Back In My Day ..................

[Lowgear]

We pouned entire boxes of strip caps with a sledgehammer for the big boom

Got my fingers slammed in the door of a sky blue Pinto once too....after swim lessons at the "Y".

The only 'explosives' I was allowed to play with as a kid were strip caps, and those snapper aka pop-it things you throw at a hard surface. I'd end up hitting several at a time with a hammer as well or chucking a rock on them.

I think I caught my fingers in the door of the family wagon once. For some reason it seemed to be more of a common occurrence back in the day. I swam at the YMCA a couple of times, and remember how potent the chlorine smell always was. We had an above ground pool though where I learned to swim. My parents hired a woman they knew that gave lessons who was a lifeguard I believe.

[Halgar]

Public pools are always chlorine pits, for good reason! I can honestly say I've not been to one in 45+ years.


I learned to drive sitting on my father's knee at 5 or 6 years old. Obviously, wasn't allowed to operate the vehicle fully on my own, but went through most of the motions for years. As soon as my legs were long enough to reach the pedals I was operating tractors around the farm, 7 or 8 years old. By early teens I was operating road vehicles on and around the farm and occasionally allowed to drive on country roads within a few miles of the house. By the time I could get my license I had been operating vehicles for years!

An added benefit to growing up on a working farm and operating all that equipment is that I also learned how to back trailers and equipment, I could do it in my sleep. Going through agricultural classes in high school, tractor driving was one of those things we were taught. I guess I should say, I was bored out of my skull waiting for the other kids that didn't have a clue. Now, I'm not casting aspersions, not all my classmates were on working farms or exposed to equipment like I was, and it showed. The one that really got me was my best buddy, born and raised on a dairy who couldn't back up a trailer. Worse, they had bale wagons and the entrance to the barn sloped towards the barn, they'd circle in with the tractor and wagon, get it all pointed uphill, lock the brakes, then pull the pin on the hitch and let the wagon roll back to the barn. They wouldn't even let my try to back one of the wagons, simply stating that it couldn't be done. Well, one time nobody was around to stop me, so I swing the rig into place and proceed to back it down into the barn with zero issues what-so-ever. It wasn't that it couldn't be done, THEY couldn't do it, so they wouldn't let anyone else try either.

[badhoopty]

5th or 6th grade id sneak my moms 81 dodge charger 2.2 out in the middle of the night... i'd push it down the street a little ways and start it up and go cruising the dirt roads outside town.

and then jr high and high school happened... me and my friends were total degenerates.

drinking cough syrup to get stoned. hangin out at some 50 year old creepy dudes house to get weed. always had to stick around to listen to pink floyd or maiden on his obscene stereo with cerwin vega towers while he smoked us up out of like a 5 foot bong and talked about vietnam basically having freakin flashbacks. guy was unhinged... we never went alone.

had another old dude who would go get us booze but we had to drive him there and back, and he smelled SO BAD and was a total chester style creeper. his house was nasty with dog poop and pee everywhere. a little kid later on got shot in his house.

babysitting my friends more than once (we all worked at burger king for a short while) while they all tripped on acid or robotussin and i basically ran the place solo and kept them from hurting themselves. even the manager was in on it and tripping balls...

did absolutely massive amounts of property damage with bb pistols we stole from walmart... shot every single window out of a brand new jr high one night among other things. (had to be close to 50-60 windows..) we took our time and walked around the perimeter. i still kinda cringe over that one...

making p!pE b*mbs out of crushed up sparklers or whatnot and threaded pipe with caps. sometimes pvc as it was much easier to do and we were all freaked out over the threads on the pipe end caps making a spark if we tightened them too fast. we couldnt buy m80s or anything in my state, but for some reason we could buy all the fuse we wanted... one night we were being hoodlums on the local golf course and they had these really nice porta-pottys set up. one of those things thrown into a porta-potty was absolutely insane. (we did at least drive to denver for fuse and materials so as not to attract attention locally.)

one night playing with those same things my 2 friends walked across the street of the apartment complex me and my mom lived in and put one in a newspaper box, then ran back to my apartment which was up a couple flights of stairs, making a ton of noise running right to my front door before a big boom and a TON of cops showing up. that was the last time we messed with those.

there was a time in 9th or 10th grade we all had cans of spray silicone in our lockers. hit a sock with it and do a quick inhale for a buzz before the next class.

i once poured a half gallon of french dressing all over a womans car who my mom was feuding with. i did it in the parking lot of the place where i worked as a dishwasher. she knew it was me, my boss knew it was me, my mom knew it was me, but i adamantly denied it all. (my boss and mom both hated her so i think i got away with it.) she was a horrible, horrible woman.

we would all walk around the neighborhoods at night casing absolutely everything... stole a few or more bicycles kids would leave in their yard or garage. some nice ones... i once got a pk ripper.

