockets from PVC piping like RPG's at each other, lobbing fire crackers like grenades and raiding the other trench with 10 ball shot sticks like machine guns. Also making bolt bombs throwing at brick walls and seeing how they explode with bolt and nut projectiles flying in all directions. The idea was to not get hit. Just stupid really. Our family also camped down the penninsula and my uncle had a boat that I was the only one that the knack of starting. Engine was almost kaput but just needed the right amount of choke without flooding. I used to drive it around with my mates as a 12yo, catch flatheads and feed them to the seals and try and jump the wakes of container ships in the shipping channel. Learned pretty quick how to read the weather, that's for sure. Can't imagine umbrella parents nowadays allowing that. Didn't need a boat license back then. Ha ha!

[Fezztone]

Had my driving  learner's  permit and would do anything to drive around. My mom would send me for cigarettes with a note that it was ok to sell them to me. I kept the note for future endeavors. Also, the family drove from New Jersey to San Diego when I was 5 in a Cadillac. I'd sleep lengthwise where the rear window slanted down. I think I drank out of a garden hose a few times as well. 

[MrBirdman]

Littering on the highway. I remember my grandfather would literally just throw garbage right out the window. 

[Edicion]

Sitting in the smoking section of airplanes where people would be free to smoke non-stop if they so wished.

[SGD316]

Going outside regularly and not being glued to a screen 

 

Only half kidding. 

[Chas.Alpha]

Each member of my posse was required to take an old bicycle and put our cut-down old wooden skis on the front and rear tire mounts of the frame. Learning how to ride it down the hills was challenging, but when we would tie a waterski rope to the steering mount and tow it behind a snowmobile, it took the sport to a whole new level! 😳 I still have a scar below my left rib cage from a handle bar after a wipeout!

Thank God my liver still works!!!

[SenorT]

Lawn darts.

[NapaNolan]

I'm younger than a lot of you but not the youngest here, so I think for people around my age...

Posting wild stuff on message boards without any realization that it might be used against you later. I think a lot of pre-Facebook/Twitter/Instagram sites have been wiped pretty clean but you can't say inflammatory stuff anonymously now like you could 10-15 years ago. It's probably one of the reasons I'll never run for office!

[...]

3 minutes ago, NapaNolan said:

I'm younger than a lot of you but not the youngest here, so I think for people around my age...

Posting wild stuff on message boards without any realization that it might be used against you later. I think a lot of pre-Facebook/Twitter/Instagram sites have been wiped pretty clean but you can't say inflammatory stuff anonymously now like you could 10-15 years ago. It's probably one of the reasons I'll never run for office!

To be fair, the people who run for office (and get elected) have often said, written and done things which are problematic for most; seems that as long as one is appealing to the electorate's basest nature, a foul past seem to be easily disregarded.

My opinion only, but ethics and moral seems to be a lesser issue in politics as long as one's politics is aligned with corporate interests, which are the parties funding electoral campaigns to begin with (in most countries anyways).

Not planning to run for office either, just for different reasons ☺️

[NapaNolan]

1 minute ago, Jeanff said:

To be fair, the people who run for office (and get elected) have often said, written and done things which are problematic for most; seems that as long as one is appealing to the electorate's basest nature, a foul past seem to be easily disregarded.

My opinion only, but ethics and moral seems to be a lesser issue in politics as long as one's politics is aligned with corporate interests, which are the parties funding electoral campaigns to begin with (in most countries anyways).

Not planning to run for office either, just for different reasons ☺️

You turned my joke into depressing reality 🤑

[Fuzz]

Fireworks + cane toads.

[Kaptain Karl]

I know all you who partied through the 70’s and 80’s don’t wanna tell your kids what you really did 😂😂😂

[Fuzz]

8 minutes ago, Kaptain Karl said:

I know all you who partied through the 70’s and 80’s don’t wanna tell your kids what you really did 😂😂😂

[PigFish]

I could tell you but … 

-the Pig

[Stanislaw]

If you wanted to make a phone call, you had to go home to do it.... or to a friends house.... or to work.... or to a street corner.

if you wanted the news you needed to buy a paper.

if you wanted to watch a tv show you needed to be home when it was being broadcast otherwise you would never get to see what happened....

yeah, I'm not old and bitter at all 

[RedLantern]

My mom used to give my brother and I bus fare and send us downtown by ourselves for the day in the early 90's - we were probably 9 and 11? 10 and 12 at the latest. We managed to get into our share of mischief and scary situations, but thankfully no harm came of it! Once we were both in middle school we each got bus passes as we had to take the city bus to our school bus stop. We got to use those passes to ride for free on the weekends and took full advantage bumming all around the city with our low-rate hoodlum friends trying to "hey mister" some beer or finding an old hippy to sell us a dime bag of shake.