Post by W.T.Faulkner on Oct 19, 2017 9:11:28 GMT -5
My "sex ed" consisted of watching the movie Philadelphia and the teacher telling us that if we are promiscuous, look what can happen to us (i.e. the fate of Tom Hanks).
All the basic growing up in the 80s stuff like no seatbelts in the back of the car, being left alone in the car while parents shopped, sleeping on the back seat when driving long distance, etc.
Also my grandmother would send me to the corner shop to get her cigarettes from when I was 7 or so. I could buy myself sweets with the change.
We played this game where you linked arms and someone had to run at full speed and try to break through. On concrete. Many a concussion was had by kids who failed.
Red Rover. I played that too. Played it once when I was about five, my team was standing on a concrete sidewalk. The other team sent a kid over and they knew he was going to try to break through with me because I was one of the youngest ones playing. My teammates held my arms so hard that I was knocked off my feet by the other kid, but he didn't break through. But I got a nasty gash on my left knee that left a scar to this very day.
I used to sleep in the backseat any time we took a vacation, all stretched out with no seatbelt on, starting when I was very young until I was at least 14.
Adults used to leave us in the car alone starting around 5/6 years old while they ran errands. I vividly remember my Mom taking me food shopping a few times when I was maybe 7 or 8, and I'd stay in the car reading while she did her shopping.
In 7th grade, my friend's Mom had a Jeep Cherokee, and we all used to pile in the trunk (seriously like 6-8 of us) and she'd zoom up their street and stop hard so we'd go flying forward. So WTF in retrospect, but so much fun then. lol.
I walked home from school starting in second grade - 6 city blocks from my house, 7 from my Grandmom's house (where I mainly went after school).
Agree with others in the thread: would go with friends on cigarette runs for their parents, rode our bikes/rollerbladed without helmets, wall ball (tennis ball game gummybear mentioned) and the locked arms game, etc.
We played this game where you linked arms and someone had to run at full speed and try to break through. On concrete. Many a concussion was had by kids who failed. And this other game where you threw a tennis ball at a wall and and then some poor soul had to run there and back before the ball returned and if you didn't, you get pegged with it. Or something like that.
Red Rover!
We had easily over 50 kids playing this game on any given day at recess. We were supposed to only hold hands, but when the the teachers weren't watching, we'd lock arms.
My addition to the thread: recess!! When I was a kid many moons ago in the 80s, we had a 20 minute morning recess, a 45 minute recess over lunch, and a 20 minute recess in the afternoon. My kids get 30 minutes to eat lunch AND have recess.
Oh, we also used to do the eraser test in school, you know, where someone would erase the skin off of your hand until you cried mercy. My Mom loved when I came home that day, ha.
When I was in kindergarten, the teacher fell on me and broke my arm when we were sitting on the floor for storytime. This was way before cell phones and they couldn't get ahold of my mom, so they loaded me in someone's car and took me to the ER. They left me there alone! I remember being scared. They finally got me in a room but my roommate had just been in a motorcycle accident so he was all bloody. He was okay and conscious and felt bad for me so he was talking to me trying to make me feel better.
This is literally my face when reading this.
I'm pretty sure that was my face when it happened. Whoever was with me waited until they got an inflatable cast thing on me to stabilize my arm and then they left. I still can't believe they did it.
Getting locked outside when my parents wanted quiet. Walking to the mall or pool without adults. My sister taking us to R rated movies from the time we were 5 and 8.
Growing up my grandparents driveway was about a mile long and my gram used to let us drive up & down it starting whenever we could reach the pedals and see.
Dodgeball. I got a concussion from getting nailed in the face when playing in 7th grade.
When I was 8 or 9 my parents started letting me ride my bike to school 4ish miles away. We had a small class and about half of us would meet up and ride together so I guess that wasn't completely horrible. But the parents never checked in with anyone to see if we got there. One time, I couldn't keep up and my friends rode ahead and I was like 30 minutes late to school. I got in trouble when the school called my parents and they stopped letting me.
