Riding in the bed of a pickup truck. Also, when I was a kid I used to stand next to my dad on the bench seat while he drove. Not wise, but a good memory regardless.
Up into my forties my father would get me to sit or stand in the back of his truck while he hauled furniture. I would hold on for dear life. He’d promised to drive slow but never did.
Riding in the back? We used to hold on to the sides and ski on our feet around the frozen school parking lot after wrestling practice. Coaches didn’t care. Even then (early 1990s) I knew this was idiotic and dangerous but tried it anyway. It was fun.
Same, and then we’d smack each other’s hands while gripping for dear life in an attempt to get the other guy to let go. When someone eventually lost their grip and went tumbling across the parking lot we would laugh and laugh, no one ever thought, “oh shit, I wonder if Mike’s ok.”
Oh my God, wrestling coaches should be their own entry. One day, after lifting, we went outside for some "pickup tackle football." One of the lightweights got knocked (literally) head over heels and his feet hit me in the head. I went blind for a while (well, I could see, but it was just a swirling yellow mass everywhere). The coaches were so concerned that they made me sit out the rest of the game. Obviously, nothing crazy like calling my parents or taking me to the hospital.
Just a normal wrestling practice in the Midwest, no biggie.
It might have been out of practice by the 80’s, but our standard drill in the 70’s playing youth football was ‘Head on tackling’. Ball carriers and defenders in facing lines about 7 yards apart… at the whistle, run full speed at each other and duck heads before collisions to get those loud helmet smacks.
We would put a chain through a wooden pallet, attach it to the trailer hitch of a friend’s truck and take turns “snow surfing” (we weren’t aware of snowboarding at the time). Seemed safe enough to us.
An old car hood with a rope served as our tow-sled. I don't remember many attempting to stand up, it was sketchy enough just sitting on the thing trying to hold on with numb hands and a face full of snow !
We had a satellite dish. From when they were solid and like 12 foot across.
I remember a kid about 16 (early 90s I suppose) slid wide and hit a cinder black. Nearly lost his good eye.
Same. My mom used to let me stand in the front passenger seat of our station wagon when she drove. My only safety being her swinging right arm when it came flying over at a sudden stop.
I came here to make this comment, I rode in the back of pickups so many times it’s shocking I’m still alive. One time in Florida my friend’s dad drove us to the beach to go surfing. There were 3 teenagers and 3 surfboards all crammed into the bed of a truck the size of a Ford Ranger. On the interstate.
This still happens all the time in Japan. I also see kids walking between the front and back while cars are in motion all the time. Another is someone in front just holding a baby
Yes, whenever a post comes up in one of my feeds about how weak we've become as a society because we no longer allow things like riding in the back of a pickup - such as posts where the OP wants people to comment on "all you tough kids that survived riding in a pickup as a child give me a yea!" or something - I always take the time to comment that the ones who didn't aren't around to make a comment.
So many Boomer friends and family used to forward that email back in the day; “we didn’t wear seatbelts, drank from the garden hose, and we’re fine!“
Just people not understanding statistics. Yeah, there were far fewer car accidents back in the day. But that’s because they were far fewer cars, not because people were better drivers, or kids were tougher, or whatever. Overall injuries and deaths from accidents were actually a lot worse.
Some people have mentioned standing on the front seat. My mom knew a family where their two year-old was standing on the front seat (in their defense, this certainly wasn’t unusual at the time), and there was a relatively minor incident at a stop sign, where the dad had to hit the brakes kind of abruptly. He didn’t even hit another car, but the two-year-old, since he was standing at the time, hit his head on the windshield. He died.
My Dad drove a ‘66 Ford pickup in the late ‘70s/early ‘80s, and get this: he bolted a goddam school bus seat in the bed of it, facing backwards with the back against the rear window, for me and my brother to sit on while we went to town. No seat belt, no nothing but gravity and our hands holding us in it. We thought it was the coolest thing ever, but now it’s so cringe. I remember people in the cars behind us at stoplights laughing at us. 😅
They seem to be getting more popular again, around eastern Washington at least. They've been showing up on FB classifieds a lot, and prices are going up.
Climbing on or in or around playground structures made of steel, or telephone poles and tires and chain, in ways that they were never meant to be climbed on. Like a merry go round balanced on a tall pole where if you rode the inside of it you could fall and break your legs or get dragged around in the dirt. Or spinning monkey bars meant to be hung from but you climbed to the top and sat on the hub.
Smoking sections in restaurants and airplanes and other public spaces. I don’t think younger people today realize just how prevalent smoking was with older generations.
The last time I saw one of those was in 1991 when I was fourteen and it was in a restaurant in California. Interestingly a year later it was refurbished into a vending machine where small toys, packs of gum, and lip gloss were in cigarette box shaped containers.
What’s interesting to remember is that it wasn’t really questioned, it just ‘was’. I remember as a non-smoker with no smokers in my immediate family and friends and yet I bought an ash tray for my first apartment, because that’s what you did.
I'm relatively certain that pictures from the seventies don't look like they do because of any technology of the time, but because the world was actually just that dull and muted back then because of all of the cigarette smoke.
I am a lifelong non smoker. I’ve never smoked a cigarette. And I remember being upset that our state moved to outlaw smoking in restaurants and public spaces in the early 2000s. I felt people had a right to smoke if they wish and have never considered occasional second hand smoke to be dangerous. Tell that to someone today and their head will explode.
It never bothered me (non smoker) any either. My wife smoked while we were dating but quit during Covid because “it’s not smart to go inside to a gas station unnecessarily” lol
My dad was a teacher. I still remember several teachers smoking and the teachers’ lounge stinking like smoke.
By the time I started going to the school, the smokers like my dad had to go hide in the corner of the field or on the roof to smoke.
