Erector Sets - I Never Had One As A Child. Did You? I Do Now.

[prndl]

Shotgun shells were another great thing to play with when we were kids.

Once, we emptied the shot out of a shell (leaving the powder and wad), placed it into one side of pop's twice-gun barrel and slid a wooden arrow in front of it. Then we pulled the trigger.

The arrow actually hit something, blasting itself halfway inside an old fencepost with its ass-end looking like a dead chicken buried heads-up.

I got more of these, btw...some of them self-incriminating.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

Shotgun shells were another great thing to play with when we were kids.

Shotgun shells in the campfire was a great way to wake your friends up when camping. And, hitting them with a hammer. I only did this once, as the hammer flew back out of my hand.

I also used to love my cap guns. Ahhhh, the smell...

 

[sablebrush52]

As a child of the 80’s... I didn’t have the patience for an erector set. I needed more immediate results. Usually played with toy guns, army guys, GI joes, Super Power figures, etc etc. The erector set at this point was way too old school plus it has the word “erect” in it which can make you avoid it like the plague lol

So...child of the '80's...essentially you played with...dolls...

We'd play war, dig tunnels, build forts, beat the crap out of each other, and blow up stuff. M80's were great for blowing up model airplanes, and we figured out some form of noxious goop that did a great job of causing model ships to burn in an eerily realistic manner.

No Halloween was complete without the delivery of a flaming bag of dogshit surprise on somebody's porch.

Erector sets probably saved a lot of us from winding up in juvie, oh, and moving boxes. You could do a lot with a moving box, like, turn it into a space ship and fly to Mars.

 

[jpmcwjr]

Digging tunnels! Oh, yeah. We started a few, and one got dangerously deep, and as we started a sideways dig, we heard about a kid that got buried and died when it collapsed. So, we found something else to explore.

One myth that persisted for a few months was started by a friend whose dad was the local fuel distributor: Standard Oil would pay $10,000 for a single log that contained amazing amounts of recoverable fuel.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

M80's

Ahhhhh, I wish I could still find these. There wasn't a mailbox in my neighborhood that was safe. We had one neighbor that tried making one of those heavy duty cast iron pipe and concrete deals to keep us from destroying it. It merely presented a larger challenge. 12 M80's, duct tape, and a lit cigarette fuse delay. BOOM!

 

[jpmcwjr]

We seemed to have a good supply of cherry bombs, but M-80's were harder to come by. For some reason, we weren't in to blowing up mailboxes, probably because there weren't many in our village.

I can't remember what we liked to blow up! Tonka trucks?

 

[cosmicfolklore]

You could also go fishing with M80's. The fuse was waterproof, we could buy them at the beach, and toss them off the pier to knock the air out of the fish, and then just scoop them up with a net. I'm pretty sure this wasn't legal, but I am not so sure that it was legal to sell these at the beach to begin with.

 

[shanez]

You could do a lot with a moving box, like, turn it into a space ship and fly to Mars.

The best was when someone got a new large appliance like a washer or dryer. Open both ends of the box, crawl inside, and boom. Instant tank.

 

[BROBS]

So...child of the '80's...essentially you played with...dolls...

We'd play war, dig tunnels, build forts, beat the crap out of each other, and blow up stuff. M80's were great for blowing up model airplanes, and we figured out some form of noxious goop that did a great job of causing model ships to burn in an eerily realistic manner.

No Halloween was complete without the delivery of a flaming bag of dogshit surprise on somebody's porch.

Erector sets probably saved a lot of us from winding up in juvie, oh, and moving boxes. You could do a lot with a moving box, like, turn it into a space ship and fly to Mars.

oh I only meant as far as toys.. don't get me wrong we blew shit up, shot shit with BB guns, threw items under moving vehicles, had many stick wars, wore boxes as hats and if big enough of course they were a car/fort/ship/cave. I remember laying on the retaining dike of the park by my home in a prone position with a Red Ryder BB gun shooting at people's kites they were flying. We were complete idiots, just like you, trust me.

Kids didn't change that much by the 80s... we just had better toys.
now kids of the 90s started into the not wanting to go outside, playing video games 24/7, etc. We had video games, our parents just wouldn't let us play them all the time... they kicked our asses outside.

 

[prndl]

M-80's flushed down the school toilet would usually bring a big surprise.

 

[olkofri]

M-80's flushed down the school toilet would usually bring a big surprise.

So would a battery thrown in. Or so I was told. Never tried it. Never on the receiving end of it either.

 

[scloyd]

Sleeping in the backyard in tents with friends and when Mom & Dad fell asleep it was time to roam the town. We didn't do anything except walk around. We thought it was cool that we were out wandering around after midnight.

And, pennies on the railroad tracks. I had a band-aid tin full of flattened pennies.