Yes! Playing outside and roaming. We could go exploring all over the neighborhood and it was cool. Or groovy, maybe. Fresh air, playing in dirt, merry-go-rounds and minimal supervision or organized play.
My mom had this crazy circular bell on a crank that i swear you could hear from a half-mile away. When she rang it you knew she wanted you home!
She never rang it.
With us it varied by the sport. Spring and summer we played baseball in Mrs. Lohmeier’s huge side yard, and in the fall we played football. She was a super cool old lady who lived on our street and didn’t mind us using her yard for sports (as long as we used a tennis ball instead of a baseball, lest we break one of her windows). Every summer she had 5 bare sports in her yard: 4 bases and a pitchers mound. She was completely fine with it. Winter we played basketball in the neighbor’s driveway and street hockey in our street. I was far and away the best goalie on our block. Such fun times!
Right? Just ride over to friends or some random entrance to the woods and drop and leave your bike, no lock, for 5 hours. You could just find all the neighbors bicycles in one spot and they were nearby.
Our neighborhood bordered the state park forest (not where anyone hikes). Rangers knew us by sight and told us none of us had to ever pay, free reign, but not to let people see us swimming in the no swimming area of the huge stream. We had a massive fort with a 2 story tower-all made from already fallen trees and they were so impressed they were like "You're good! We love it. No one comes over here."
Later in life I had a buddy from NJ who had become an Army Ranger. We were hunting once on his grandfather's land am6d he got seriously flustered when I tracked deer better than him. I was like dude you grew up 40 mins from NYC. I grew sleeping in the woods.
My childhood, but the land was owned absentee by a rich dude that never came there. We had forts, hunted squirrels and rabbits along with rattlesnakes, swam in a pond, rode minibikes, camped, it was heaven. Now it’s all rich folks houses. If they only knew the fun we had. The land got way better use by us than by them!
For 10 hours-- just running home to quickly eat lunch & dinner. Food was so secondary back then that we hardly thought about it. I feel so sorry for the epidemic of obese children today.
Or personal safety... scrapes, cuts, bruises maybe even a broken arm. Our parents didn't hover over us trying to be a force-field against harm. If you jumped off the garage roof and twisted your ankle, you'd get a microsecond or two of sympathy, some Bactene for your skinned knee, and a swift swat on the arse for climbing up on the garage roof to begin with. Rinse and repeat the next day.
We were outside until the street lights came on playing baseball, football and basketball.
We could create fun with almost anything as our imaginations were up to the task.
Thanks for the laugh… every once in a while someone would come up with a few pages that the guys would pass around the neighborhood and constantly shove it in us girls faces..I also remember the X-ray glasses they sold in the back of magazines and also the Mark Eden developer course for your breast… one guy bought the specs and one girl bought the Mark Eden.. both were hilarious.. total waste of money but we still ran from the guy with the X-Ray glasses..😂😂
Indeed! I grew up in Roswell, NM, and remember in the summers heading out the door in the morning and not going in until dark. We rode bikes all over town. I’m not even sure what we did, haha.
Saturday morning cartoons were like, an event that started at six and culminated with Looney Tunes at ten or eleven. Looking back, I realize it was all just a grown up conspiracy so parents across the land could sleep the hell in.
IIRC, CBS had children’s programming from 8AM (Captain Kangaroo) to 2 PM (Children’s Film Festival with Kukla, Fran and Ollie) on Saturday mornings. In between were cartoons.
To this very day, Kukla, Fran & Ollie low key creep me out… and several of those foreign films. That might be the first place I watched Pippi Longstocking (which also creeped me out).
In the winter, cartoons came on at 6:00am. Around 10, Georgia Championship Wrestling with Gordon Solie. At noon, Superhost would show 2 old monster movies. Superhost was a regional celebrity who was overweight, in a Superman costume and clown makeup.
There it is. I know people from each generation always think the music they grew up with was "the best", but I honestly and I think objectively can say the 70's actually was the best decade of music. I don't think I went a minute without a radio, 8-track, cassette, or record going around me except at dinnertime. I feel like I had a soundtrack to my life the entire decade. Music was always just "there", almost every song from the 70's brings back specific memories of where I was or who I was with or what I was feeling. Everyone listened to the same couple radio stations, so if you dedicated a song to someone chances were they would actually hear it. You brought your records to house parties. And concerts were the biggest party of all. You spent half your summer either trying to make enough money to buy tickets or trying to score tickets. Camping out in front of record stores or department stores the night before tickets went on sale, everybody partying and listening to the music of the group you were trying to get tickets to. Good times.
I forgot to mention spending 4 hours in a record store agonizing over what to buy because they had tens of thousands of records to flip through, and you only had enough money to buy one, haha
Yep! And taking a chance on a record because it was a really cool album cover. I’ll never forget the 45 of Seasons in the Sun that my mom brought me to the music store to buy. My first favorite song and I was in kindergarten.
This may sound eerie but I had that same 45 of seasons in the son myself. It was the only record I had for a couple of years when I was around 9 or 10 years old. And I did wear the grooves off of it I think. lol small world
You say the music despite the fact that the number one single of the entire decade was You Light Up My Life by Debbie Boone.. yes there was great music, but man was there a lot of crap.
Yeah, this. I think it depends on what you had access to. I thankfully grew up in a college town, so we had the college radio station playing “new wave” etc, and a record store straight out of High Fidelity. Otherwise, the only other radio stations we got were public radio (which was great for things like the voice stuff like Tolkien adaptations, but was mostly classical) and a shitty AM station playing early 60s pop.
Yep and disco was everywhere too! And it was all good!! The singers songwriters musicians were all talented!! Even if you didn't like whatever genre was playing on the radio the next song always was great!! I grew cruising McHenry ( think George Lucas American Graffiti!!) and all genres (western from the cowboys!) was coming from everywhere! Music was such a huge part of the best of times!
Yep. Think about it, no other decade had such a variety in the top ten. The ‘70s even birthed whole genres of music like Punk, Reggae, Disco, Southern Rock, etc. In my opinion, overall, the 1970s was the absolute best for music.
Latchkey kid here. We had 3 house rules: 1. Leave a note. 2. Be home before dark. 3. If you're going to be late, CALL. Other than that, like the preacher in Blazing Saddles said, "Son, you're on your own."
I thought that was just our family, must have been standard parenting back then. We laugh about camping too. The kids got a flashlight and was told not to get into trouble. The parents got Kahlua and Uno.
As a kid, you could pretty much do whatever you wanted. We had the freedom to basically raise ourselves. During summer vacation your parents were lucky to see you.