once went to a party with my punk friends in denver, jr year of highschool and my mom was with her boyfriend in hawaii for a couple weeks so i was all by myself. ends up it was a party full of some really bad people, the cops came to the house, roughed up a bunch of dudes, and arrested a good amount of them, including my punk friends who i got a ride with. i had to sweetalk the cops and tell them i wasnt wanting to be there (i hadnt drank or done any drugs because i wanted to keep my wits, and that saved my ass). i had to crash on a crazy skinheads couch and find a ride back home the next morning with a dude who drove a little blue toyota pickup and was a huge rush fan. it never felt so good to be home and that night was a defining point in my life where i stopped hangin out with bad people doing bad things.

i kept my friends out of a lot of trouble by either remaining sober or being the paranoid one who left before crap totally went south, and in return because i was the kid with the single bartender mom who was never home theyd blame me when they came home smelling like smoke or drunk/hungover or with a bike they couldnt explain having. if their parents only knew...

[Halgar]

* * *

So, you're saying you really earned that name of yours?!?!?

[badhoopty]

* * *

So, you're saying you really earned that name of yours?!?!?

we were jr varsity compared to some of the other kids in town.

[Lowgear]

Public pools are always chlorine pits, for good reason! I can honestly say I've not been to one in 45+ years.

Oh for sure. The one at my local YMCA I went to as a little kid was like in the basement with no windows, and poorly ventilated. Now my parents house has an inground heated pool which is a humongous pain to deal with every year due to being in the forest, and partially built into the side of a bank on top of it. I implore them to have it filled in every year but would be super expensive as it can't be accessed with equipment, so we just suffer with it. The positive is it allowed me to get into R/C boats.

5th or 6th grade id sneak my moms 81 dodge charger 2.2 out in the middle of the night... i'd push it down the street a little ways and start it up and go cruising the dirt roads outside town.

and then jr high and high school happened... me and my friends were total degenerates.

drinking cough syrup to get stoned. hangin out at some 50 year old creepy dudes house to get weed. always had to stick around to listen to pink floyd or maiden on his obscene stereo with cerwin vega towers while he smoked us up out of like a 5 foot bong and talked about vietnam basically having freakin flashbacks. guy was unhinged... we never went alone.

had another old dude who would go get us booze but we had to drive him there and back, and he smelled SO BAD and was a total chester style creeper. his house was nasty with dog poop and pee everywhere. a little kid later on got shot in his house.

babysitting my friends more than once (we all worked at burger king for a short while) while they all tripped on acid or robotussin and i basically ran the place solo and kept them from hurting themselves. even the manager was in on it and tripping balls...

did absolutely massive amounts of property damage with bb pistols we stole from walmart... shot every single window out of a brand new jr high one night among other things. (had to be close to 50-60 windows..) we took our time and walked around the perimeter. i still kinda cringe over that one...

making p!pE b*mbs out of crushed up sparklers or whatnot and threaded pipe with caps. sometimes pvc as it was much easier to do and we were all freaked out over the threads on the pipe end caps making a spark if we tightened them too fast. we couldnt buy m80s or anything in my state, but for some reason we could buy all the fuse we wanted... one night we were being hoodlums on the local golf course and they had these really nice porta-pottys set up. one of those things thrown into a porta-potty was absolutely insane. (we did at least drive to denver for fuse and materials so as not to attract attention locally.)

one night playing with those same things my 2 friends walked across the street of the apartment complex me and my mom lived in and put one in a newspaper box, then ran back to my apartment which was up a couple flights of stairs, making a ton of noise running right to my front door before a big boom and a TON of cops showing up. that was the last time we messed with those.

there was a time in 9th or 10th grade we all had cans of spray silicone in our lockers. hit a sock with it and do a quick inhale for a buzz before the next class.

i once poured a half gallon of french dressing all over a womans car who my mom was feuding with. i did it in the parking lot of the place where i worked as a dishwasher. she knew it was me, my boss knew it was me, my mom knew it was me, but i adamantly denied it all. (my boss and mom both hated her so i think i got away with it.) she was a horrible, horrible woman.

we would all walk around the neighborhoods at night casing absolutely everything... stole a few or more bicycles kids would leave in their yard or garage. some nice ones... i once got a pk ripper.

once went to a party with my punk friends in denver, jr year of highschool and my mom was with her boyfriend in hawaii for a couple weeks so i was all by myself. ends up it was a party full of some really bad people, the cops came to the house, roughed up a bunch of dudes, and arrested a good amount of them, including my punk friends who i got a ride with. i had to sweetalk the cops and tell them i wasnt wanting to be there (i hadnt drank or done any drugs because i wanted to keep my wits, and that saved my ass). i had to crash on a crazy skinheads couch and find a ride back home the next morning with a dude who drove a little blue toyota pickup and was a huge rush fan. it never felt so good to be home and that night was a defining point in my life where i stopped hangin out with bad people doing bad things.

i kept my friends out of a lot of trouble by either remaining sober or being the paranoid one who left before crap totally went south, and in return because i was the kid with the single bartender mom who was never home theyd blame me when they came home smelling like smoke or drunk/hungover or with a bike they couldnt explain having. if their parents only knew...

