markngolf Loc: Bridgewater, NJ

No, just part of a better generation of humans!! We did all that too. We developed independence and our creative abilities. I played baseball, softball, football and basketball on fields, make shift courts in backyards, no adults, no umpires, no coaches no instruction. We learned by experiences of failure and striving to get better.
Mark

Horseart Loc: Alabama

Prayers for your wife a speedy and complete recovery Mark.
Sure have enjoyed reading all these good times from the good old days!

Barre Loc: Fairfax Co, VA

In the Summer months we used to play hide and seek 'after' the lights came on. We had lots of outdoor games...and socializing to boot

markngolf Loc: Bridgewater, NJ

Thank you, Jo!! “The Good Old Days” were fantastic and the people who lived during those times were also fantastic!!
We are only a few years of separation from “The Greatest Generation”!
Mark

Horseart Loc: Alabama

SteveR Loc: Michigan

The neighborhood kids played kick the can once that I was involved in. Once, in the dark, under the street lights. But what a blast.

Ernie1945 Loc: Oxford, Ohio

How about trading cards? Baseball and football cards (5 cards and a piece of gum for 25 cents). Pitching the cards against a wall to see who could get closer and win the toss. I distinctly remember Mickey Mantle, Ted Williams, Hank Aaron among others being lost in a toss. I cry today when I see how much these cards are going for. The same goes for the 10-cent comic books. A fortune being lost in youth recreation.

markngolf Loc: Bridgewater, NJ

I think you still have the fortune. It's in the memories, not the cards.
Mark

Bruce T Loc: Michigan

Did you forget that you played outside for hours, as kids, and never got burnt.
I use to play baseball for hours in shorts and no shirt…I don’t ever remember getting a sun burn.
Maybe it was because I lived in a Detroit Michigan suburb, too far north to burn?

Scruples Loc: Brooklyn, New York

We played Jonnie on the Pony.
We played Skellie.
We played Steal The Bacon

We played Parchesi and other board games on rainy days.

My mom and dad would buy me Hardy Boys Mystery books

I would ride my bike with my friends in the Park.

Life and growing up was a lot of fun when we were kids and not in school!

Artcameraman Loc: Springfield NH

Every kid with access to one would shoot the Poor kids for fun. Had soups for supper most days with rice.

sjb3

Born in '49, living on Long Island (Sayville, NY, in Suffolk County). One clear memory in particular from that time, from about mid-1956 to Autumn of '60 when my Dad was transferred and we moved to the Midwest, was how us little grade-school-age kids played casually on the LIRR tracks, which were in continual use at the time by both freight and passenger rolling stock (though I can only recall the small 2-car silver-sided "B.U.D.D." cars I think they were called or something like that, that came along that track with passenger traffic, like an Interurban car would). My point being that we kids felt perfectly at home on the tracks, and all of us had the sense to get 'way off to the side of them when we saw a train was coming, though we just had to put pennies and ballast gravel on the tracks first for the train to run over). No one ever got hurt, though looking back on it from so many years on, we must have surely given the Engineer fits when he saw us running around like monkeys on his track. As a bonus, Concord grapes grew wild along the right-of-way which we feasted on and carried home if my beloved Nana was visiting (as she did twice a year back then) to make jelly. There was also a creek where we played & waded/swam, all day long with no supervision at all, but no trouble at all, either. As everyone else here has said: All that's long gone and won't be back...

Bubba211 Loc: Southport, N. Carolina

Don't let the Oldman in!!!!!! Keep on trucking and make new memories. It can be done. Have some laughs everyday and keep on remembering the days past.

HistoryLover Loc: Landenberg,Pa.

I think that all the time!! I honestly feel sorry for the kids today. Technology is making us robots. What would happen if all the cell phones went down. Could anyone read a map to see how to get where they want to go?!!

markngolf Loc: Bridgewater, NJ

I lived 4 blocks from the tracks. Adjacent to the tracks was a local ballpark where we played softball, football, baseball, ... We would take pennies and carefully place them on the tracks before a train would pass. We'd get flattened pennies. Most of us always had one in our pockets. We were around the tracks everyday. No one was ever hurt or hit. We also played football (touch), baseball and stickball in the street. Either we'd move or the car would move. No one ever had an accident. We would watch for cars and the cars would watch for us.

Wonderful youth in my hometown of Bradley Beach, NJ. It was not all fun. By the time I was 23, my brother (age 2.5) my Dad (age 41) and my Mom (age 49) had all passed. My sister was an orphan at 15. Nevertheless, I have mostly fond memories of my youth.
Mark

note: During the 6th grade, 4 of us asked for a meeting with the Mayor. We told him we really had no place to play sports. He had the ballpark built near the tracks. That was pretty cool!!