I would like to hear what things were like when you were growing up?

Question

Any stories or old memories you want to share would be cool. I'm just interested in what "the good old days" were like.

I love all the stories so far -- keep em coming. Thank you for sharing your memories with me.

Every story shared was awesome. I can't pick a best one, so I'm going to put it to vote. I would like to thank everyone who shared their story with me.

Answer 1

I grew up in the eighties and found it be to fascinating, we could go outside and play and not have to worry about crime rate. My favorite pass time on the weekend was sitting down in front of the television and watching Looney Tunes on Saturday morning with a bowl of Cocoa Crispies. I remember those little slap bands that you would slap on your arm and they would pop into place around your wrist. Playing four square and dodge ball on the playground at school, and red rover, red rover. I felt so carefree, had many friends and many enemies but made many memories.

Answer 2

One of my fondest memories is my parents yard was really low. So when it rained, our yard would fill up with water. Every kid in the neighborhood would come over and we would all go swimming in it.

Another thing that I remember doing was going down the road about a 1/4 of a mile from the house and go "fishing" for crawdads and bring the big ones home and letting mom fix them for us to eat.

I also remember mom and dad and I going to town on Saturday afternoon. Dad would always put a spoon in his shirt pocket and off we would go. He would then drive to the store and get a small carton of ice cream, he would take that spoon out of his pocket and start eating it, (only a couple of bites). Then take the rest of it home and then we would all have some. We got smart after the first time or two of him doing that and started bring our own spoons with us, only we would have them hid until he start eating the ice cream. Then we would just stay in the truck, park in the parking lot and eat it until it was all gone and then back home we would go.

Then a couple of times a year, we would make a big bag of popcorn, and get a few pops, then head off to see a picture show at the drive in.

Answer 3

KIWI,
I was a WWII war baby who was born out of wedlock, adopted and still don't know my natural parents.
Lived in New Hampshire, Connecticut, New York as my adopted father was an Eectrical Engineer who was transfered several times due to his job.

I joined the Army in Nov. 1967, go sent to Vietnam and have been stationed in Thailand, Germany for 5 1/2 yrs and am now retired and enjoying life as I can on a limited budget.

I have traveled the world and would love to go back to some of the places where I have lived to see all the changed.

Taught myself about computers and try hard to stay with all the changes that have happened over the last 64 years since I came into the world.

Answer 4

Shari summed up my childhood exactly! thanks Shari!

From 13 - 17 [1955 - 1959] I lived in France as my Dad was in the Army. We didn't live close enough to an American High School for me to go daily, so I lived in the dormitory of one 3 hrs away.

I had four roommates...and on the girl's side of the dorm we had 9 'babys' with 4-5 girls per bay...in the middle of the structure was the mess hall/rec room and kitchen and the far wing was the boys' wing.

We all had breakfast together, then after making our beds GI style, walked across the street to school, which was pretty much like most high schools, teachers were Americans who asked to teach in Dependent Schools abroad. After school, we'd go back to the dorm, do homework, have dinner, then we had a 2 hr period of recreation where we'd play 45's and 78's, dance and sit around and talk. We were not allowed off the side of the base where our dormitory was located, but did
sneak to the other side from time to time, so we could go to the base snack bar!...We also went to the movies on base, roller skated [indoor] and went bowling. We had no TV....this may have seemed dull to youth today, no electronics, no phones, etc etc, but it was the happiest period of my life to date! full of wonder, safe experimentation, 'love', fun, and learning and exposure........Today, 13 of those who lived in the dorm with me back then and I have reunited through various websites and we meet twice a year...it's like these 4+ decades never happened and we are the same pony tailed, duck tailed teens of yesteryear! :-)

Answer 5

My parents bought their first house in NJ shortly after I was born. Back then it was a little lake community (not hardly now) and the older I got the more I realized that although I didn't know everybody, everybody seemed to know me, and my father - that man knew wherever I was and until I was a teenager I couldn't figure out why. Then again, I assumed my mother had eyes in the back of her head, too, because she always seemed to know things she shouldn't have known.

Back then, kids could play outside after dark and they were safe. Neighbors walked and waved to each other. You knew who your neighbors were. If you did something you shouldn't have (not that I ever did anything I shouldn't have, ahem) a neighbor would discipline you and your parents were all for it. Everyone looked out for one another. Neighbors could rely on neighbors when they needed help, and kids knew they could go to a neighbor if their parents weren't around.

When I became a teen, it wasn't cool to ride a bike so you walked wherever you went. My best friend and I would walk half way around the lake to meet each other and then go where we were going. I'd walk miles to work in a grocery store. I remember my first "job" was babysitting when I was 12. My first "real" job at age 16 was in a W. T. Grant's department store. After that, a series of grocery stores until I graduated. I remember my dad insisted on taking half of everything I made. Yes, half.

When I got my driver's license at age 17, the neighbors would tease me at how many times I'd wash and wax my first car.

I was the oldest of four and dad was an alcoholic. He and I clashed often, as I broke the ice the for younger ones who had it easier as they got older. I remember physical battles with my dad while I protected my mother. I remember my frustration with her for putting up with him, and I remember how two-faced she seemed when it came to me.

