Kids these days...

[North East Goon]

I remember sleeping over at your buddies tent in the summertime and roaming the streets at all hours of the night with no sense of fear whatsoever. I remember how Saturday mornings were such a special day.

[Regulator75]

fyp

Originally Posted by North East Goon

I remember sleeping over in the coaches van in the summertime and walking the streets at all hours of the night confused and sore.

[North East Goon]

Originally Posted by Regulator75

fyp

There was no such thing as gays in the 80's.

[Cheese]

Originally Posted by North East Goon

I remember sleeping over at your buddies tent in the summertime and roaming the streets at all hours of the night with no sense of fear whatsoever. I remember how Saturday mornings were such a special day.

Did you guys make Blue Angels?

[woob]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

<snip>
I think our parents installed less fear in us, injuries healed as did broken bones, but they were life lessons. My mom didn't scream and cuddle me when I skinned my knee's and whisper "You poor baby" She slathered on the most painful iodine or peroxide solution, slapped on some gauze and kicked my a%% back out the door.<snip>

Haha I remember this kind of thing from my childhood as well. Good ol' iodine.

To use Pylon's wording, I grew up in the last part of the roaming childhood years too. Grew up just outside of the city where your life line was your bike. I'd be curious now to know just how many KMs I logged on my various bikes through my childhood.

One story that sticks with me still - There was a corner on the way to friend's house that I used to take as fast I could. I'd often go tearing around this corner, teetering on the very edge of the pavement when I came out of the corner and going faster than was probably sensible, But every time I took this corner, it was the same thing. Well, one day I hear from my Mom that my friend's dad has his head bandaged up and a broken arm and I asked her what happened. He said he had gone around that same corner faster than he usually does, as he always sees me go ripping around it. I remember feeling a mixture of guilt and pride haha.

[Muta]

I remember as a kid, breaking into tennis courts and playing roller hockey all day during the summer. I also remember injuring myself constantly on the playgrounds that would never pass safety codes today.

Oh, and playing touch football at recess at school, every day. I wasn't cool enough to be quarterback, but then again, it's not like I could throw anyways so who cared.

We were also allowed to leave the school grounds at lunch in elementary. That was fun. There was a McDick's nearby, and the McRibs as a kid were glorious.

[Hockeyguy15]

It wasn't football for us, it was hockey on the field. There was a pecking order too grade 6 and the select grade 5 would get the good nets/sticks/goalie equipment and the good field, grade 5 and 4 would get the rest. Man recess and lunch was just the best. Once I got hit in the eye with the butt end of the goalie stick beside the net, went home with a nice shiner. A week later I was playing net and I got the blade of a stick in the same eye and got split for some stitches, it was totally worth it though.

Another great time was that outdoor school you got to go to in grade 6 or whatever. Playing the animal game some kid in our group got his eye gouged with a tree branch. They had to take him to the hospital and he came back later that night with an eye patch, obviously we all thought he was pretty bad ass at that point.

[Nammer403]

good ol days with the playin Wall ball or red ass what ever people called it, playing soccer in the drypond in forest lawn, waking up saturday mornings to watch ABCs One Saturday Morning, and going back to school to show your buddies what you got over the weekend, not what new app you found for your iTouch haha

[Cowperson]

I remember seeing my first calculator in school and thinking that must be a helluva lot easier to use than the slide rule I was carrying around. It was like magic. WTF? I think the first ones you saw in school were like $100 - which is about $1000 now - and then they'd get stolen. The rich kids bought them and the poor kids acquired them.

My grandfather and grandmother lived on the edge of our dusty prairie town and you'd use stacks of old Readers Digest to wipe your bum. You pumped rusty water out of a well when you were at their place.

Breakfast cereal was broken up bread in a bowl of milk with some sugar thrown in. Thanks Gramma!!! WTF? Even then you'd wonder WTF.

I remember watching the Leafs win the Cup in black and white and then, a few years later, marvelling at colour tv and the Flyers having an unbelieveable orange uniform as they won the Cup. WTF?

Going over the handlebars of the bike and skidding on your shoulders along a gravel road . . . . . getting up, getting back on, going home, hoping it was going to heal up fairly fast. Antiseptic? Doctors? Fuggedaboudit.