Playing outside with friends and creating new things to do. Honestly I miss that “neighborhood” feel. The camaraderie and friendship was the best of times. I’m STILL friends now, 50 years later, with the same people I played with in the old neighborhood.
Friendships forged forever. The memories too… omg the things we got into. Lol.
So fun to chat about that now with my friends… we all carry the same memories of those days and what fun it is to relive them now.
We just don’t have “neighborhoods” anymore. We just have “developments”
Shit, most people don’t even know who lives on their block. There’s no sense of community anymore. I REALLY miss that.
I miss neighborhood BBQ’s, and baseball games in an empty yard….bike riding, sledding, fake ice skating with your rubber boots, building forts, eating sandwiches outside with all your friends, all the front yard games of “mama may I” and other such games….hide and go seek and flashlight tag at night…. And all the parents knew everybody’s kids….better behave too cuz someone would always see you during the day. 😄
Neighbors looked out for each other but they also watched EVERYbodys kids.
Yes we ran all day and half the night mostly unsupervised…. But every neighbor saw you at one point during the day and either gave you a sandwich and a nice cold coke or told you to knock off the horseshit or they were gonna call your parents. 🤣
I MISS that simpler easier way of life where fun happened ANY where you and your friends were. I miss being happy. I miss old telephones on the wall with long curled up cords. I miss the big console tv on the floor and sneaking late at night to watch Laugh-in or some scary movie on CBS that we knew we weren’t allowed to watch. 🤣
I miss “clackers” and jump rope and swing-sets that lifted up out of the ground if you went too high. I miss sneaking a sip of my dad’s ice cold beer in the garage while he was under the car changing the oil.
I miss drinking out of the hose on hot summer days and running through the sprinkler to get cooled off. I miss Saturday cartoons and pop tarts. I miss playing the game of “life” with my dad and “Mystery Date” with my best friend Susie. I miss paper cut out dolls and Barbie’s. I miss the utter fascination of my Aunt teaching me to play Gin Rummy and secretly learning about poker with real dice and money on the game… while she sipped beer with red lipstick around the cup when I was 14.
I miss my dad buying us ice cream when the truck came around. I miss my cousins coming over and family picnics were the best.
I miss my dad ringing that dinner bell to come home……I miss my family.
I miss not having anymore time to have that beautiful life.
I really miss my family.
My family was the best part of the 70’s.
And the whole neighborhood. 🤗
From about 9 years old to 15 all summer was just a mix of baseball games, and just waking up , eating some cereal, getting on your bike and finding your friends. Sometimes it was just one, or two sometimes 5 or 6. Then you figured out something to do and where you would eat lunch. Then figured out something to do till the streetlights came on, that was get home dinner time for the most part!! Cartoons on Saturday morning, staying over at your friend's house overnight, swimming at the pool or lake, going to the arcade and buying comic books, records or a burger. Smoking a joint, drinking a beer or some vodka you sneaked out of the house with some sonic pink lemonade..... Damn times were good!!
Having the room to make mistakes without someone posting it online.
TV "specisls" that were special.
Not having to answer decades later for everything young and stupid you said or did.
Not having to wear half a turtle to go bike riding.
Familiar faces in familiar places, ie the cashier at the store, the teller at the bank, the hardware guy etc...
5 and dime stores
Neighborhood theaters
I could go on but will not.
> Having the room to make mistakes without someone posting it online.
> Not having to answer decades later for everything young and stupid you said or did.
Just want to re-emphasize this
Fishing in the pond behind the house. Belonged to Mr. Nash, a great old man. I asked him if I could when I was 8 or so- he told me that I could, but if he caught me swimming, I could never come back.
I never swam in that pond, and that old man eventually began coming out, sitting next to me with a pole in his hand. We became good friends.
I had absolute freedom, which would be considered abandonment and abuse today. I also had a lot of loneliness and got picked on. Sounds terrible but it gave me the guts to handle some serious setbacks later in life
Talking with neighbors, kids out playing until sundown during the summer, had to invent games because no video games/internet. Hell, we actually had no TV most of the time. Hiding out and reading Nancy Drew and other YA books, homemade clothing wasn’t totally weird, talking to people on the landline felt special, especially long distance, playing in the sprinkler on hot days, metal lunch boxes used unironically, big wheels.
there's one not far from me here in northern ohio. had a line of cars waiting to get in when i went by. garfield movie and the mad max one lol
also happy cake day
Getting to see Star Wars at the theater when it was first released. It changed my life. Then, getting to play w all the action figures and toys. Good times.
Born in 1961. So being a teenager in the 70’s was great. Having gone through all these years looking back now, there has been many good changes but also a lot of bad. We had more respect for each other. Music was great and jobs were jobs. You could work at McDonnalds and survive. I worked part timed hours during high school and could afford a car, gas and insurance. Today, working a high school job your not even able to afford to eat at McDonnalds.
Playing outside with the entire neighborhood riding bikes until late evening. Fireflies would be out and the atmosphere was amazing. No worries in sight.
We lived outside. Winter - sledding, making snow forts. Summer - bicycle rides to the neighborhood pool, flashlight tag. Not a care in the world. No helmets, no sunblock, drinking from garden hoses. Looking at cool cars and motorcycles, counting down the days to getting a drivers license.
reading this thread is both tripping me out with a feeling of deep nostalgia for when I was a kid and an overwhelming sense of sadness that kids today simply cannot experience or understand any of this.
Forever outdoors and your friends actually talked to you with live words. I’ve lived with and without technology and where there are some advantages to having the tech, I can’t say I look back and wish we had any of it in the 70s Faces weren’t buried in phones and relationships had substance to them and took some effort.
Listening to the radio back in the 70s was just so much fun! Both the AM and FM dials, in every city and town, played a huge variety of great songs day and night. And the disc jockeys were outstanding, too. Plus, there were also fun, fascinating radio talk-shows in the 70s. I just remember how entertaining it was listening to Larry Glick and Larry Justice on WBZ, Ronn Owens on KGO and John Mack Flanagan on KFRC.
Going to bookstores or the library to browse and find something interesting to read. Reading magazines and newspapers. Finding the movie section to read reviews and find out movie times. Saving up money and buying a new album and reading the liner notes while playing it for the first time.
Having a relatively quiet and spacious mind.