Wow! The couple of really bad kids I knew as a teenager got sent to the military after graduating high school to 'straighten them out.' Maybe unsurprisingly it didn't work. If anything it made them worse afterwards, and at least one might still be in jail.

[pma1123]

Being 45 and growing up in SE WI...the highlights of childhood were Mini bikes/small engines, skyway mags, staring at the wall of BMX candy (pegs and parts) at the local bike shop, tower hobbies, freedom to roam, popping the hood on moms 86 Cutlass to charge the battery for my Raider, hanging out at Shopko playing arcade games in the entryway, doing that paper route no matter what!

We also had multiple BMX tracks in wooded (private property) areas around town that are now subdivisions and spent summers riding all over town. Ultimately to get hurt from my Bear Trap pedals; across town, with no means to communicate to home base.

This next item comes up occasionally today, as a couple of my friends are console gaming collectors and it's a fun memory of the times.

My parents house was the one with the Intellivision, 80/86-286-386 Tandy, 2600, NES.

Dad travelled on business quite a bit and the equipment they made utilized software custom written by these really smart guys in California.

It was always exciting when he came home; these guys were sending him home with FULL boxes of floppy discs with 'backed up' PC games. (thousands!)

Well one week dad came home from an extended work trip with an NES cartridge, unlike any I had seen before.

Just the cart, no dust sleeve or box. The plastic case was cream colored and it had a basic printed label that just said "110 Games". (And one of them was indeed, Lode Runner!)

Turns out my dads savvy coworker was connected somehow with a production house for bootleg NES multi-game carts at the time. Nobody else I knew had heard of this, it was the talk of my entire grade school peer group. I had kids arguing with me about the existence of this weird colored game cart.

The thought of burning data onto ROM's and getting multiple games with a text menu of titles on the opening screen was absolutely futuristic in a world of cartridge gaming.

As an adult, I recognize that my parents had to put up with a lot of other peoples kids coming over because of that stupid game cart!!

And for those wondering; NES had taken a back seat and collected some dust; 110 Games was borrowed permanently while I was in HS, never to be seen again!

[howsyouraspen]

Man, this is a great post. Lovin these stories.

[Halgar]

Don't tell me you boys are out of stories already?!?!?!?!

[juicedcoupe]

Don't tell me you boys are out of stories already?!?!?!?!

Just not any that we can post in public.

[1911Colt]

After badhoopty's post, I realized my life wasn't as exciting as I previously thought...

[R6cowboy]

Don't tell me you boys are out of stories already?!?!?!?!

Just not any that we can post in public.

This. There's stuff that isn't in my best interest to post in public.

[pma1123]

Another fun memory of growing up was police scanners being more of a household item. Back then we had a larger Midland scanner where 10 lights flashed across the front and it took 10 frequency crystals. This was intriguing as you always had the inside scoop on what was happening downtown. Also my Grandfather was an avid ham radio guy and the scanner and RC transmitter fed into the 10,000 questions I would’ve had for grandpa at the time.

Somewhere between RC transmitters, Grandpas love for ham radio, Radio Shack, the rise of the telescopic antenna style cordless phone; somewhere/somehow I had the 10 unique cordless phone frequencies given to me.

Eventually the ole Midland had those cordless phone frequency crystals installed.

I learned a lot about a lot happening in the neighborhood because of the scanner!

[R6cowboy]

Back in my day, I had this bad boy in my bedroom.

[Lowgear]

Another fun memory of growing up was police scanners being more of a household item. Back then we had a larger Midland scanner where 10 lights flashed across the front and it took 10 frequency crystals. This was intriguing as you always had the inside scoop on what was happening downtown. Also my Grandfather was an avid ham radio guy and the scanner and RC transmitter fed into the 10,000 questions I would’ve had for grandpa at the time.

Somewhere between RC transmitters, Grandpas love for ham radio, Radio Shack, the rise of the telescopic antenna style cordless phone; somewhere/somehow I had the 10 unique cordless phone frequencies given to me.

Eventually the ole Midland had those cordless phone frequency crystals installed.

I learned a lot about a lot happening in the neighborhood because of the scanner!

This brought back some good memories! I had a Radio Shack AM-VHF Monitor Radio Kit (#28-163) then graduated to a Uniden Bearcat BC 147XLT. Somehow we got ahold of a photocopy of the frequencies and codes the police used which was some classified stuff. It even had text on it about unauthorized personnel being in illegal possession. Only officers were supposed to have it outside of the department.

My next door neighbor was huge into ham radio, and R/C boats and aircraft. He had an antenna tower in his backyard, and when he was keyed up, nobody in the surrounding area could use their telephones.