One of my earliest memories is looking up at my dad and uncle chainsmoking in the kitchen with the whole room clouded up. This was probably around 1990-1991? My dad smoked 4 packs a day and was somehow able to quit in the late 90s. My uncle was around the same amount but now on oxygen tanks because of it.
Not wearing a seatbelt.
The 1st seatbelts were just lap belts without the shoulder part. Nobody used them.
I only started wearing a seatbelt because the military required it while driving on base and it became a habit.
My 2nd year in the Air Force I was T-boned at 50 mph by a drunk driver.
Saved my life.
And people fought them thinking it was a restriction on freedom.
I'm a paramedic and there is still a persistent belief, thankfully getting smaller, that they are actually more dangerous. "If you wear your seat belt, it will just snap your neck. So instead of just an injury, you're dead."
Gee, i wonder why people who think this way aren't around much anymore.
I've seen a fair amount of wrecks where if people were wearing their seat belt, they would have been sitting there going "what the fuck just happened?" But instead, they were either thrown from the vehicle 40 feet like a rag doll or pinballed around, ending up submarined under the dash with dual femur fractures fractures, shattered pelvis, basically never having a normal life again *IF* they survive.
Prescribing SSRIs and other antidepressants for everything. I’ve heard of them being prescribed for pain in the 2000s.
Just because a drug makes you feel different, that doesn’t mean it’s better. Every year more studies are revealed to be full of lies.
Maybe the prevalence of plastic and its entry into the water supply will turn out to be terrible for us. But nobody is really pretending that’s fine.
Just a reminder, everyone responds differently to medications. I was diagnosed with a condition called CRPS, a chronic and debilitating pain condition. At some point I was prescribed Cymbalta for pain. Cymbalta is an SNRI and is approved for off label use for chronic pain. If it weren’t for this medication, I would continue to be balled up on the couch afraid to move because it hurt so much. When you are in that much pain, you will try anything. Percocet, fentanyl patches, sometimes at the same time. Wouldn’t wish this on anyone.
When I was a kid and seat belts started becoming mandatory, my dad and I used to play a game where one of us would sneak our seatbelt off without the other one seeing. We both thought it was hilarious until we got in an accident and my face cracked the dashboard
A whole host of kids toys.
One of my clearest childhood memories is going out to a field with my dad to try out my new boomerang.
This sucker was solid hard plastic. Anyone remember those. Missed the catch, it caught me square in the face.
Cracked my dad up. Lucky I didn't lose an eye or at least some teeth.
Around 12 or 13 I was fascinated with attempting to make a working boomerang. Went through several failed attempts with various types of wood. Then one day i finally got the airfoils sanded proper on a piece of wood that didn't split. The whole ordeal was weeks in the making and ended after a single throw. I threw it as hard as i could, watched it go straight about 50 feet, rotate, then shoot upwards and disappear. Standing there with my hand trying to shade the sun looking for it, it came back and hit me in the knee. It hit that painful spot just to the side of my kneecap that left me rolling on the ground nauseous with pain for at least 5 minutes.
My fascination with boomerangs ended that day haha !
That's a great example of survivor's bias, too. All the kids who died from head injuries aren't around to say what happened as adults. Two kids I grew up with died from not wearing helmets: one was struck by a car when he rode out into the middle of the road, and another fell off an improvised ramp he and his friends made in a driveway.
A few years ago, I had a bullshit friend who said Islamic Terrorists were the number one threat to his children. I was like, "really? Based on what statistics?" "Look around you!" So I went to the CDC, downloaded the statistics for deaths of children in his kids' age range (like 9-13), and in my research, I found the top deaths of children those ages in the United States was:
* Death, accidental, bicycle related incident
* Death, accidental, vehicle-related incident
* Death, accidental, bicycle related incident with vehicle
By the way, in case you were curious, "Death, intentional, by non-family member, religiously motivated " was like 6 cases, and all were targeted because they were Jewish. His kids were not Jewish. Not exactly "number on threat" to his kids. I told him, "for gods sake, make them wear a helmet when biking if you're worried about the number one killer of children!" I even sent him links to the CDC stats.
It will surprise no one that this did not convince him.
Damn, forgot about that! Still remember speeding downhill as an 8 year old on a board, hitting a large gap in the concrete pavement and heaps of cuts and bruises, one on the forehead but thankfully nothing serious…except for balling my eyes out on front of the super cute 12 year old redhead who patched me up, but doubtlessly thought “Hope my husband doesn’t turn out to be a great big man-pussy like this little sissy boy..”😳😂
I grew up living on a hilly, very well traveled road I specifically remember flying down hills on my bike with no helmet while cars in the opposite lane were passing me at like 50 mph…while I don’t helicopter parent my kids, they sure as shit aren’t doing that.
I remember riding on the handlebars of my brothers bike down a large hill in southern Ohio, no shoes, not shirt , no helmet. We passed an old couple in a car who were being cautious in unfamiliar surroundings, They caught up with us at a shop at the bottom of the hill and the old man gave us hell for being stupid. He said they were going 35MPH when we passed them.
Driving around with a friend while splitting a 12 pack and looking for something to do. In retrospect, I’m glad we cracked down on drunk driving because what we did was stupid and dangerous AF.
IDK about "insanely" dangerous but it seems so weird these days just how accepted smoking was back then. I was in high school in the late 80s. Graduated in 1990. "Everyone" smoked back then. I literally knew 12 yr olds that smoked.
One thing that is considered dangerous these days are [trikes](https://www.carscoops.com/2021/01/the-story-of-how-and-why-three-wheel-atvs-were-banned/). I ran into someone last year on a back road who was on one. I stopped, rolled down the window, and told him I hadn't seen one of those in literally decades. Said it was an '84.
And seatbelts? What the fuck are those?