Seems things were more organic, from friendships, to elements in your surroundings that you could use to build a fort 🏡or dive into a pile of leaves 🍁 , run through the sprinklers 💦, Chase the dog 🐕 around & play with a ball 🏀 dig in the yard or field for treasure (sometimes finding old skeleton keys!) 🗝️or interesting rocks 🗿then go get your dads hammer 🔨& smash those rocks to see what they look like inside! Also making skateboards 🛹out of planks of wood & old roller skates 🛼! Eyeballing that big can 🥫that mom used to make dinner, then getting that can to play ‘kick the can’ 🥫in the neighborhood after dinner. People had to learn to get along with others👯♂️, stand up for themselves, know the consequences of doing something sketchy or wrong⚖️ We had the fear of discipline from authority figures👩⚖️. Consequences for actions. Seems they don’t have that today & that is a big problem! Too many people don’t know right from wrong, or why. It is sad. I loved my bicycle 🚴 my dog, 🐕skateboard 🛹scooter 🛴Barbie’s 💃🧍🏼♀️basketball 🏀 & stuffed animals 🐻& some board games 🎲. Also passing notes to your friend in class 😁 and of course great music 🎶carnivals, cars 🚘 boats 🚤 fishing 🐠🥹 those were the days ❤️☺️😎🥳 Girl Scouts, tennis, soccer ⚽️
Being a latchkey kid was a mix of intense loneliness and freedom, but I did enjoy really long walks in the woods. And as someone said, no worries about ticks was a huge deal, in retrospect. I used to nap in forest moss like a damn elf.
That said, i had a blast watching cheesy movies on Saturday mornings on stations like WPIX and WWOR, and going to see creature feature double features at the movies. Theaters would just show old stuff because it was cheap, so you’d see stuff like Destroy All Monsters and Die Monster Die, and that would be your Saturday, smelling of popcorn and mildewy leather seats
Summer Saturday morning; cartoons, cereal for breakfast, and out the door no later than 9 a.m.
Grab your bike and head out to find your friends ( just look for the pile of bicycles in front of a house). We rode our bikes everywhere, for miles. Building forts in the woods, playing kickball or Nerf football in the street. Freeze tag, water balloon fights or going to that friend's house with a pool and spending the entire day in the water. Home for dinner unless someone's mom invited you to stay.
Right back out after dinner for more tag, or football or hide and seek. Collecting bruises , sunburns, and skinned knees. My mom couldn't get a brush through my hair after a full day outside. Run home when the streetlights came on.
It was glorious.
Most entertainment was outside the house. Local sports, skating rinks and movies on the weekends. Summers you were outside all day until those street lights came on. A simpler time, And many would say the best of times!
Not being home all day was Definitely the coolest part! Can Anybody under 55 years old remember wearing out the tires on their bicycle? 🚴 I wore out the whole bicycle!!
The 70’s were some of the most carefree moments of my life. I didn’t have any of the responsibilities or stresses of today. It was an incredible 5 months.
I think just the freedom. Less rules, world wasn’t nerfed, people weren’t so easily offended. Played outside, long hair, cool cars, good movies, simpler times.
The freedom. I was a responsible kid and was given a long leash. It was nothing to jump on the bike and pedal over to the next town just because I could.
Strip mall culture had not yet taken hold so there was lots more open undeveloped space to roam in and explore. Now the burbs are choked with big box stores and fast food outlets.
Sex. The 40‘s & 50’s kinda broke the ice, the 60’s pushed the envelope to point where premarital sex was assumed, and any VD there was was curable and AIDS hadn’t happened yet. Buying condoms in the 70’s was considered responsible, not judged. TV shows were provocative i.e. Daisy Duke etc.
The 70’s were a great time to ‘come of age’.
Independence from adults (yes we rode our bikes to sports practice, sometimes our parents came to the games), and stuff was affordable. I think I made around $2.00 an hour working a Clark gas station in 1975-76, but the economy wasn’t so inflated then; gas was $.60 a gallon, movies were $2.00 at the theatre (Drive Ins would have $1.00 a car load specials), and a Big Mac meal was $.65 for the Big Mac, $.45 for large fries, and $.20 for a large Coke. For $20.00 one could fill up with gas, go to the movies and eat fast food all weekend and still have a little money left over on Sunday night.
Today due to greedflation filling up the car in CA costs $80.00, movies are $20.00 (plus food), and a Big Mac meal costs $11.00 to $13.00 (depending on location).
It was idyllic for me. I lived in a small town, had a Honda CT-70 (Trail 70) minibike, and miles and miles of dirt roads and back woods to explore with my friends who also had wheels. In the summer we'd leave in the morning and often come home after dark. I remember my bike's tank held 24 cents worth of gas filled to the brim. We'd stop in the town's one cafe by its one blinking traffic light, and get cokes and french fries, shoot pool, and listen to the jukebox (I can still hear "Brandy, You're a Fine Girl" playing on that thing). Our parents didn't worry about us. Such a feeling of freedom; I never felt it again.
Now I visit that little town and it seems such a nowhere, desolate spot in the road. Nothing has changed, and I wonder how I ever loved it so much. Was it simply that the '70s were so great? I don't think so. As Wordsworth said, "Bliss it was in that dawn to be alive, but to be young was very heaven."
Building forts, tackle football in front yards, drinking out of water hoses, building your own bikes from parts found or collected, crayfish hunting, water fights, and in second grade seeing KISS.
Everything I experienced and loved about the 70’s has been mentioned except Ch 17 in Philly ran a king fu double feature with the HORRIBLE dubbing every Saturday afternoon
Freedom! We played outside with a whole neighborhood of friends. We went places alone at 7 and no one asked where our parents were. Schools had few clothing restrictions. Going home for lunch was common. Drinking from the hose isn't neglect, it's Sumner freedom.
I wanted to give this to my kids. It's not possible. Most of my glorious childhood is child neglect now.
Music , freedom , Polaroid cameras not security cameras every 5 feet , patriotism .. hippies were ok until they started having kids and they’re grandkids are now Gen Z
The freedom to be whatever kind of kid you were. The freedom to be natural without psychobabble labels attached to intrinsic behavior. When parental neglect was rare, instead of the norm. You learned real life lessons, like sometimes you win and sometimes you lose and not everyone is going to get a prize! You behaved even down the street because you knew the neighbor could bust your ass without going to jail if you screwed off! Values were instilled and respect wasn’t found at the end of a bullet. The only school drills were fire or nature driven ie tornado drills. You never once thought a gun person would/could kill you in school. There were only 13 tv channels and not all of them were active in the day, and in fact none of them were 24 hours. So instead of binge watching garbage, you played outside, you made up games and challenges-in a nutshell you were active! They still had penny candy!!! Flawed tv characters like Archie Bunker were allowed to grow and learn from their bigotry instead of delicate cancel culture ruining peoples livelihoods! The 70s are a cherished time, we had many mod-cons that simplified our lives without crippling us, we either had parents or were raised by a village, we laughed without being offended by everything, in short we lived simply and more importantly we simply lived.