A few years ago I went back to my home town. It was a hoot even trying to find my former home because the town had become a city and roads that used to be there were no longer around. Try explaining that to a cab driver!

Answer 6

Well,that depends on what you consider the "Good Old Days". I'm 56 and I don't know if you consider that old or not.

When I was a kid in the 50's, TV's only had 3 channels and everything was in black and white and the shows didn't run all night. A lot of the shows were live and not taped.

We had record players that played 45's or albums, and you had to replace the needle when it wore out.

We played outside from morning until dark when the street lights came on. We were hardly ever inside.

We played jumprope, hopscotch, played with dolls, played army with toy guns (and no one said anything!), played hide and seek, baseball and lots of other games.

On Halloween we would go blocks and blocks from our house for hours with no parents with no fear!

We knew all the families and kids in our neighborhoods and spent lots of time at each others houses.

We walked to school, even when I was in kindergarden, by myself! No parents drove us to school. They didn't drive us around to soccer practice or dance lessons either. If we couldn't walk to get there, we didn't go.

I got my first Barbie doll in 1961 and it cost $1.75. I still have it and all the clothes.

I got a Beatles album in 1964 when they first came out and it was $1.99. My mom raised a fit saying it cost too much!

The first house my parents bought in Santa Ana, California was 1,100 square feet and cost $16,000. That same house on that street is not selling for over $535,000!

The first new car that I got was a 1974 Dodge Colt. It cost $2,700. No air conditioner.

When 8-track players came out I got one and thought that was great! Then cassette tapes came out, even better! I remember CD players coming out in the 80's and finally got one of those too.

I got my first apartment in 1975. It cost $235 per month including water. It was a one bedroom in California.

I got my first computer in 1985. It had very little memory and no hard drive. It had two 5 1/4 floppy drives. I had one of the earliest versions of WordPerfect. It only had a monitor with green text, no sound. It cost almost $2,000 at the time. It had a black and white dot matrix printer.

I got one of the first cell phones in the early 90's. It was a bag phone and weighed about 1 1/2 pounds. The battery was about 4" by 10" by 1/2 inch and was separate from the phone. There were no free minutes. It cost about 50 cents per minute.

I could go on and on, but I better let some other people have a chance.

Answer 7

I'll tell you a story. When we were growing up, we went every weekend to the drive-in movies in the summer. Mom made popcorn and put it in a brown paper bag and we took candy bars and pop too. Even though we kids were in our pajamas, we'd get out on the play ground and play with all our friends, until the movie started.

When we were teen-agers our folks would drop my sister and I off at the drive-in. There was a place for us to sit inside. When I was 16, I got my 1st job there. We made cotton candy, rocket pops, (ice cream ), hot dogs, burgers, milkshakes, etc. I made $3 for about about a 6 hour shift, but it was fun.

Answer 8

Let's see...No T.V., then when we had one, it was black & white & you had to adjust it by hand with EVERY channel. Tony the Tiger, Mighty Mouse, Mickey Mouse & monkeys dressed up like dolls were kids shows. We went to sleep by 8pm & got up by 5am. Any adult could smack us at any time for any reason & no one called the Police for it. Children were EXPECTED to be seen & not heard. We NEVER interrupted adults when they were speaking to one another. We blindly followed orders from teachers because they were always right in the eyes of our parents & society. The doctor make house calls when children were sick. The streets were clean. The cars were big. The buses were spotless. the streets & sidewalks didn't have cracks in them. People were friendly. NO ONE WORKED ON SUNDAYS...not even to mow their lawns, as it was truly a day of rest. The stores were NEVER open on Sundays or past 5 on weekdays, because the women did all of the shopping while the men were at work. Most people stayed married, even if they didn't love one another because they had honor. Women never spoke about being abused. Children never spoke about being abused. Men never spoke about being abused. Homosexuals didn't need to flaunt their lifestyles. Drugs were a hush-hush thing until the 60's...then they were very openly discussed & used. Police were always happy to help people with the little things in life. Neighborhoods were segregated & no one complained about it. This is just a small fraction of what lurks in the memory banks of this old mind! My personal favorite memory...tresspassers would be shot on sight & the shooter never got arrested or prosecuted for protecting their land, family or possessions!

Answer 9

I would walk the perimeter of a NIKE missile site with the guards and dogs. I was on one side , the patrol was on the other. When we got to the gate they would take me in and feed me "K" rations. Really bad food but I got to play with the watchdogs. They would make me leave when the missiles came out for test aiming, I might have been a commie spy. When I got to be ten years old they took me in and let me shoot guns (with dad's permission).

Answer 10

in the early 60's we could actually leave the house and not lock the doors, all the neighbors would be outside in the evenings and we would all get together and talk or have neighborhood cookouts. Now i don't even know my next door neighbors name and they have been living next to me about 5 years which is sad. There were no shootings, drive bys, or gang fights. On the weekends sometimes all the neighbors would get together and play ball or have horseshoe games. I think those days are gone forever.