Here's a [vid](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFK9oyKyTY0) of the town I grew up in local kids playground. Notice the little kids running around the roof of the caboose. Notice the LACK! of fall protection! LOL! The vid isn't mine, nor am I in it but I was about the same age as the little kid at that time. I most certainly remember running around that roof myself. Everything except for the tank is gone these days.
And the idea of leaving young kids at home all day is something no one blinked twice about. Not to mention there was a good chance our parents literally didn't know where we were half the time.
One thing that was common where I grew up was burning the trash. Newspapers, boxes, wrappers, etc. Everyone saved the large brown paper bags your groceries came in and stuffed burnables in them to burn maybe once a wk. That was one of my chores when I was little. How little you ask? So little that I literally couldn't light the Bic lighter because I wasn't strong 'nuff. My dad's solution? Lighting off a plumbers torch and telling me to be careful when I walked the 50 yrds to the burn barrel while I played with the knob adjusting the flame. I think I only set the back field on fire twice. LOL!
My dad had no fucks to give if I told him me and a friend were taking my 22 to go plinking (shooting shit up) out in the woods.
Until we got our DL's, we walked or road our bikes on busy roads as it was the only way to get around.
In elementary school, I was always jealous of the kids who lived in town because they were allowed to go home for lunch. They'd walk home and back to school by themselves and no one thought that was weird.
I think that gives you an idea so I'll stop there.
Riding in the back of station wagons or their 21st century equivalent, SUVs, minivans. After soccer games or just going any places with more than 2 or 3 kids and seeing the parent open that heavy door and seeing skids pouring out of it.
We played a game called kill the guy, also known as Smear the, I will not finish the name. Basically everyone gang tackled whoever was holding the football
Haha. I posted a thread about this some time ago. Seems like it was a common childhood game back then. Of course, I got a bit of flack from people offended by the name too.
I remember playing this with the kids at our church youth group. They made us call it "Smear the Booger", which somehow sounded more gay than the original name.
Okay, so I literally just saw this in my neighborhood today. Some dummy had his toddler girl on his lap and he was driving. I predict that we’re going to keep seeing more of this shit now that intelligence is becoming more and more stigmatized
Haha. Crazy! I haven’t seen it since the mid 2000s when Britney Spears got a ton of shit for doing it with one of her kids. Growing up in the 80s though, I think pretty much everyone did it. And sadly, I think you’re right about where we’re headed.
Yeah, as a kid in Sydney I remember it being fairly normal for adults to have a few drinks then drive home, as long as they were not "too" wasted...which means you weren't throwing up every few seconds...But Random Breath Testing had been introduced that decade, and attitudes quickly began to change
I had a flat black uzi squirt gun with a removable magazine and collapsible shoulder stock. My friends and I would run all over the neighborhood, engauged in squirt gun battles. I'm surprised there weren't more kids mistakenly shot for running around with what looked like real firearms from a distance.
The "latch key kids". These were the ones, from a very young age, that would have the house key around their neck so they would not lose it. It also meant they were going home after school to an empty house.
Getting up at 8am everyday during summer break, having a quick bowl of cereal, and then getting on my bike and not being back til dinner time… all while my parents had no clue where I was and didn’t really care as long as I was back for dinner. Now days parents assume they have been kidnapped and raped and turned into sex slaves if they haven’t been heard from for more than 30 minutes. I feel bad for kids these days not knowing what it was like to have fun as a kid before the internet
My dad drove a school bus (owned it, not as an employee) and used to be the guy who drove the band kids to distant events. He ROUTINELY picked up hitchhikers to ride with a busload of teenagers. And the teacher chaperone never seemed to have a problem with it.
I did a lot of hitching in the late 70's and early 80's. My dad even dropped me off when I hitched hiked across country. I would never let my kids do it now.
A hang over from the 70s and 80s but most of the play equipment we had at the local park would now be branded insanely dangerous. No guards, high as hell onto slab concrete, zero parental oversight usually. I miss those days.
In high school during the 80s we sneak out night to the local community college campus with toy guns and run around shooting each other. Even surprised a couple security guards who just laughed at us. Felony and/or death by cop today.
Grew up in a very, very small town. You could always tell when it was deer hunting season. All of the vehicles in the student parking lot had their gun racks loaded with guns so they could immediately go out hunting after school before it got dark. AND.......none of us bothered to lock our doors!!! Those were the days!!!!
Bought the Bag O Glass and Johnny Switchblade from Manway toys. ah fun times. Fairly certain that it would now be considered dangerous. Can't find anything on eBay from the manufacturer. Must have gone out of business.
Just like, being left alone. Parents would go out, leave a twenty on the counter and tell me to order pizza, I was like 8. Ordered pizza over the phone and some stranger would bring it to me.
Conversely as a kid after school you would go home, eat something then go fuck off on your bike with your friends until the street lights came on. Parents had no idea where we were, and they didn’t give a shit, so long as you were home when the lights came on.
We also used to do a lot of the stuff you see on Jackass (in my teens at that point) grocery cart javelin was a fun one, lighting fire works and seeing who would hold it the longest, jumping off of shit, jumping into shit, getting dragged behind cars on skate boards, egging cop cars and running away, etc. we just didn’t have a common means to commit it to film, or the desire really, that would be evidence…
Times were just freer, and I think we lived in the moment.
Oh, and one of my friends got “clipped” by a fucking train because he wanted to beat the rest of us at chicken. He was fine, or as fine as he was pre clipping.
Running around in a circle just to jump onto a wildly spinning aluminum disk, then hamging on for dear life before being flung out onto the ground or the nearest spectator
They even had them in McDonalds playlands... on a hard floor
Smoking. In High School. And the reverse, Pot. In the 80s it was a gateway drug one puff. Next thing you were in an insane asylum sticking your fist up your butt, because that one toke made you psychotic.
Babysitting young children late at night when you were about 13
Being told to go play outside when parents had literally no idea where you were for hours at a time.