Falling out of trees. Kids probably still do that.

Smart guys in school driving down main street in hot rods with the radio blaring . . . . the timeless method for picking up chicks in dusty prairie towns. One older lady client of mine said that worked in the 1930's too, just as it does today. Some things never change.

Cowperson

[darklord700]

I remember lining up to play Sapce Invaders, Pac Man, Space Galaxy thinking if I have a million dollar I will have once of each in my house. Now I have Wii, PS3, PS2, Xbox 360 and tons of games in my house and I barely play them.

[JiriHrdina]

Great thread.

I lived in Beddington - so a lot of our adventures were up on Nose Hill. When I first moved into the area Beddington was the end of the city. A farm was literally 2 blocks away. They built in Sandstone and Macewan Glen soon after but Nose Hill remained quite the wild frontier. There are still some animals up there now - but back then you would see a ton of deer, coyotes and porcupines.

We would head up there to tromp around the woods, rip down the bike paths or just hang out the entire day. In later years in also became the place where you could partake in a little under-age drinking.

I remember: One time all my friends were out of town, so I had the great idea of hopping on my bike and seeing if I could get lost. I rode for an hour and did finally get confused as to where I was. To this day, I have no idea where I ended up.

We had a treehouse at my elementary school that was pretty much a 10x10 platform, 8 feet high that you could only access by walking /balancing up a 2x4. One day we came to school and it was gone. I asked my friend what happened to it and she said: "I think it's because kids keep breaking their arms falling off it" I said "Yeah, I guess that makes sense.. but I'm still pissed off" (And I still kinda miss the tunnel that always smelled like urine)

My friends had made a raft out of styrofoam and plywood and we tried to sail it in the swamp behind our house. The possibilty of drowning and getting Giardia from the beavers that lived in the pond never occured to us.

I was skating down a hill on my banana board (with out any PPE) and fell off and messed up my hand. After 3 days of crying to my mom about how my hand hurt, my mom reluctantly took me to the doctors where we found out I had broken it. To this day she still feels guilty about not taking me sooner.

[North East Goon]

Ahh yes, the old school clay wheeled banana boards. Where a crack in the sidewalk could take your life.

[Hockeyguy15]

Originally Posted by Puxlut

I was skating down a hill on my banana board (with out any PPE) and fell off and messed up my hand. After 3 days of crying to my mom about how my hand hurt, my mom reluctantly took me to the doctors where we found out I had broken it. To this day she still feels guilty about not taking me sooner.

Yeah but the best about your parents feeling guilty was you got a make up gift. For me it was usually renting a nintendo game or movie.

I remember I got chicken pox over Christmas break, and we had to go to Christmas eve service with my Grandma and I was SO itchy. I just sat there fidgeting and scratching and my Mom was getting pissed off at me and gave me crap a few times. So we finally go home after what felt like the longest night ever and they go to get me ready for bed and I am covered in chicken pox. I remember after a couple days I got to go and pick out not 1, but 2 video games...Man I was pumped.

[sixpacked]

Originally Posted by JiriHrdina

Great thread.

I lived in Beddington - so a lot of our adventures were up on Nose Hill. When I first moved into the area Beddington was the end of the city. A farm was literally 2 blocks away. They built in Sandstone and Macewan Glen soon after but Nose Hill remained quite the wild frontier. There are still some animals up there now - but back then you would see a ton of deer, coyotes and porcupines.

We would head up there to tromp around the woods, rip down the bike paths or just hang out the entire day. In later years in also became the place where you could partake in a little under-age drinking.

Oh yeah Nose Hill. I lived in Dalhousie in the mid 70s, and we always biked up Nose Hill. Also explored the wide open prairie that is Ranchlands now. Went ass over tea kettle on my bike going down a huge hill in that area. Lots of fun.

[Rathji]

I remember summers of riding my bike from Dover to anywhere along the irrigation ditch, Prince's Island Park, Fish Creek, Beaver Dam Flats, Carburn park or anywhere we could think of to go. It was a common occurrence to take $2-3 up to the store and pick up a pack of hotdog buns and wieners to last us the day and then rode to wherever we ended up.

