Growing up in the 1970s & How We Should All Be Dead!

I was born in '74 so I suppose I really did most of my growing up in the 80s. This article pretty much applies to that decade just the same. The way things are now, you'd think those of us that survived the 70s and 80s are the lucky few, spartan champions, daredevils akin to Evil Knievel, straight up freaking children of Krypton powered by the yellow sun! We jumped our bikes over 20 foot drops, rode our skateboards in concrete ditches and emptied swimming pools. We played "war" in the woods and creeks using rocks for hand grenades (I actually got a few stitches in the head for that a couple times) and shot BB guns at each other (extreme on my part perhaps... but fun none the less). We had toy guns that looked like real guns and didn't have to worry about getting shot by people with real guns! Seatbelts? What's a freaking seatbelt? We'd stay outside and play until the street lights came on... and sometimes a little longer.... How did we survive! The neighborhoods are a concrete jungle, man!

We played with blasting caps, gasoline, potato guns, threw aerosol cans into bon fires, launched bottle rockets from our hands, etc. Still here!

I remember getting my as beat for damn near sticking my dad with a Yard Dart! :rofl: And those steel dashes on cars, hit those one or twice as a kid with a sudden stop by my mom. Alas...the good ole days...

Oh, and PS: you still got your ass beat by your folks back then! BELIEVE DAT BROTHER>>>>...

In both adult and children's lives, a lot has been done to take Darwin's laws out of the equation.

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Excellent point. All you have to do to survive nowadays is follow the rules, go to school/job, and keep swiping that credit card.
We need more non-microbial human predators... that is, things that eat humans.

Long trips in the car, and standing between my parents on the front seat, or having mom make us kids a bed in the floor boards. I don't think our car even had seat belts.

I remember hardly ever seeing the walls inside of restaurants, because of the cigarette smoke filling the place. My pediatrician would give the exam in one room, and then we would have to set in the waiting room to visit his office after the exam. As a courtesy, he would extinguish his cigar if we had something that might be aggravated by it, like pneumonia or a cold. But, a broken bone.. He just kept on puffing, ha ha.

If I had been good all year, I got a 1lb can of black powder for my birthday. Fill up some Estes rockets with that and launch them out over the neighborhood!
In the mid 70's, the local Army Reserve base was all but abandoned. We'd go up there and drive the deuce and halfs around the parking lot, then go explore the abandoned Nike missile silos. Abandoned houses were always fun and scary. We'd make small campfires in the basements. Surprising as hell we never fell through the rotting floor boards or burned anything to the ground.

Smacking shotgun shells with a hammer was always good fun on camping trips. ,

Laughing for the last 10 minutes from the article, but mostly from reading thru all the comments that followed.
What happened to this country? Look all around you and contrast today's thinking with how kids grew up 30-50 years ago. Boys growing up today are nothing more than girls with peckers. Sissies. Parents are worse. They just can't say "no" and want to be friends with their kids instead of being parents that set boundaries. Results: Look at all those wining liberal-progressive, snowflakes that riot, destroy, complain, who are always outraged and offended by anything they deem unacceptable...
But, some good things have evolved. Using some common sense protections, like wearing a seat belt, or wearing helmet, have proven to prevent serious, and tragic injury. But trying to eliminate -by legislation- any and all risks, becomes stifling and unnecessary. Today intrusive rules and reg's. have turned way too many of us into super-sensitive, dependent, adult-children who cannot solve a problem without any intervention. Today, too many face little or no personal responsibility as a consequence for using bad judgement. Sometimes we need to fail, and need NOT get bailed out.
I grew up in NYC, in the '50s and '60s and played in the streets when I was 5 years old, unsupervised. I did plenty of dangerous things. I got a black powder cannon when I was 12 years old... and shot it off, every 4th of July. When I was in High School we had a rifle team, and shot 22s. Try getting away with doing this today. I got slapped around by adults, and kicked in the ass by total strangers. I got wooden spoons broken on my backside if I got a little too snotty with my mom. Pop kicked my ass a few times too. I deserved it. I learned. Today, those same adults, judged by today's standards, would have been brought up on abuse charges. But, that was then and this is now.
Fun to read through this article. Bring back the Lawn Darts and BB guns.
Frank

Funny, at that age you just don't think it through. I grew up in the fifties mostly. We had the idea that we could do the acrobatic teeter board stunt where a big guy jumps on the up end of the teeter board and launches a little guy into the air. I was the little guy. It worked perfectly. Once I was six feet in the air, I had no plan. I carried my right arm around to school in a bandana sling for several days until my mom collected me and took me to the orthopedics doctor at the hospital who snapped my wrist back in place with a click. Real pain, but fast. Dr. Wosniak. He knew exactly what he was doing. Had plaster all over his shoes from doing casts. I don't even like to think about the other brushes with doom. Just riding my bike around Chicagoland was city traffic. It's not part of my denominational creed, but I have to believe in the religious concept of grace. Something was tending me since I certainly wasn't.

Ah, yes, Michael. I forgot about zip guns. And throwing .22's into the burn barrel.

When I was in High School we had a rifle team, and shot 22s. Try getting away with doing this today.

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Minnesota now has a high school sport of trap shooting, quite a few schools, especially rural, now have teams of both girls and boys. The sport has grown incredibly fast the last 2 years.

@ prairiedruid:
Ahhhh.... I should've remembered that things, in other parts of our country, can be a lot different when you live in a state where people are still relatively "free". Living in NYC all my life, has just about killed off any concept of personal "freedom", and the PC Police makes sure the concept stays dead. Oh...unless of course, you're an anarchist, socialist, progressive. Then you can do/say what ever you damn well please in The Big Rotten Apple.
Frank

Most common last words from rednecks:

"Dude. Watch this...

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Growing up in the country, we didn't have zip guns. But most kids got their own 4-10 gauge shotgun when they were ten years old and up. At 12 and 13 years, most of us hunted unsupervised.