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Bit by a dog who had rabies in New Orleans, swan in an abandonded quarry in Pa no lifeguards to save you, dove off the rocks into ice cold spring waters of the quarry.
Played outdoors till dark, explored caves in the woods, caught snakes.
Given baby chickens for Easter and later given chicken for Sunday dinner never knew what happened to my pets. I survived and I feel stronger for the way I grew up.
No weight problems as food was never an issue.
Long Island, only one family had a TV on the block where we lived so all the kids would get together at 5 PM to sit on the floor to watch this big strange black and white tube, no snacks were every served. The street was our playground, stick ball, kick ball, basketball all played till dark. No rubber mats under our swings, bloody knees yes.
Never late for dinner as then I could not have the pleasure of doing these things all over again tomorrow.
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Building elaborate underground tunnels in the woods and flimsy tree forts on the tops of pine trees.
Weren't those forts wonderful? Some boys even had long tunnels leading to the beach from the cliffs up above. No one said, "Don't do that. Whaddareyanutz?"
Even the girls had cool forts in the trees with little chairs and umbrellas for roofs. Everyone stayed
outside all day. We were like our own tribe. PLAY DATES ???
What the heck is that?
Play dates are such a strange idea and something we didn't have growing up. These days people seem more transient with job changes, divorces and moving to bigger homes which may have something to do with the rise if the play date.
I like the tribe idea!
Anybody else remember the only two times you had to remember was lunch and dinner. You knew it was lunch time when they tested the fire siren which happened each day at noon, and dinner was close when you noticed which dads car was in their driveway. Mr P was home at 4, my dad at 5:30 and Mr. M at 6. If you saw Mr. M's car then you knew you were late and in trouble.
Last edited by ClarkStreetKid; 12-14-2007 at 06:17 PM..
thanks for this, i have been on vairous city-data forum researching my next relocation
grew up on long island and miss it from time to time.
this is my first visit to the NY-LI site - thanks for the memories
born West Islip 1970, Good Sam - moved to Florida in 1993 (after college in Philly)
Just like when we were kids it was only a matter of time before Aunt Bea showed up to ruin our fun.
Newbie, Don't know where you grew up or when but let us enjoy our memories of our childhoods. Who knows, if you grew up during the Happy Days or Wonder Years you might have enjoyed yourself.
Just as we did when we were kids, we forgot very quickly we were mad and continued playing.
Let's just keep the memories going. If someone doesn't appreciate the thread they can move on.
For me personally being back on the LI area makes my day. I enjoy every bit of the memories.
My own experiences growing up on LI in the 70s and early 80s:
Playing flashlight tag well into the evening. Catching lightening bugs. Jumping in the pool around mid-night on those really hot humid LI July nights.
Setting up the pop-up camper in the driveway and sleeping in it in the summer.
Mud Football on a cold wet day - come home and mom would make me strip in the backyard.
Baseball games all the time - if we didn't have enough guys we'd reverse the field - since we were mostly right handed anyway and would hit the ball accordingly, 3rd base became first and so on - any ball hit between second and 3rd (which was really 1st normally) was foul. These games would go on for hours. Totally unsupervised.
Climbing the barbed wire fences into the Sumps to go "exploring."
Fishing at the local lakes and ponds.
Hanging out in tree houses.
Shooting off lots of fireworks. Blowing up stuff. We'd build model airplanes and then try to make them fly by taping on bottle rockets.
Shooting BB Guns from neighbors bedroom window at targets in the backyard.
We made toy boats using electric motors.
Rebuilding bicycles using the coolest parts from other junked bikes. Often these creations fell apart while trying to do a jump off a homemade ramp.
Delivering Newspapers on my own and doing collections - all year round. So I'd have money for fireworks, basball cards, ice cream, etc...
Riding our bicycles everywhere - getting lost, but always finding our way home eventually.
Creating Haunted Houses in our basements around Halloween and then invite all the neighborhood kids in. Trick-or-Treating well into the night. Of course all the egg and shaving cream fights.
Snowball fighhts in the winter. Building Snow Forts after a really big snow fall. We'd pile up the snow - spray water - let freeze- and the dig out a cavern.
Honestly. I don't remember doing much homework - I don't know if I just did't do it or there really wasn't much assigned in those days. So I guess that is why we had so much free time after school.
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Always with the agenda nbres