I think the strangest place we had lunch was right along side the irrigation ditch, between 52st and 84 st, right beside a steel plant. I often wonder how 3 kids building a fire out of old pallets and cooking hotdogs in clear view of a bunch of buildings in the middle of an industrial park never caught anyone's attention.

[CaptainCrunch]

I can still remember the ultimate dumba$$ moment of my life, when my dad came out of the house to have a smoke, and I was starring up at the roof of the garage, and he asked me what I was thinking about. Without taking an eye off of the roof I told him that I was going to jump off of it. So seeing that I had a lot of energy he made me paint the fence for a couple of days.

He thought I forgot about it until he got that call at work in the middle of the winter, that I had jumped off the roof into a snow bank and busted my ankle.

So he rushed home to pick me up, and he took one look at the hole in the snowbank that I'd hurtled through, and then laughed at me all the way to the hospital.

I remember taking a slap shot to the sack when playing ball hockey, and nobody asked me if I was all right, they stood around and laughed at me as I squirmed on the ground.

Or me and a buddy deciding to climb one of the sandy cliff faces at Fish Creek, and we got near to the top and he lost that grip and tumbled down, even though I heard his wrist snap, it was funny because he landed face first in a mud puddle.

Or my first major knee injury, when I decided to go down Lake Bonavista on a crazy carpet, veered into the tree line and ran knee first into a tree dislocating my knee cap, and I thought it was cool.

Or the day of Grade 10 math finals which was a subject that I had to do well in, getting into a fight on the way and tumbling down the stairs at Scarlett and breaking my ankle, and still writing the final before walking back to Lake Bonavista because I missed the bus.

Man we were stupid.

[JiriHrdina]

Originally Posted by fotze

I remember waling through the park with my grandma up on centre street in crescent heights. I found a Swank magazine in some trees, way too early for a person my age should find something like that. Knew it was bad and stuffed it under my shirt for later. I just knew it gave we a funny butterfly feeling in my mid-section. It was like gollum finding the ring.

Ahh and now we have the origins of Fotze.

[zukes]

Originally Posted by JiriHrdina

Great thread.

I lived in Beddington - so a lot of our adventures were up on Nose Hill. When I first moved into the area Beddington was the end of the city. A farm was literally 2 blocks away. They built in Sandstone and Macewan Glen soon after but Nose Hill remained quite the wild frontier. There are still some animals up there now - but back then you would see a ton of deer, coyotes and porcupines.

We would head up there to tromp around the woods, rip down the bike paths or just hang out the entire day. In later years in also became the place where you could partake in a little under-age drinking.

As we have discussed before, we went to Beddington Heights together, though I think you are a year or two older than me. I lived on Berwick Dr at the corner of Berwick Rd. and the end of that street was Berkshire Rd and then farm when I moved there.

I remember Sandstone and McEwan being built, I remember going to Nose Hill all the time.

I remember when Sandstone was being built we'd go and take scrap lumber to make skateboard ramps etc. We'd make up games where we'd play massive games of group hide and seek in the partially built houses. There were drywall blades everywhere, we collected them for some reason. (Man, I am in insurance now, and the liability that these builders would be at risk for now is amazing).

Same as many have said above, I remember weekends and in the summer, you would eat breakfast and be gone all day, checking in for lunch and dinner, staying out until you heard your parents yell or whistle into the night. Somehow you always knew whose parent it was, even from blocks away.

I remember in the winter we would bumper ride on the icy roads. We were smart enough to not do this on main streets, just side streets and if frozen enough, back alleys.

I remember some of the better skateboarders riding their boards holding onto the back of school busses.

Fights were just part of recess or lunch.

You could buy smokes "for your parents", then they "cracked down" and you had to have a note, LOL.

[zukes]

Originally Posted by fotze

I remember waling through the park with my grandma up on centre street in crescent heights. I found a Swank magazine in some trees, way too early for a person my age should find something like that. Knew it was bad and stuffed it under my shirt for later. I just knew it gave we a funny butterfly feeling in my mid-section. It was like gollum finding the ring.

Oh man, I forgot about that. You could always find pron mags back in the day. The older kids were always leaving them around. hahaha.