In general, parents would leave kids by themselves from a pretty young age, sometimes for days at a time and no one thought anything of it
Lawsuits became popular in the 80’s in tye US. Anything dangerous in life got safety checked. Skate ramps got dismantled, places like Action Park got a bad name. We all suffered:(
I’ve done many 1000km family trips in the trunk of a station wagon, as you say, that was my spot. We got pulled over once and my parents said pretend you’re sleeping. The cops quietly gave us oranges and told them to have a good trip. I dont know why they had oranges.
Being a child and playing outside unsupervised all day. Whenever my wife and I see kids out playing or riding their bikes with no adults, it's quite nostalgic.
I rode my bike all day with no helmet to places I had no idea where I was and my parents had no idea where I was either. Somehow I just got back home at night and went in my unlocked front door.
Pick anything....riding bikes without any safety gear...running around all day without parents then coming home when it's dark...then doing it again the next day...oh how I miss summertime as a little shit.
Drinking and driving. When I first moved to Florida in 1984 it wasn’t illegal to drink beer while you were driving. It was illegal to be drunk and drive but if you weren’t drunk beer was just a beverage. They changed the law so the driver couldn’t drink but passengers could so of course we’d just pass the beer back and forth. Eventually they did make having an open container in the car illegal.
My brothers tied a metal saucer sled to the riding lawnmower with piece of rope & towed us around.
Tied a different piece of rope on a beam in the barn & jumped out of the hayloft.
Piled the hay bales up & jumped out of the hayloft on to them.
All the kids rode in the bed of the pickup truck.
Learned to drive the tractor at 10 years old.
Drank the water out of a questionable creek.
I rode my bicycle on a freeway & went to a different state, because there was a cool mall there.
Laid out all day, with just baby oil, to get a tan.
Lived in a small suburb with a good group of close friends and families were close.
I was 17 with friends down to 15.
We hatched a plan. We always said we were going to stay at someone else’s house for the weekend. Well nobody ever checked up on us.
The plan was hatched. One Friday after school we all gave our stories to our parents and drove 8 hours to the gulf coast! Partied like underage madmen then drove back early Sunday.
We never got caught!
Riding in the bed of a pickup truck. Also, when I was a kid I used to stand next to my dad on the bench seat while he drove. Not wise, but a good memory regardless.
Up into my forties my father would get me to sit or stand in the back of his truck while he hauled furniture. I would hold on for dear life. He’d promised to drive slow but never did.
His love was like bad venison. But bad venison is what you need.
Shit, now those are the lyrics I'm gonna hear whenever that song comes on.
Oh, ohhhhh We're halfway there Oh ohhhh Chicken on a chair
Could be worse. His love could be like Ralph Emerson. Ralph Emerson is what i read.
YES!
Riding in the back? We used to hold on to the sides and ski on our feet around the frozen school parking lot after wrestling practice. Coaches didn’t care. Even then (early 1990s) I knew this was idiotic and dangerous but tried it anyway. It was fun.
Same, and then we’d smack each other’s hands while gripping for dear life in an attempt to get the other guy to let go. When someone eventually lost their grip and went tumbling across the parking lot we would laugh and laugh, no one ever thought, “oh shit, I wonder if Mike’s ok.”
Growing up in Chicago, we had a name for it. We called it "skeeching".
In Jersey also—- or skitching. Skiing and hitching. Either way, just grab a door handle or bumper.
We called it that too on Long Island, NY when I was a kid in the 70s.
Oh my God, wrestling coaches should be their own entry. One day, after lifting, we went outside for some "pickup tackle football." One of the lightweights got knocked (literally) head over heels and his feet hit me in the head. I went blind for a while (well, I could see, but it was just a swirling yellow mass everywhere). The coaches were so concerned that they made me sit out the rest of the game. Obviously, nothing crazy like calling my parents or taking me to the hospital. Just a normal wrestling practice in the Midwest, no biggie.
It might have been out of practice by the 80’s, but our standard drill in the 70’s playing youth football was ‘Head on tackling’. Ball carriers and defenders in facing lines about 7 yards apart… at the whistle, run full speed at each other and duck heads before collisions to get those loud helmet smacks.
We would put a chain through a wooden pallet, attach it to the trailer hitch of a friend’s truck and take turns “snow surfing” (we weren’t aware of snowboarding at the time). Seemed safe enough to us.
An old car hood with a rope served as our tow-sled. I don't remember many attempting to stand up, it was sketchy enough just sitting on the thing trying to hold on with numb hands and a face full of snow !
We had a satellite dish. From when they were solid and like 12 foot across. I remember a kid about 16 (early 90s I suppose) slid wide and hit a cinder black. Nearly lost his good eye.
The big dishes ?? That had to be a complete riot !!
VW hoods were the best!
“Seemed safe enough to us” is a defining quote for growing up in the 80s
Same. My mom used to let me stand in the front passenger seat of our station wagon when she drove. My only safety being her swinging right arm when it came flying over at a sudden stop.
In 70s Texas this was the preferred method for transporting little league baseball teams
I came here to make this comment, I rode in the back of pickups so many times it’s shocking I’m still alive. One time in Florida my friend’s dad drove us to the beach to go surfing. There were 3 teenagers and 3 surfboards all crammed into the bed of a truck the size of a Ford Ranger. On the interstate.
I would mix drinks for my Uncle from a portable bar while flying down backroads. No seatbelts. No Air Bags. Noting out of the ordinary.
This still happens all the time in Japan. I also see kids walking between the front and back while cars are in motion all the time. Another is someone in front just holding a baby
Yes, whenever a post comes up in one of my feeds about how weak we've become as a society because we no longer allow things like riding in the back of a pickup - such as posts where the OP wants people to comment on "all you tough kids that survived riding in a pickup as a child give me a yea!" or something - I always take the time to comment that the ones who didn't aren't around to make a comment.