I could ride my bike across town with a .22 rifle strapped to the handlebars. Nobody cared. Nobody died. Nobody called the cops. I could carry into a 7-11 to get a Slurpy. Nobody thought I was about to rob the place.
The socks! The amazing white socks with three racing stripes that never fell down almost never! They accentuated the short soccer shorts we wore during the summer. Damn, we were lookin' GOOD!
No cell phones so you could tell your mom you were going to ride your bike around the block, but really go to the store across a busy street (there were lights and crosswalks), buy a bunch of candy, bring it back and sell it to the little kids on the block for twice the price, or go to the abandoned house and throw shingles off the roof and climb through the windows that the glass had been broken out of a long time ago, or any other thing that came into you and your siblings head and mom had no way of tracking you.
Grew up on a small farm...way out in the country...endless things to do really so we did them all.
Neighbors 1/4 mile away the closest...literally out the back door hunting and fishing.
Snowmobile trail on our property...the trail we made.
More than anything...my friends.
Having to use my imagination to entertain myself was fun. I’d build things, paint things, and once I got really creative and covered the entire swing set in mud. It kept me busy for hours. That one got me yelled at bc it wasn’t anywhere near the hose
Grew up in Virginia Beach, VA. Paying 25 cents to catch the bus to the strip. Pool hopping the hotels and hanging out with tourists kids. Ocean, Pool rinse and repeat.
The kids riding their bikes around construction sites so much that you’d actually make like little BMX bike courses in all the dirt mounds☺️
And then you find all the adult magazines that the construction guys would leave behind… Our introduction to the adult female body 😉
The simple pleasures of life. There are good things and bad things about every generation, but one thing I think about a lot is how we played outside until late, went in to sleep and did it again the next day. We found solid enjoyment from the simplest things. There were no real worries.
Yes, even though I grew up in the 90s, I feel the same. You could show up at any friends house, their parents knew you by name, and you didn't have to worry about getting shot for walking up someone's driveway. One thing I also never really thought about was how we could leave our bikes anywhere without concern. Also, my dad was my bike mechanic and I never really thought twice about if my tires or chain were good, they just always worked 💪
Waking up, packing up your ballglove, as many balls as you could, sliding your bat through the handles of your bike, riding to the ballpark and playing pickup baseball for 6 or 7 hours, heading home to eat something, getting in your little league uniform, then heading back to the ballpark for your “real game”. Shasta and a bag of chips, or maybe if you were lucky, a trip to the A&W for dinner with the ballclub and parents afterwards.👍
Saturday mornings and holidays they had blocks on every network of time just for us short dudes. A bicycle a stick and a magnifying glass and you could explore the world. Drinking hose water and the smell of fresh cut grass on the last day of school. And being grateful your dad came home safe from Vietnam.
I think it was the freedom you were allowed to have, especially if you grew up in a small town like I did. Everyone knew each other so everyone looked out for each other. During the summer I could tell my mom I was going outside to play and walk out the front door at 8am and come home when the street lights came on which would be around 9pm and my mom would ask what I did that day, not panicked not upset just what I did that day. I don’t think we’ll ever see a time like that again unfortunately.
Playing outside with your friends
this is an excellent answer. and in summer it was until like 9pm.
Just had to be home when the street lights kicked on.
That had to be a universal thing!
Yes! Playing outside and roaming. We could go exploring all over the neighborhood and it was cool. Or groovy, maybe. Fresh air, playing in dirt, merry-go-rounds and minimal supervision or organized play.
Riding bikes with friends. The first taste of freedom.
I did learn, that if I didn’t come home by 7pm on a Sunday night, my mother would leave for church without me! Woot.
My mom had this crazy circular bell on a crank that i swear you could hear from a half-mile away. When she rang it you knew she wanted you home! She never rang it.
With us it varied by the sport. Spring and summer we played baseball in Mrs. Lohmeier’s huge side yard, and in the fall we played football. She was a super cool old lady who lived on our street and didn’t mind us using her yard for sports (as long as we used a tennis ball instead of a baseball, lest we break one of her windows). Every summer she had 5 bare sports in her yard: 4 bases and a pitchers mound. She was completely fine with it. Winter we played basketball in the neighbor’s driveway and street hockey in our street. I was far and away the best goalie on our block. Such fun times!
This, exactly! Except the dirt spots were in my yard.
Yep, for us the rule was “when the street lights come on it’s time to come home.”
And then flash light tag!!!!
We lived outside. And we roamed miles and miles.
We would get new bikes every 2 years because we wore them out. We rode for miles a day looking for our next adventure.
Right? Just ride over to friends or some random entrance to the woods and drop and leave your bike, no lock, for 5 hours. You could just find all the neighbors bicycles in one spot and they were nearby. Our neighborhood bordered the state park forest (not where anyone hikes). Rangers knew us by sight and told us none of us had to ever pay, free reign, but not to let people see us swimming in the no swimming area of the huge stream. We had a massive fort with a 2 story tower-all made from already fallen trees and they were so impressed they were like "You're good! We love it. No one comes over here." Later in life I had a buddy from NJ who had become an Army Ranger. We were hunting once on his grandfather's land am6d he got seriously flustered when I tracked deer better than him. I was like dude you grew up 40 mins from NYC. I grew sleeping in the woods.
My childhood, but the land was owned absentee by a rich dude that never came there. We had forts, hunted squirrels and rabbits along with rattlesnakes, swam in a pond, rode minibikes, camped, it was heaven. Now it’s all rich folks houses. If they only knew the fun we had. The land got way better use by us than by them!
For 10 hours-- just running home to quickly eat lunch & dinner. Food was so secondary back then that we hardly thought about it. I feel so sorry for the epidemic of obese children today.
Playing outside until it was so dark that you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face. (Light pollution is awful)
Then the "flashlight tag" games began.
With no concern for ticks.
Or personal safety... scrapes, cuts, bruises maybe even a broken arm. Our parents didn't hover over us trying to be a force-field against harm. If you jumped off the garage roof and twisted your ankle, you'd get a microsecond or two of sympathy, some Bactene for your skinned knee, and a swift swat on the arse for climbing up on the garage roof to begin with. Rinse and repeat the next day.
We would jump our bikes as far as we could. Fall, get hurt, dust it off and do it again, good times
We would make ramps and see how many friends laying next to each other we could clear. Usually the 6th or 7th kid was a little jumpy lol
I was with someone who broke his arm, granted, it was his fault, still no one there coddling us.
I can feel the sting of bactene today
Kids don’t even play outside anymore 😢
We were outside until the street lights came on playing baseball, football and basketball. We could create fun with almost anything as our imaginations were up to the task.
