What are some things that were done when you were young that people would look askance on now?

Playing in a sand pit, digging until we found mud, then water.
The pit was in a public area, behind a building, and was covered with inch wide rope net, to keep animals out.
Fail.
I’m sure I’ve dug through heaps of cat and dog litter, but here I am, still alive.
I do howl during sex though…

We had a lower level and beyond that was a creek. It would sometimes flood the entire lower level Dad had cut some steps out to go down there, off the house patio. He cut two sets of notches in railroad ties at the top of the steps so he could slide 2 pieces of plywood into, and the empty space between t hem would be filled with sand. It was just in case it ever flooded high enough to reach that high. (It hasn’t to this day.)
He kept the sand in a sand box made of railroad ties at the end of our drive way. Cats from all over shat in that sand! But we played in it anyway.

age 7–8
Accompanying my stoned dad on a bar crawl looking for his alcoholic older brother before he does something really stupid and gets arrested.

age 9–10
Exploring, building forts, throwing rocks at passing cars from an abandoned cinder block factory behind my house. Would climb to the top of the nearby billboard and hop a ride on the passing freight train too.

age 10–12
Regularly going to the corner store to pick up cigarettes for my mother. Sometimes packs, sometimes cartons.

age 11–14
Spending hours a day alone, riding my bike into some sketchy parts of the city. Hanging out in arcades, record stores, smoke shops (where the kept the nudie mags), comic shops.

age 15
Spending the summer with a friend and his older sister and her friends. Lots of booze and weed. Sold some weed too.

Those were the days my friend! I’m sorry about your stoned dad and drunk uncle, though.

When I was just 6 or 7, and we lived in Clearwater, Florida, Mom would send me to a convenience store alone to pick something up. I had to cross a busy highway, too. I remember walking along the shoulder and a truck coming toward me lost it’s trailer. They were right beside me in the opposite lane. I watched that trailer fly off of the shoulder and wreck in what ever. I remember thanking God it went that way and not toward me.

Also, we had a salt water canal behind our house. It came off of Tampa Bay. No fence. It rose and fell with the tide. My Mom used to send me out with my little sister, who was 3 years younger than me, with instructions to keep an eye on her. I knew how to swim, but not well enough to rescue something. Well, I was watching when she she fell off the sea wall! Thank God the tide was out and nothing worse than a bump happened.
They never knew where we were or what we were doing. Everyone in the neighborhood was like that. Our neighbors had an indoor pool. There was nothing to keep us out of that pool. Pulled my sister out of there a couple of times too.

My sister and I were latchkey kids at ages 8 and 10. Just a couple of hours after school. I used to think she was 7, but my mom corrected me, because of when her birthday falls.

Wearing a bikini when I was in elementary school. Seems now people are all freaked out that it’s attracting pedophiles or something.

Enjoying the aroma of gasoline.

People are stupid @JLeslie.

I would go to a sports bar when I was 15 with my father and split 100 chicken wings and two pitchers of pop. While playing ntn.

Riding bikes the two miles into town for ice cream at age 8 on our own.

Going into NYC by bus (an hour and a half trip) with my girlfriend when we were around 11 and 12 and walking around the city for the day.

Jumping into sand dunes from cliffs at the gravel pit.

Vanishing for hours into the countryside.

Swimming and ice skating at my friend’s pond on our own from an early age.

Yup – we were “free range kids!”

Riding our bikes at 12 years old from over by Culver City in Los Angles to Rancho Palos Verdes. About 20 miles one way.

I was exempt from curfew because I had a telescope. Even at 3am when I was 13.

We had a “bug truck” that came by once a month and sprayed pesticides in all the alleys where the garage cans were kept. My brothers, along with all the other boys in the neighborhood wood ride their bikes behind it.
We would ride our bikes all over town for hours at age 7 or 8 on up just as long as we were home for dinner. Our parents never knew where we were. We rode the bus into the big city at 13 on up by ourselves.
We swam at night in the river, jumping off the bridge as teenagers.
I’m so surprised I’m still alive.

I am so surprised I am still alive too!

We sometimes went to my aunt and uncle’s cabin on a lake in Oklahoma. They had kids the same age as we were. One day we went swimming in the lake. There were floating docs out in the lake. My cousins had discovered you could swim down and under the docks and come up underneath them. It was cool. It was a watery green color and there were critters on the wall. Now if I had been watching my kids and they disappeared under the water and didn’t come back up, I’d be all over that!

* floating docks *, not docs. Not, like, a whole bunch of Rarebears floating on the lake!

It is amazing we weren’t killed.

Some were. Just not us.

Sometimes I reminisce about this stuff with my friends, how nowadays, the mom would get arrested for stuff we used to do as kids. Around age 7 or 8 we’d walk all over town by ourselves (one kid solo or two or three kids). We’d walk to stores, the library, church, into town, all over, several miles with no parent. We’d be out all day, walking around, no parents. When I was about 13 I started taking the train into NYC (about 40 minutes each way) to hang out. I’d go visit my mom at work if it was a work day. On weekends, I’d go into Greenwich Village and hang out, sit in Washington Square Park and just hang out or walk around.

When I was 18 and 19, people would drink and drive and we’d not get into legal trouble for doing it. Now a few drinks and you’d be arrested.

^Oh man. I was partying in the 70s and got so many DUI passes. MADD changed that in the 80s…and that is good.

Drunk driving was a hobby. We would load up the car with beer and go roaming the countryside looking for entertainment.

Getting caught as a youngster and spending a few nights in jail probably saved my life. I stopped being an idiot (in that particular way).

I was stopped, more than once, when I had been drinking. It wasn’t even brought up and I was never issued a ticket for anything.

When my son was in High School they had a MADD presentation. They had people wear these crazy glasses that mimicked how things look when you’re drunk (double,) and then had you walk an obstacle course. My son wanted to know how I was able to do it without wrecking!
Um. Nevermind, son.

The very last time I drove drunk was in 1996. My 20th class reunion. I was wasted! But I made it. Really scared myself, too. Never did it again.

They had people wear these crazy glasses that mimicked how things look when you’re drunk (double,)

Today they should do something like that for texting while driving.

I wish. If it was up to me, people would have to pass a simulator before being granted their license.