I remember my kindergarten teacher picking up kids and putting them over her knee and spanking them when we were bad. It was so normal then but I'm so WTF now.
Also, my dad giving me and my sister a $20 bill and we'd walk a couple miles down to the beach and just walk around town wherever we wanted. We were about 7 and 9.
Ok this is very racist and I hesitate to even put it out there, but if you care to read it:
In the late 70s/early 80s my Catholic grade school would have a "slave auction" where students could buy each other for a day and make their "slave" do whatever they wanted: make boys wear a dress, carry your books around, etc
Also my Catholic high school in the mid 80s put on a production of The King and I and used outrageously racist makeup to make the cast look Thai.
Starting in kindergarten, we walked half a mile to school with no adults (other than a crossing guard to help us cross a busy street) in a not great neighborhood. Now parents can't even let their kids walk a few yards home from the bus by themselves.
Post by fivechickens on Oct 19, 2017 9:59:17 GMT -5
rosiebear we had ‘slave day’ where freshmen would do whatever the seniors told them to do for a day during our marching band camp. I quit band my junior year and my friends all said ‘but you’ll miss slave day!’
We used to ride in the way back of my friend's huge station wagon, without the seats up, when we took trips to the beach. We would either lie down with a fortress of bags around us or sit up.
Also, just to point out how gullible/dumb I was (maybe still am), my friend told me that the street sign with the beginning of a median and an arrow that goes to the right of is meant "beware, someone is following your car". LOL
WE used to ride our bikes all over the neighborhood, walked down to the 5 &10 and on snow days, my mom let my sister and me and few other kids from our street walk to McDonalds for lunch. It was at least 2 miles away. We did know people along the route, but still! lol
I also used to walk alone to the corner store and buy my mom cigarettes. I think I was around 9 when the owner said he couldn't sell them to me anymore.
In middle school we could leave school grounds at lunch. Sometimes we'd go to the convenience store where they had dirty magazines, I saw my first penis there.
I did a 50-110 minute commute home from school on two different public transit lines in a huge foreign city at the age of 11. Alone. I didn't speak the language that well.
I think that would be frowned upon even today especially since I was molested in a cab (they were communal rides) during one of those commutes home and was too embarrass to tell anyone.
My mom did many many things that would be considered wtf worthy even by standards from back then.
We played this game where you linked arms and someone had to run at full speed and try to break through. On concrete. Many a concussion was had by kids who failed. And this other game where you threw a tennis ball at a wall and and then some poor soul had to run there and back before the ball returned and if you didn't, you get pegged with it. Or something like that.
We never wore sunscreen as kids. As teenagers girls would lay out for hours with just baby oil or, if you were the cautious type, maybe SPF 4 or 8. I still call sunblock "suntan lotion" which confuses my kids because they have no concept of tanning, lol.
Starting in 5th grade, my best friend and I were allowed walk home from school to her house together instead of taking the bus. She lived about three miles away along a busy country road with no sidewalks. NBD back in the 70s.
In 7th grade, our science teacher would ask us girls to sit on his lap while he explained something to us. This went on for months until one girl finally complained. We were all so relieved that they made him stop, but then he was promoted and I had him again in high school for AP Physics. No lap requests, though.
We had 300 acres. My Dad actually had binoculars at the big picture window in the living room to try and find us. We were true free range kids. They are much more strict with my nephews on the farm now.
We used to own a minor league hockey team. We would have a constant rotation of 17-20 year old guys living with us until they got their official billet host assigned. I have 2 sisters. My parents were very trusting of those boys.
In 7th grade, our science teacher would ask us girls to sit on his lap while he explained something to us. This went on for months until one girl finally complained. We were all so relieved that they made him stop, but then he was promoted and I had him again in high school for AP Physics. No lap requests, though.
Ah, I just remembered another. In high school, we had a young priest (he was either 24 or 28) who taught science. He was wildly inappropriate most of the time and joked around a lot with us. Mind you, this was an all-girls school.
Someone had the fantastic idea to have a Santa luncheon where all the girls got to sit on Santa's lap and have their picture taken. Guess who dressed up as Santa?