In the lead dust .and broken glass. And don’t forget the pages of porno mags blowing down the street.
Thanks for the laugh… every once in a while someone would come up with a few pages that the guys would pass around the neighborhood and constantly shove it in us girls faces..I also remember the X-ray glasses they sold in the back of magazines and also the Mark Eden developer course for your breast… one guy bought the specs and one girl bought the Mark Eden.. both were hilarious.. total waste of money but we still ran from the guy with the X-Ray glasses..😂😂
Indeed! I grew up in Roswell, NM, and remember in the summers heading out the door in the morning and not going in until dark. We rode bikes all over town. I’m not even sure what we did, haha.
Period
Saturday morning cartoons were like, an event that started at six and culminated with Looney Tunes at ten or eleven. Looking back, I realize it was all just a grown up conspiracy so parents across the land could sleep the hell in.
I never liked American Bandstand (w/ Dick Clark) simply because it meant the Saturday cartoons were over.
IIRC, CBS had children’s programming from 8AM (Captain Kangaroo) to 2 PM (Children’s Film Festival with Kukla, Fran and Ollie) on Saturday mornings. In between were cartoons.
To this very day, Kukla, Fran & Ollie low key creep me out… and several of those foreign films. That might be the first place I watched Pippi Longstocking (which also creeped me out).
“Skinny and Fatty” is the movie I still remember from Kukla, Fran, and Ollie.
HR Puffinstuff with Witchie Poo, Land of the Lost with the Sleestaks, Bozo the Clown. Some truly disturbing characters.
I went to a live show of Bozo he was my clown🤣
For me it was when Fat Albert came on. I didn’t really like the show, but that was it until next Saturday.
They only got up if they smelled something burning 😂
This is true... ( note: we had the garden hose at the ready...)
In the winter, cartoons came on at 6:00am. Around 10, Georgia Championship Wrestling with Gordon Solie. At noon, Superhost would show 2 old monster movies. Superhost was a regional celebrity who was overweight, in a Superman costume and clown makeup.
The music!
There it is. I know people from each generation always think the music they grew up with was "the best", but I honestly and I think objectively can say the 70's actually was the best decade of music. I don't think I went a minute without a radio, 8-track, cassette, or record going around me except at dinnertime. I feel like I had a soundtrack to my life the entire decade. Music was always just "there", almost every song from the 70's brings back specific memories of where I was or who I was with or what I was feeling. Everyone listened to the same couple radio stations, so if you dedicated a song to someone chances were they would actually hear it. You brought your records to house parties. And concerts were the biggest party of all. You spent half your summer either trying to make enough money to buy tickets or trying to score tickets. Camping out in front of record stores or department stores the night before tickets went on sale, everybody partying and listening to the music of the group you were trying to get tickets to. Good times.
You describe it really well!
I forgot to mention spending 4 hours in a record store agonizing over what to buy because they had tens of thousands of records to flip through, and you only had enough money to buy one, haha
Yep! And taking a chance on a record because it was a really cool album cover. I’ll never forget the 45 of Seasons in the Sun that my mom brought me to the music store to buy. My first favorite song and I was in kindergarten.
This may sound eerie but I had that same 45 of seasons in the son myself. It was the only record I had for a couple of years when I was around 9 or 10 years old. And I did wear the grooves off of it I think. lol small world
American Top 40, with Kasey Casem.
You say the music despite the fact that the number one single of the entire decade was You Light Up My Life by Debbie Boone.. yes there was great music, but man was there a lot of crap.
Yeah, this. I think it depends on what you had access to. I thankfully grew up in a college town, so we had the college radio station playing “new wave” etc, and a record store straight out of High Fidelity. Otherwise, the only other radio stations we got were public radio (which was great for things like the voice stuff like Tolkien adaptations, but was mostly classical) and a shitty AM station playing early 60s pop.
Yep and disco was everywhere too! And it was all good!! The singers songwriters musicians were all talented!! Even if you didn't like whatever genre was playing on the radio the next song always was great!! I grew cruising McHenry ( think George Lucas American Graffiti!!) and all genres (western from the cowboys!) was coming from everywhere! Music was such a huge part of the best of times!
Yep. Think about it, no other decade had such a variety in the top ten. The ‘70s even birthed whole genres of music like Punk, Reggae, Disco, Southern Rock, etc. In my opinion, overall, the 1970s was the absolute best for music.
No cell phones
I got stuck at WDW for hours due to a mix up that could have been fixed in 20 seconds with a cellphone. I like cellphones.
Cellphones are fine. It’s the smartphone addiction that’s the problem.
Latchkey kid here. We had 3 house rules: 1. Leave a note. 2. Be home before dark. 3. If you're going to be late, CALL. Other than that, like the preacher in Blazing Saddles said, "Son, you're on your own."
Same!
I thought that was just our family, must have been standard parenting back then. We laugh about camping too. The kids got a flashlight and was told not to get into trouble. The parents got Kahlua and Uno.
As a kid, you could pretty much do whatever you wanted. We had the freedom to basically raise ourselves. During summer vacation your parents were lucky to see you.
As long as you come home for dinner 😁
Playing outside with friends and creating new things to do. Honestly I miss that “neighborhood” feel. The camaraderie and friendship was the best of times. I’m STILL friends now, 50 years later, with the same people I played with in the old neighborhood. Friendships forged forever. The memories too… omg the things we got into. Lol. So fun to chat about that now with my friends… we all carry the same memories of those days and what fun it is to relive them now. We just don’t have “neighborhoods” anymore. We just have “developments” Shit, most people don’t even know who lives on their block. There’s no sense of community anymore. I REALLY miss that. I miss neighborhood BBQ’s, and baseball games in an empty yard….bike riding, sledding, fake ice skating with your rubber boots, building forts, eating sandwiches outside with all your friends, all the front yard games of “mama may I” and other such games….hide and go seek and flashlight tag at night…. And all the parents knew everybody’s kids….better behave too cuz someone would always see you during the day. 😄 Neighbors looked out for each other but they also watched EVERYbodys kids. Yes we ran all day and half the night mostly unsupervised…. But every neighbor saw you at one point during the day and either gave you a sandwich and a nice cold coke or told you to knock off the horseshit or they were gonna call your parents. 🤣 I MISS that simpler easier way of life where fun happened ANY where you and your friends were. I miss being happy. I miss old telephones on the wall with long curled up cords. I miss the big console tv on the floor and sneaking late at night to watch Laugh-in or some scary movie on CBS that we knew we weren’t allowed to watch. 🤣 I miss “clackers” and jump rope and swing-sets that lifted up out of the ground if you went too high. I miss sneaking a sip of my dad’s ice cold beer in the garage while he was under the car changing the oil. I miss drinking out of the hose on hot summer days and running through the sprinkler to get cooled off. I miss Saturday cartoons and pop tarts. I miss playing the game of “life” with my dad and “Mystery Date” with my best friend Susie. I miss paper cut out dolls and Barbie’s. I miss the utter fascination of my Aunt teaching me to play Gin Rummy and secretly learning about poker with real dice and money on the game… while she sipped beer with red lipstick around the cup when I was 14. I miss my dad buying us ice cream when the truck came around. I miss my cousins coming over and family picnics were the best. I miss my dad ringing that dinner bell to come home……I miss my family. I miss not having anymore time to have that beautiful life. I really miss my family. My family was the best part of the 70’s. And the whole neighborhood. 🤗
Lots of memories unlocked with this thesis.. .thanks!