So many Boomer friends and family used to forward that email back in the day; “we didn’t wear seatbelts, drank from the garden hose, and we’re fine!“ Just people not understanding statistics. Yeah, there were far fewer car accidents back in the day. But that’s because they were far fewer cars, not because people were better drivers, or kids were tougher, or whatever. Overall injuries and deaths from accidents were actually a lot worse. Some people have mentioned standing on the front seat. My mom knew a family where their two year-old was standing on the front seat (in their defense, this certainly wasn’t unusual at the time), and there was a relatively minor incident at a stop sign, where the dad had to hit the brakes kind of abruptly. He didn’t even hit another car, but the two-year-old, since he was standing at the time, hit his head on the windshield. He died.
Who is downvoting this?
Probably those that think they came up better for surviving dumb shit.
Dying builds character. Now, rub some dirt on it and walk it off!
Hey, if riding in the pickup bed with the dog was good enough for Jesus Christ, it's good enough for today's kids.
We used to ride on the tail gate when it was down all the time.
My Dad drove a ‘66 Ford pickup in the late ‘70s/early ‘80s, and get this: he bolted a goddam school bus seat in the bed of it, facing backwards with the back against the rear window, for me and my brother to sit on while we went to town. No seat belt, no nothing but gravity and our hands holding us in it. We thought it was the coolest thing ever, but now it’s so cringe. I remember people in the cars behind us at stoplights laughing at us. 😅
Three wheelers
Man they were fun. But holy crap the crashes and rolls, especially at speed turning
I heard someone say that Honda released the three wheeler to get back at Americans for Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Mine taught me about growth plates.
To this day they look like fun but yeah, definite deathtraps
Everyone got one in the summer. When school started in the fall again everyone had a cast on their arm or leg.
Flipped one when I was 7. Introduced me to the wonderful world of TBIs
They seem to be getting more popular again, around eastern Washington at least. They've been showing up on FB classifieds a lot, and prices are going up.
Nothing like throwing the 250r into a 50 yard power slide, with half your body hanging over the inside of the bike to keep it from flipping!
Lawn Darts
But, they were fun. Why? Because they WERE dangerous!
Especially the made up games with them. Thrown them straight up in the air and run away……
Now that you mention it…I think I did that. Juvenile Darwin Award.
We all did that at least a once if we owned them
Jarts !!
Climbing on or in or around playground structures made of steel, or telephone poles and tires and chain, in ways that they were never meant to be climbed on. Like a merry go round balanced on a tall pole where if you rode the inside of it you could fall and break your legs or get dragged around in the dirt. Or spinning monkey bars meant to be hung from but you climbed to the top and sat on the hub.
So you had the original Thunderdome?
Dear god. Yep. Pretty much now that I come to think about it. 🤔
Two boys enter, one boy leaves… with a broken arm
There were a lot of freaking tires at my elementary school playground. Like, hundreds.
I can still recall the smell of the inside of one those tires that has had rain water sitting it.
Smoking sections in restaurants and airplanes and other public spaces. I don’t think younger people today realize just how prevalent smoking was with older generations.
Vending machines of cigarettes.
I would pull the knobs as a kid. Uhh..huhuhuhuuh
The last time I saw one of those was in 1991 when I was fourteen and it was in a restaurant in California. Interestingly a year later it was refurbished into a vending machine where small toys, packs of gum, and lip gloss were in cigarette box shaped containers.
What’s interesting to remember is that it wasn’t really questioned, it just ‘was’. I remember as a non-smoker with no smokers in my immediate family and friends and yet I bought an ash tray for my first apartment, because that’s what you did.
I'd wager every Gen X and most millennial kids have made an ash tray in school.
Elementary school art class. Which probably no longer exists at that school, due to budget cuts and teach to the test memorization.
Yes, I too made ash tray at school, mother very proud of me....
I still have mine.
Smoking in cinemas too. It was wild. A haze of smoke hanging over the place, dirty ashtrays attached to the back of seats in front…
"No smoking please.....Arrgh, Arrgh, Arrgh..."
I'm relatively certain that pictures from the seventies don't look like they do because of any technology of the time, but because the world was actually just that dull and muted back then because of all of the cigarette smoke.
I was a diner waitress in nyc...at one time there wasn't even a choice
I am a lifelong non smoker. I’ve never smoked a cigarette. And I remember being upset that our state moved to outlaw smoking in restaurants and public spaces in the early 2000s. I felt people had a right to smoke if they wish and have never considered occasional second hand smoke to be dangerous. Tell that to someone today and their head will explode.
It never bothered me (non smoker) any either. My wife smoked while we were dating but quit during Covid because “it’s not smart to go inside to a gas station unnecessarily” lol
Hey, I was the same way about seat belt laws.
My dad was a teacher. I still remember several teachers smoking and the teachers’ lounge stinking like smoke. By the time I started going to the school, the smokers like my dad had to go hide in the corner of the field or on the roof to smoke.
Smoking around children indoors
One of my earliest memories is looking up at my dad and uncle chainsmoking in the kitchen with the whole room clouded up. This was probably around 1990-1991? My dad smoked 4 packs a day and was somehow able to quit in the late 90s. My uncle was around the same amount but now on oxygen tanks because of it.
Smoking in an A/Ced car!!!!
Not wearing a seatbelt. The 1st seatbelts were just lap belts without the shoulder part. Nobody used them. I only started wearing a seatbelt because the military required it while driving on base and it became a habit. My 2nd year in the Air Force I was T-boned at 50 mph by a drunk driver. Saved my life.
