What did you do as a kid that could be classed as pretty dangerous & what was your parents reaction, if they even found out?
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July 10th, 2020
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I liked to climb high-voltage power towers. I also crazy carpeted on old fort point in Jasper National park and nearly fell off of the edge.
I threw rocks at drug dealers and had to fight them to go to school and back. From grade 3 to grade 9.
Riding in the back of pick up trucks about 80mph.
Climbing really big trees.
Swimming with snapping turtles and water moccasins
Playing and 4wheeling underneath the insterstate.
Bareback horse-riding.
Anytime I got offered a motorcycle ride I said yes from very young.
Night boating way too fast.
(I like speed if you can’t tell)
Twelve years old swam out to a 8 foot long piece of a pier in the Pacific Ocean. It was over a quarter of a mile out. Got to it and started pushing it in while I swam behind it. Noticed my mom talking to a guy with orange swim trunks (lifeguard) . Got in with log. Asked my mom what did the lifeguard say. She said, “Do you think he’s okay ?” my mom’s answer was, “He would not have started out if he didn’t think he could get back in.”
Jumped into the deep end of swimming pool as ordered by instructor even though I didn’t know how to swim.
Held my breath the whole time until I reached the three foot end.
Climbed trees, and wandered wherever as in our time no one cared where we were , and thus stayed out until late evening..no one looked for us.
Called my bluff on a bully in a girls group telling her ” bring it” and they ALL ran!
( Thank goodness for that as I had never fought anyone except my sister in a minor scrap.)
Questioned in public the Mother Superior in our Orphanage and she conceded that I was correct in useless procedures which stopped after that.
( I asked her “If’she knew what the question and answers were the day before? She didn’t know and I told her neither did any of the 400 girls either! So what was the point of this day to day useless exercise? )
( 400 of us children at that orphanage were made to get up at 6 AM for 8 AM breakfast?
We were to line up for a couple of hours as EACH one by one were drilled on Religious studies each day.
Now I realize the point was to keep the Nun’s busy plus keep us moving?
See @KNOWITALL ‘s list but leave out #4. I was probably too busy sticking bobby pins in electrical outlets.
Anything to to with fireworks, chemicals, fire, and gunpowder. i won’t leave details.
My parents would be horrified. Heck, I’m horrified.
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Hitchhiked on El Camino Real about ten miles to go to the county fair in San Mateo when I was 12. My parents were under the impression I was watching a movie at a friend’s.
My sister and I used to train hop. Not very far. Maybe about five miles to the next town over.
Didn’t seem like a big deal as a kid. But I would have a heart attack if any of my kids did this.
Snuck into an abandoned state hospital in Michigan.
Snuck into an abandoned cottage along Lake Huron. The house was falling apart and on a slant. The only thing left inside was an old brass bed and fridge with a gnarly bottle of ketchup inside. A bunch of friends and I hung out in there. People were making out. Haha.
@Lucille It wasnt smart but it sure was fun. Probably illegal too.
Copious amounts of drugs and alcohol.
There was a place near the edge of our really small rural town where one railroad crossed a trestle over another. We would hide in the girders under the rails as the train passed four to six feet overhead!
Add that to any number of things the countryside would hold for an adventurous group of boys in the 1950’s, including but not limited to:
Climbing and playing on railcars on a siding; drinking untreated water from streams and ponds; jumping bikes over huge snowpiles at the end of the main street; climbing really large trees; grabbing the bed of a moving pickup truck while on a bike.
It’s amazing I never had any major injuries as a child!
My grandparents’ property went down to the Hudson, where there was a train track, and we’d go down there and put a penny on the track and the train would come by and squish it. That was about the worst thing I did as far as what could harm me.
As a teen, though, it’s a whole ‘nother story.
Forgot about smooshing pennies! We used to leave a penny on the tracks on our way to the beach. And pick up the smooshed penny on the way home. Had a jar full of smooshed pennies at home. Wish I still had it. Lots of great memories.
@raum
I love smooshed objects!
I used a smooshing machine at the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair, to make a commemorative coin.
I’d like to try smooshing other metallic objects. I wonder what smooshed utensils would look like.
If you ever get the urge or have the occasion, please let me know. ;-p
I played on the runway at Rockcliffe airport in Ottawa, Canada.
My parents found out. They told me that my trespassing, held up an arriving flight that was carrying Winnie Churchill.
My brother and I were climbing in the rafters of a house under construction. I fell and it knocked the breath out of me. Bro put me in our wagon and when we got home he went in and said “sister got killed” It scared my mom half to death.
Ha! So satisfying, right?
I thought about this some more. I grew up on basically flat Long Island. Fifty plus years ago, storm water drainage was handled by a combination of sumps, retention ponds, underground culverts, and ditches.
In the dry season, we would hop the fence around the sump and investigate the tunnels. We played Army in the tunnels. Tossing M-80s inside the culvert before crawling in.
@lucillelucillelucille We were tossing in the M-80s to clear the tunnels of rats – even though we never saw one. We mostly enjoyed the concussion and the smoke. One culvert went under the Meadowbrook Parkway and we would crawl through it to go from one side to the other. There were drainage grates that lead up to the road surface and they would make a whooomf! sound when cars passed overhead.
@LuckyGuy -That’s a sensible approach—now that you’ve explained it. XD
We played in the drainage tunnels on the LAX Airport. We’d bring cardboard cartons (we would stop an the back of Von’s) to slide down the concrete culverts or grassy hills and slopes. It was the airport property but before they extended the runways , so there no planes.
An amusing story from my small town in the 1950’s..
The railroad ran along the main street through the town, and occasionally a train would stop to pick up or drop off freight cars at the grain elevator. Moe was the owner of the local greasy spoon restaurant, and they had run an intercom to Ray’s, the local bar. One rather warm Saturday Moe and his wife had been arguing, so he went over to Ray’s, teen take a few minutes before the expected afternoon rush.
The customers came into the restaurant, and Moe’s wife started getting slammed. After about a half hour, she got on the intercom and asked Ray to send Moe back, because she was getting swamped. Moe must have been feeling harassed. He was sitting there, all of his pocket change on the bar, and he told Ray, “I’ll show her! I’m gonna hop that freight train over there!”
Sure enough, he walked over to an open boxcar climbed in, and waved toward the restaurant as the train pulled out.
His intention was to ride down the tracks about a mile and hop off, but the train picked up speed too quickly, and he couldn’t hop off until he got to the next town, about 30 miles away! Once there, he didn’t even have a dime for a phone call! So he had to hitchhike back!
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