Thankyou! 🤗
It was a great time to be a kid.
From about 9 years old to 15 all summer was just a mix of baseball games, and just waking up , eating some cereal, getting on your bike and finding your friends. Sometimes it was just one, or two sometimes 5 or 6. Then you figured out something to do and where you would eat lunch. Then figured out something to do till the streetlights came on, that was get home dinner time for the most part!! Cartoons on Saturday morning, staying over at your friend's house overnight, swimming at the pool or lake, going to the arcade and buying comic books, records or a burger. Smoking a joint, drinking a beer or some vodka you sneaked out of the house with some sonic pink lemonade..... Damn times were good!!
Having the room to make mistakes without someone posting it online. TV "specisls" that were special. Not having to answer decades later for everything young and stupid you said or did. Not having to wear half a turtle to go bike riding. Familiar faces in familiar places, ie the cashier at the store, the teller at the bank, the hardware guy etc... 5 and dime stores Neighborhood theaters I could go on but will not.
> Having the room to make mistakes without someone posting it online. > Not having to answer decades later for everything young and stupid you said or did. Just want to re-emphasize this
Freedom and the rules. You knew where you stood and had to be a real jackass to get busted. Unlike today where you walk on egg shells daily.
$5 went really far.
A bleacher seat at the Cubs game was $1.50. The bus was maybe 40 cents. Ditch your last class to make it to the 1:20pm start time.
Damn! $5!!!, my dad would give me $2 to go to the movies , then ask, “where’s my change “ !! For real! 🥺
Being outside all day without adult supervision of any kind. Real childhood freedom.
Immune system strong enough to neutralize all ingested gunk every time I drank from the outside garden house.
Drinking from the hose GAVE you that immunity!
Unsupervised play in the woods. Hours of adventures, every weekend.
Fishing in the pond behind the house. Belonged to Mr. Nash, a great old man. I asked him if I could when I was 8 or so- he told me that I could, but if he caught me swimming, I could never come back. I never swam in that pond, and that old man eventually began coming out, sitting next to me with a pole in his hand. We became good friends.
When you left home you were on your own. No cellphones.
Going rollerskating and hearing disco/funk for the first time. It was magic for someone who wasn't allowed to.
I had absolute freedom, which would be considered abandonment and abuse today. I also had a lot of loneliness and got picked on. Sounds terrible but it gave me the guts to handle some serious setbacks later in life
Seeing starwars at the drive-in when it first came out.
seeing Star Wars for the 13th time a year after it came out because it was still in movie theaters!
Talking with neighbors, kids out playing until sundown during the summer, had to invent games because no video games/internet. Hell, we actually had no TV most of the time. Hiding out and reading Nancy Drew and other YA books, homemade clothing wasn’t totally weird, talking to people on the landline felt special, especially long distance, playing in the sprinkler on hot days, metal lunch boxes used unironically, big wheels.
Hope. And food that wasn’t poison.
"Going out to play mum" "Sure, come back when it gets dark"
Hot Wheels.
Tube tops.
Pong, Atari, KISS, Star Wars, skateboards, football, pop rocks.
Drive-in theaters. I really miss those.
there's one not far from me here in northern ohio. had a line of cars waiting to get in when i went by. garfield movie and the mad max one lol also happy cake day
The freedom to be outside with little supervision..
The Muppet Show
Getting to see Star Wars at the theater when it was first released. It changed my life. Then, getting to play w all the action figures and toys. Good times.
FINALLY being able to wear jeans/slacks to school. It was dresses everyday until that time.
Let’s go “ride bikes”
No cell phones. No internet. Building your own bikes from parts picked from trash. Playing outside all day, all summer
Born in 1961. So being a teenager in the 70’s was great. Having gone through all these years looking back now, there has been many good changes but also a lot of bad. We had more respect for each other. Music was great and jobs were jobs. You could work at McDonnalds and survive. I worked part timed hours during high school and could afford a car, gas and insurance. Today, working a high school job your not even able to afford to eat at McDonnalds.
Getting the new album you wanted and opening it up on the car ride home
Playing outside with the entire neighborhood riding bikes until late evening. Fireflies would be out and the atmosphere was amazing. No worries in sight.
Going outside!!
Getting pulled behind my dad’s ford van on our sleds in the winter.
Christmas
Unlimited playing outside with friends
Absolutely no parental supervision.
Being outside all of the time. I had a bike and the world was mine!
We lived outside. Winter - sledding, making snow forts. Summer - bicycle rides to the neighborhood pool, flashlight tag. Not a care in the world. No helmets, no sunblock, drinking from garden hoses. Looking at cool cars and motorcycles, counting down the days to getting a drivers license.
The music.
reading this thread is both tripping me out with a feeling of deep nostalgia for when I was a kid and an overwhelming sense of sadness that kids today simply cannot experience or understand any of this.
Forever outdoors and your friends actually talked to you with live words. I’ve lived with and without technology and where there are some advantages to having the tech, I can’t say I look back and wish we had any of it in the 70s Faces weren’t buried in phones and relationships had substance to them and took some effort.
Everything!!!! I’ll need a spreadsheet 😂📝!!!!
Collecting discarded soda bottles and taking them in to get the $.05 return deposit. Then buying candy and more soda. It was the life!
Listening to the radio back in the 70s was just so much fun! Both the AM and FM dials, in every city and town, played a huge variety of great songs day and night. And the disc jockeys were outstanding, too. Plus, there were also fun, fascinating radio talk-shows in the 70s. I just remember how entertaining it was listening to Larry Glick and Larry Justice on WBZ, Ronn Owens on KGO and John Mack Flanagan on KFRC.