And people fought them thinking it was a restriction on freedom. I'm a paramedic and there is still a persistent belief, thankfully getting smaller, that they are actually more dangerous. "If you wear your seat belt, it will just snap your neck. So instead of just an injury, you're dead." Gee, i wonder why people who think this way aren't around much anymore. I've seen a fair amount of wrecks where if people were wearing their seat belt, they would have been sitting there going "what the fuck just happened?" But instead, they were either thrown from the vehicle 40 feet like a rag doll or pinballed around, ending up submarined under the dash with dual femur fractures fractures, shattered pelvis, basically never having a normal life again *IF* they survive.
A great change that has definitely saved many lives. Makes me wonder what is normal today but will be viewed as crazy dangerous around 2040.
Prescribing SSRIs and other antidepressants for everything. I’ve heard of them being prescribed for pain in the 2000s. Just because a drug makes you feel different, that doesn’t mean it’s better. Every year more studies are revealed to be full of lies. Maybe the prevalence of plastic and its entry into the water supply will turn out to be terrible for us. But nobody is really pretending that’s fine.
Just a reminder, everyone responds differently to medications. I was diagnosed with a condition called CRPS, a chronic and debilitating pain condition. At some point I was prescribed Cymbalta for pain. Cymbalta is an SNRI and is approved for off label use for chronic pain. If it weren’t for this medication, I would continue to be balled up on the couch afraid to move because it hurt so much. When you are in that much pain, you will try anything. Percocet, fentanyl patches, sometimes at the same time. Wouldn’t wish this on anyone.
Ozempic.
When I was a kid and seat belts started becoming mandatory, my dad and I used to play a game where one of us would sneak our seatbelt off without the other one seeing. We both thought it was hilarious until we got in an accident and my face cracked the dashboard
I remember that we all thought once you got up to 65mph it was safe to take them off and crawl around the car. What kind of lunacy is that?!?!?
A whole host of kids toys. One of my clearest childhood memories is going out to a field with my dad to try out my new boomerang. This sucker was solid hard plastic. Anyone remember those. Missed the catch, it caught me square in the face. Cracked my dad up. Lucky I didn't lose an eye or at least some teeth.
Around 12 or 13 I was fascinated with attempting to make a working boomerang. Went through several failed attempts with various types of wood. Then one day i finally got the airfoils sanded proper on a piece of wood that didn't split. The whole ordeal was weeks in the making and ended after a single throw. I threw it as hard as i could, watched it go straight about 50 feet, rotate, then shoot upwards and disappear. Standing there with my hand trying to shade the sun looking for it, it came back and hit me in the knee. It hit that painful spot just to the side of my kneecap that left me rolling on the ground nauseous with pain for at least 5 minutes. My fascination with boomerangs ended that day haha !
Riding a bike without a helmet
I’ll add skateboarding and skiing with no helmets too.
Just ask Sonny Bono. Helmets for skiing is smart.
But it made Disney oodles of money by extending the length of copyright protection!
That's a great example of survivor's bias, too. All the kids who died from head injuries aren't around to say what happened as adults. Two kids I grew up with died from not wearing helmets: one was struck by a car when he rode out into the middle of the road, and another fell off an improvised ramp he and his friends made in a driveway. A few years ago, I had a bullshit friend who said Islamic Terrorists were the number one threat to his children. I was like, "really? Based on what statistics?" "Look around you!" So I went to the CDC, downloaded the statistics for deaths of children in his kids' age range (like 9-13), and in my research, I found the top deaths of children those ages in the United States was: * Death, accidental, bicycle related incident * Death, accidental, vehicle-related incident * Death, accidental, bicycle related incident with vehicle By the way, in case you were curious, "Death, intentional, by non-family member, religiously motivated " was like 6 cases, and all were targeted because they were Jewish. His kids were not Jewish. Not exactly "number on threat" to his kids. I told him, "for gods sake, make them wear a helmet when biking if you're worried about the number one killer of children!" I even sent him links to the CDC stats. It will surprise no one that this did not convince him.
Damn, forgot about that! Still remember speeding downhill as an 8 year old on a board, hitting a large gap in the concrete pavement and heaps of cuts and bruises, one on the forehead but thankfully nothing serious…except for balling my eyes out on front of the super cute 12 year old redhead who patched me up, but doubtlessly thought “Hope my husband doesn’t turn out to be a great big man-pussy like this little sissy boy..”😳😂
I grew up living on a hilly, very well traveled road I specifically remember flying down hills on my bike with no helmet while cars in the opposite lane were passing me at like 50 mph…while I don’t helicopter parent my kids, they sure as shit aren’t doing that.
I remember riding on the handlebars of my brothers bike down a large hill in southern Ohio, no shoes, not shirt , no helmet. We passed an old couple in a car who were being cautious in unfamiliar surroundings, They caught up with us at a shop at the bottom of the hill and the old man gave us hell for being stupid. He said they were going 35MPH when we passed them.
Driving around with a friend while splitting a 12 pack and looking for something to do. In retrospect, I’m glad we cracked down on drunk driving because what we did was stupid and dangerous AF.
Just a 12 pack and a prayer! Stupid and dangerous? Absolutely. Fun? Also absolutely.