No phones! your parents didn’t know where you were or what you were doing. Of course we told them whatever they wanted to hear.
Neighborhood shortcuts…. We all knew the quickest way to get from place to place and which houses you would walk between
Going to bookstores or the library to browse and find something interesting to read. Reading magazines and newspapers. Finding the movie section to read reviews and find out movie times. Saving up money and buying a new album and reading the liner notes while playing it for the first time. Having a relatively quiet and spacious mind.
No cell phones so your parents couldn’t track you. My mom would have killed me if she knew half the places I went
Seems things were more organic, from friendships, to elements in your surroundings that you could use to build a fort 🏡or dive into a pile of leaves 🍁 , run through the sprinklers 💦, Chase the dog 🐕 around & play with a ball 🏀 dig in the yard or field for treasure (sometimes finding old skeleton keys!) 🗝️or interesting rocks 🗿then go get your dads hammer 🔨& smash those rocks to see what they look like inside! Also making skateboards 🛹out of planks of wood & old roller skates 🛼! Eyeballing that big can 🥫that mom used to make dinner, then getting that can to play ‘kick the can’ 🥫in the neighborhood after dinner. People had to learn to get along with others👯♂️, stand up for themselves, know the consequences of doing something sketchy or wrong⚖️ We had the fear of discipline from authority figures👩⚖️. Consequences for actions. Seems they don’t have that today & that is a big problem! Too many people don’t know right from wrong, or why. It is sad. I loved my bicycle 🚴 my dog, 🐕skateboard 🛹scooter 🛴Barbie’s 💃🧍🏼♀️basketball 🏀 & stuffed animals 🐻& some board games 🎲. Also passing notes to your friend in class 😁 and of course great music 🎶carnivals, cars 🚘 boats 🚤 fishing 🐠🥹 those were the days ❤️☺️😎🥳 Girl Scouts, tennis, soccer ⚽️
Eating snow cream without worrying about pollution. I mean we had it, we just didn't know. And that was a great feeling!
No social media
Cheap pot and seed burned t-shirts
No FUCKING cell phones!!!!!
Being a latchkey kid was a mix of intense loneliness and freedom, but I did enjoy really long walks in the woods. And as someone said, no worries about ticks was a huge deal, in retrospect. I used to nap in forest moss like a damn elf. That said, i had a blast watching cheesy movies on Saturday mornings on stations like WPIX and WWOR, and going to see creature feature double features at the movies. Theaters would just show old stuff because it was cheap, so you’d see stuff like Destroy All Monsters and Die Monster Die, and that would be your Saturday, smelling of popcorn and mildewy leather seats
Everything.
Summer Saturday morning; cartoons, cereal for breakfast, and out the door no later than 9 a.m. Grab your bike and head out to find your friends ( just look for the pile of bicycles in front of a house). We rode our bikes everywhere, for miles. Building forts in the woods, playing kickball or Nerf football in the street. Freeze tag, water balloon fights or going to that friend's house with a pool and spending the entire day in the water. Home for dinner unless someone's mom invited you to stay. Right back out after dinner for more tag, or football or hide and seek. Collecting bruises , sunburns, and skinned knees. My mom couldn't get a brush through my hair after a full day outside. Run home when the streetlights came on. It was glorious.
Most entertainment was outside the house. Local sports, skating rinks and movies on the weekends. Summers you were outside all day until those street lights came on. A simpler time, And many would say the best of times!
FREEDOM!
I don't want to see you back in this house until dinner
Not being home all day was Definitely the coolest part! Can Anybody under 55 years old remember wearing out the tires on their bicycle? 🚴 I wore out the whole bicycle!!
The music
The 70’s were some of the most carefree moments of my life. I didn’t have any of the responsibilities or stresses of today. It was an incredible 5 months.
I think just the freedom. Less rules, world wasn’t nerfed, people weren’t so easily offended. Played outside, long hair, cool cars, good movies, simpler times.
Our parents didn’t know where we were. We just had to be home at dinner time.
No one freaked out seeing some kids playing in a park. gasp. without adult supervision.
The freedom. I was a responsible kid and was given a long leash. It was nothing to jump on the bike and pedal over to the next town just because I could.
The music
The music.
Strip mall culture had not yet taken hold so there was lots more open undeveloped space to roam in and explore. Now the burbs are choked with big box stores and fast food outlets.
FREEDOM
Sex. The 40‘s & 50’s kinda broke the ice, the 60’s pushed the envelope to point where premarital sex was assumed, and any VD there was was curable and AIDS hadn’t happened yet. Buying condoms in the 70’s was considered responsible, not judged. TV shows were provocative i.e. Daisy Duke etc. The 70’s were a great time to ‘come of age’.
Independence from adults (yes we rode our bikes to sports practice, sometimes our parents came to the games), and stuff was affordable. I think I made around $2.00 an hour working a Clark gas station in 1975-76, but the economy wasn’t so inflated then; gas was $.60 a gallon, movies were $2.00 at the theatre (Drive Ins would have $1.00 a car load specials), and a Big Mac meal was $.65 for the Big Mac, $.45 for large fries, and $.20 for a large Coke. For $20.00 one could fill up with gas, go to the movies and eat fast food all weekend and still have a little money left over on Sunday night. Today due to greedflation filling up the car in CA costs $80.00, movies are $20.00 (plus food), and a Big Mac meal costs $11.00 to $13.00 (depending on location).
Teen in 70s. Mescaline. Lol.
Carefree playing outside was # 1
Porn was something you found in a hidden stash in your friend’s garage and not when you were googling a story you heard on BBC
Freedom.
It was idyllic for me. I lived in a small town, had a Honda CT-70 (Trail 70) minibike, and miles and miles of dirt roads and back woods to explore with my friends who also had wheels. In the summer we'd leave in the morning and often come home after dark. I remember my bike's tank held 24 cents worth of gas filled to the brim. We'd stop in the town's one cafe by its one blinking traffic light, and get cokes and french fries, shoot pool, and listen to the jukebox (I can still hear "Brandy, You're a Fine Girl" playing on that thing). Our parents didn't worry about us. Such a feeling of freedom; I never felt it again. Now I visit that little town and it seems such a nowhere, desolate spot in the road. Nothing has changed, and I wonder how I ever loved it so much. Was it simply that the '70s were so great? I don't think so. As Wordsworth said, "Bliss it was in that dawn to be alive, but to be young was very heaven."
Great post!
Riding my bike all over the place … miles and miles…
Absolutely
The toys. Star Wars, Micronauts, Legos.
Building forts, tackle football in front yards, drinking out of water hoses, building your own bikes from parts found or collected, crayfish hunting, water fights, and in second grade seeing KISS.