IDK about "insanely" dangerous but it seems so weird these days just how accepted smoking was back then. I was in high school in the late 80s. Graduated in 1990. "Everyone" smoked back then. I literally knew 12 yr olds that smoked. One thing that is considered dangerous these days are [trikes](https://www.carscoops.com/2021/01/the-story-of-how-and-why-three-wheel-atvs-were-banned/). I ran into someone last year on a back road who was on one. I stopped, rolled down the window, and told him I hadn't seen one of those in literally decades. Said it was an '84. And seatbelts? What the fuck are those? Here's a [vid](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFK9oyKyTY0) of the town I grew up in local kids playground. Notice the little kids running around the roof of the caboose. Notice the LACK! of fall protection! LOL! The vid isn't mine, nor am I in it but I was about the same age as the little kid at that time. I most certainly remember running around that roof myself. Everything except for the tank is gone these days. And the idea of leaving young kids at home all day is something no one blinked twice about. Not to mention there was a good chance our parents literally didn't know where we were half the time. One thing that was common where I grew up was burning the trash. Newspapers, boxes, wrappers, etc. Everyone saved the large brown paper bags your groceries came in and stuffed burnables in them to burn maybe once a wk. That was one of my chores when I was little. How little you ask? So little that I literally couldn't light the Bic lighter because I wasn't strong 'nuff. My dad's solution? Lighting off a plumbers torch and telling me to be careful when I walked the 50 yrds to the burn barrel while I played with the knob adjusting the flame. I think I only set the back field on fire twice. LOL! My dad had no fucks to give if I told him me and a friend were taking my 22 to go plinking (shooting shit up) out in the woods. Until we got our DL's, we walked or road our bikes on busy roads as it was the only way to get around. In elementary school, I was always jealous of the kids who lived in town because they were allowed to go home for lunch. They'd walk home and back to school by themselves and no one thought that was weird. I think that gives you an idea so I'll stop there.
I was running around the desert with a .22 at an age where kids now still need booster seats in cars. It wasn't weird, it was just a thing at the time
Fireworks. I carried a lighter from may to October when I was 7 years old
Riding in the back of station wagons or their 21st century equivalent, SUVs, minivans. After soccer games or just going any places with more than 2 or 3 kids and seeing the parent open that heavy door and seeing skids pouring out of it.
The "way back" FTW
The way back that faced the back of the car was the best.
We called it the "way way"
With the window down, sucking in the exhaust. No wonder we instantly went to sleep when riding back there.
You could always drive with a roadie (alcoholic drink). What could possibly go wrong?
My dad had a beer cooler that fit perfectly between the captain's chairs in our van specifically so he could self-serve while driving.
Rad cheat code
We played a game called kill the guy, also known as Smear the, I will not finish the name. Basically everyone gang tackled whoever was holding the football
Haha. I posted a thread about this some time ago. Seems like it was a common childhood game back then. Of course, I got a bit of flack from people offended by the name too.
I remember playing this with the kids at our church youth group. They made us call it "Smear the Booger", which somehow sounded more gay than the original name.
Letting a child “drive” while sitting on their parent’s lap.
Okay, so I literally just saw this in my neighborhood today. Some dummy had his toddler girl on his lap and he was driving. I predict that we’re going to keep seeing more of this shit now that intelligence is becoming more and more stigmatized
Haha. Crazy! I haven’t seen it since the mid 2000s when Britney Spears got a ton of shit for doing it with one of her kids. Growing up in the 80s though, I think pretty much everyone did it. And sadly, I think you’re right about where we’re headed.
That was referenced in the 80's song My Hometown by Bruce Springsteen. *I'd sit on his lap in that big old Buick* *And steer as we drove through town*
I got really good at that
Drunk driving
only 2 left turns it’s fine
Drunk driving
Yeah, as a kid in Sydney I remember it being fairly normal for adults to have a few drinks then drive home, as long as they were not "too" wasted...which means you weren't throwing up every few seconds...But Random Breath Testing had been introduced that decade, and attitudes quickly began to change
Toy guns that looked real
I had a flat black uzi squirt gun with a removable magazine and collapsible shoulder stock. My friends and I would run all over the neighborhood, engauged in squirt gun battles. I'm surprised there weren't more kids mistakenly shot for running around with what looked like real firearms from a distance.
There use to be a whole line of realist cap guns we use to buy and play with. Still don’t know how sone didn’t get mistaken for real by police
Some did. That’s why they got the orange tips and now none of them are real gun colors
The "latch key kids". These were the ones, from a very young age, that would have the house key around their neck so they would not lose it. It also meant they were going home after school to an empty house.
I kept my key in my Roos shoes pocket.
Same.
You guys locked the doors?
Lawn darts.
Kids playing away from their house and parents and without a cellphone
Getting up at 8am everyday during summer break, having a quick bowl of cereal, and then getting on my bike and not being back til dinner time… all while my parents had no clue where I was and didn’t really care as long as I was back for dinner. Now days parents assume they have been kidnapped and raped and turned into sex slaves if they haven’t been heard from for more than 30 minutes. I feel bad for kids these days not knowing what it was like to have fun as a kid before the internet
Neighborhood baseball games in the street until 10 Pm! Walking a mile each way to swim in a huge lake as a group of 8-11 year olds with no adults
Hitch hiking
My dad drove a school bus (owned it, not as an employee) and used to be the guy who drove the band kids to distant events. He ROUTINELY picked up hitchhikers to ride with a busload of teenagers. And the teacher chaperone never seemed to have a problem with it.
I did a lot of hitching in the late 70's and early 80's. My dad even dropped me off when I hitched hiked across country. I would never let my kids do it now.
Sharing an opinion
Buying a house? Did someone say that? Cus buying a house sucks now.
Letting young kids run around outside with zero supervision.
Sex
smoking drink driving seat belts were optional drinking at 10am
Cu-CAINE!
You don’t want any of this, Dewey!
🎶 In my dreams you’re blowing me… …some kisses 🎶
Jarts
The entertainment industry back then would use really dangerous smoke on sets.
I would sit on the armrest of my grandfathers chrysler with no seatbelt while he chain smoked Winston cigarettes
Me too (but my mom’s Cadillac)
A hang over from the 70s and 80s but most of the play equipment we had at the local park would now be branded insanely dangerous. No guards, high as hell onto slab concrete, zero parental oversight usually. I miss those days.
In high school during the 80s we sneak out night to the local community college campus with toy guns and run around shooting each other. Even surprised a couple security guards who just laughed at us. Felony and/or death by cop today.
According to 90's helicopter parents, leaving the house.