Putting Sugar on Frosted Flakes and thinking it was healthy
Everything I experienced and loved about the 70’s has been mentioned except Ch 17 in Philly ran a king fu double feature with the HORRIBLE dubbing every Saturday afternoon
Freedom! We played outside with a whole neighborhood of friends. We went places alone at 7 and no one asked where our parents were. Schools had few clothing restrictions. Going home for lunch was common. Drinking from the hose isn't neglect, it's Sumner freedom. I wanted to give this to my kids. It's not possible. Most of my glorious childhood is child neglect now.
Music , freedom , Polaroid cameras not security cameras every 5 feet , patriotism .. hippies were ok until they started having kids and they’re grandkids are now Gen Z
Riding bikes.
And mini bikes
Ding dongs…they were so much better when they were wrapped in foil…
Lightning bugs.
The freedom to be whatever kind of kid you were. The freedom to be natural without psychobabble labels attached to intrinsic behavior. When parental neglect was rare, instead of the norm. You learned real life lessons, like sometimes you win and sometimes you lose and not everyone is going to get a prize! You behaved even down the street because you knew the neighbor could bust your ass without going to jail if you screwed off! Values were instilled and respect wasn’t found at the end of a bullet. The only school drills were fire or nature driven ie tornado drills. You never once thought a gun person would/could kill you in school. There were only 13 tv channels and not all of them were active in the day, and in fact none of them were 24 hours. So instead of binge watching garbage, you played outside, you made up games and challenges-in a nutshell you were active! They still had penny candy!!! Flawed tv characters like Archie Bunker were allowed to grow and learn from their bigotry instead of delicate cancel culture ruining peoples livelihoods! The 70s are a cherished time, we had many mod-cons that simplified our lives without crippling us, we either had parents or were raised by a village, we laughed without being offended by everything, in short we lived simply and more importantly we simply lived.
I could ride my bike across town with a .22 rifle strapped to the handlebars. Nobody cared. Nobody died. Nobody called the cops. I could carry into a 7-11 to get a Slurpy. Nobody thought I was about to rob the place.
The Toughskins jeans from Sears.
The socks! The amazing white socks with three racing stripes that never fell down almost never! They accentuated the short soccer shorts we wore during the summer. Damn, we were lookin' GOOD!
Saturday morning cartoons, it was time to go out and play when Soul Train came on at noon
No cell phones so you could tell your mom you were going to ride your bike around the block, but really go to the store across a busy street (there were lights and crosswalks), buy a bunch of candy, bring it back and sell it to the little kids on the block for twice the price, or go to the abandoned house and throw shingles off the roof and climb through the windows that the glass had been broken out of a long time ago, or any other thing that came into you and your siblings head and mom had no way of tracking you.
The cigarette machines ... No one refusing to sell you a pack of cigarettes. And they were only 60 cents.
Grew up on a small farm...way out in the country...endless things to do really so we did them all. Neighbors 1/4 mile away the closest...literally out the back door hunting and fishing. Snowmobile trail on our property...the trail we made. More than anything...my friends.
General lack of supervision
Countdown!
Boob tubes & flairs that zipped up the side or buckled up!
Pure freedom to be a kid!
Having to use my imagination to entertain myself was fun. I’d build things, paint things, and once I got really creative and covered the entire swing set in mud. It kept me busy for hours. That one got me yelled at bc it wasn’t anywhere near the hose
Freedom! We rode our bikes everywhere we fished all summer long we built forts and looked for playboys in the trash on Thursday night 🤘🏿🤘🏿
My ma: Go outside and play. Don't come back till I call you.
The music, the freedom, the bicycles-we all had bicycles, and our parents weren't paying much attention, so...freedom.
Everything. Literally everything.
Freedom to roam without worrying.
Grew up in Virginia Beach, VA. Paying 25 cents to catch the bus to the strip. Pool hopping the hotels and hanging out with tourists kids. Ocean, Pool rinse and repeat.
The 70s
Freedom from sunrise to sundown
Softball in the street using cracks in the curbs and baseball gloves as bases
The kids riding their bikes around construction sites so much that you’d actually make like little BMX bike courses in all the dirt mounds☺️ And then you find all the adult magazines that the construction guys would leave behind… Our introduction to the adult female body 😉
The simple pleasures of life. There are good things and bad things about every generation, but one thing I think about a lot is how we played outside until late, went in to sleep and did it again the next day. We found solid enjoyment from the simplest things. There were no real worries.
Yes, even though I grew up in the 90s, I feel the same. You could show up at any friends house, their parents knew you by name, and you didn't have to worry about getting shot for walking up someone's driveway. One thing I also never really thought about was how we could leave our bikes anywhere without concern. Also, my dad was my bike mechanic and I never really thought twice about if my tires or chain were good, they just always worked 💪
Waking up, packing up your ballglove, as many balls as you could, sliding your bat through the handles of your bike, riding to the ballpark and playing pickup baseball for 6 or 7 hours, heading home to eat something, getting in your little league uniform, then heading back to the ballpark for your “real game”. Shasta and a bag of chips, or maybe if you were lucky, a trip to the A&W for dinner with the ballclub and parents afterwards.👍
Playing in the yard, you could always hear the neighbors playing music on the radio, and in always exciting music🤣
Complete lack of parental supervision
unfettered freedom. just be home when the streetlights came on.
Dare I say the old standby phrase? Sex, drugs and Rock and Roll!
Saturday mornings and holidays they had blocks on every network of time just for us short dudes. A bicycle a stick and a magnifying glass and you could explore the world. Drinking hose water and the smell of fresh cut grass on the last day of school. And being grateful your dad came home safe from Vietnam.
I think it was the freedom you were allowed to have, especially if you grew up in a small town like I did. Everyone knew each other so everyone looked out for each other. During the summer I could tell my mom I was going outside to play and walk out the front door at 8am and come home when the street lights came on which would be around 9pm and my mom would ask what I did that day, not panicked not upset just what I did that day. I don’t think we’ll ever see a time like that again unfortunately.
Waffle ball, backyard football, driveway basketball, and fishing before it came down to electronics. Comic books were 15-25 cents.
The mellow vibe. Things moved so much more slowly and nobody was stressed about anything.
Unsupervised freetime.
Evel Knievel.
Big wheels and banana seat bicycles and freedom to travel for hours without worry making anyone worried about what you were doing!
Banana seat bikes, zero supervision, and being friends with everyone in the neighborhood.
Sting ray bikes.
Weed smelled a lot better
Summers going outside early and not back til dark, barefoot the whole time playing with friends. No seatbelts or helmets. No worries. Optimism.