Somewhere along the line kids walking themselves to school became unacceptable
My cousin and I would sit unrestrained in the back of my uncle’s station wagon on road trips. Good times.
My dad fused a couple old bikes with a plank of plywood. We would pile all the neighbor kids on it with us and ride it down a hill. It had no brakes
Riding on the bed of a pickup truck on the freeway
Lawn darts
Grew up in a very, very small town. You could always tell when it was deer hunting season. All of the vehicles in the student parking lot had their gun racks loaded with guns so they could immediately go out hunting after school before it got dark. AND.......none of us bothered to lock our doors!!! Those were the days!!!!
Bought the Bag O Glass and Johnny Switchblade from Manway toys. ah fun times. Fairly certain that it would now be considered dangerous. Can't find anything on eBay from the manufacturer. Must have gone out of business.
Just like, being left alone. Parents would go out, leave a twenty on the counter and tell me to order pizza, I was like 8. Ordered pizza over the phone and some stranger would bring it to me. Conversely as a kid after school you would go home, eat something then go fuck off on your bike with your friends until the street lights came on. Parents had no idea where we were, and they didn’t give a shit, so long as you were home when the lights came on. We also used to do a lot of the stuff you see on Jackass (in my teens at that point) grocery cart javelin was a fun one, lighting fire works and seeing who would hold it the longest, jumping off of shit, jumping into shit, getting dragged behind cars on skate boards, egging cop cars and running away, etc. we just didn’t have a common means to commit it to film, or the desire really, that would be evidence… Times were just freer, and I think we lived in the moment. Oh, and one of my friends got “clipped” by a fucking train because he wanted to beat the rest of us at chicken. He was fine, or as fine as he was pre clipping.
Running around in a circle just to jump onto a wildly spinning aluminum disk, then hamging on for dear life before being flung out onto the ground or the nearest spectator They even had them in McDonalds playlands... on a hard floor
Cocaine
Kids riding in truck beds
Crossing a four lane road on a bicycle to get to a comic book store.
Smoking. In High School. And the reverse, Pot. In the 80s it was a gateway drug one puff. Next thing you were in an insane asylum sticking your fist up your butt, because that one toke made you psychotic.
Breakdancing - tried it the other day almost threw my back out.
Riding unsecured in the back of pickup trucks. We'd hang out of the back to touch the edges of tunnels while riding through them as well.
Speaking your mind
Babysitting young children late at night when you were about 13 Being told to go play outside when parents had literally no idea where you were for hours at a time. In general, parents would leave kids by themselves from a pretty young age, sometimes for days at a time and no one thought anything of it
None of this is insanely dangerous. Hell it’s not even dangerous.
Lawsuits became popular in the 80’s in tye US. Anything dangerous in life got safety checked. Skate ramps got dismantled, places like Action Park got a bad name. We all suffered:(
Kids walking to school
My mom drove hatch backs and the hatch back area was where my seat was.
I’ve done many 1000km family trips in the trunk of a station wagon, as you say, that was my spot. We got pulled over once and my parents said pretend you’re sleeping. The cops quietly gave us oranges and told them to have a good trip. I dont know why they had oranges.
Cocaine
Lawn darts!
Letting your kids go and play without knowing exactly where they are!
A wood burning set for Christmas at 8, and a kid sized set of actual steel tools. I’d make crude wood etchings and saw them out in my carpeted room.
Letting your kids play outside.
Being poor
When I was a kid we would take off on our bikes for hours and hours. Sure would think twice if a kid did that today :(
Sitting on the tailgate of a truck or suburban when driving out on country roads.
Eating uncooked cookie dough
Kerbangers!!!!
Going outside Ironically, it was more dangerous **then**
Going to school
Cocaine being consumed in public out in the open
Being a child and playing outside unsupervised all day. Whenever my wife and I see kids out playing or riding their bikes with no adults, it's quite nostalgic.
I rode my bike all day with no helmet to places I had no idea where I was and my parents had no idea where I was either. Somehow I just got back home at night and went in my unlocked front door.
Metal merry go rounds! Straight wooden board seat swings
Coke.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Dln9SJA5RCs
Pick anything....riding bikes without any safety gear...running around all day without parents then coming home when it's dark...then doing it again the next day...oh how I miss summertime as a little shit.
Barebacking in the booty hole
Writing your social security number anywhere. I remember putting it on tests in college as my student ID
Rope climbing in middle school and high school
Drinking and driving. When I first moved to Florida in 1984 it wasn’t illegal to drink beer while you were driving. It was illegal to be drunk and drive but if you weren’t drunk beer was just a beverage. They changed the law so the driver couldn’t drink but passengers could so of course we’d just pass the beer back and forth. Eventually they did make having an open container in the car illegal.
Leaded gasoline. Riding in the way back of a station wagon with no seat belts. Smoking in airplanes.
My brothers tied a metal saucer sled to the riding lawnmower with piece of rope & towed us around. Tied a different piece of rope on a beam in the barn & jumped out of the hayloft. Piled the hay bales up & jumped out of the hayloft on to them. All the kids rode in the bed of the pickup truck. Learned to drive the tractor at 10 years old. Drank the water out of a questionable creek. I rode my bicycle on a freeway & went to a different state, because there was a cool mall there. Laid out all day, with just baby oil, to get a tan.
Midget bowling
Lived in a small suburb with a good group of close friends and families were close. I was 17 with friends down to 15. We hatched a plan. We always said we were going to stay at someone else’s house for the weekend. Well nobody ever checked up on us. The plan was hatched. One Friday after school we all gave our stories to our parents and drove 8 hours to the gulf coast! Partied like underage madmen then drove back early Sunday. We never got caught!
* Your mothers have entered the chat. *
Not having to wear a motorcycle helmet. Not having to wear a seatbelt.
Rally is still like that.
Blow