Back When You Were a Kid......

[600twin]

Your not going to believe the stuff i am about to tell you but it is true.

When i grew up if we wanted to go swimming we went to a river or pond and jumped in. If we wanted to play Hockey we hiked across a marsh to a Gully then cleared it with a piece of plywood nailed to a 2x2 and you used your boots as goal, you just hoped no one knocked them into the snowbank.
We played softball in a field and we didn't get a medal for just showing up either. We shared a Pepsi and none of us got a strange disease from it either.
I had real friends i would see everyday and punch in the arm or give a charlie horse to , i didn't waste my time Poking people on Facebook. If i wanted to go sliding or snowshoeing or skiing i put on my snow suit and went outside i didn't use WII Fit.

[Rigby]

We use to gt off the roof of my grandparents chicken barns, until one day my cousin decided he didn't need a gt. He went down the tin on his but, he was unaware of the lag screws holding the tin down. Ripped his snow pants darn near right off and got near 20 some stitches in his one but cheak!

Of course we had pellet gun wars aswell, at my buddies he would get his little brothers to dress up heavily padded and then shoot the 177 caliber darts at them as they ran from door to door in te house.

We also use to have those really cheap bow and arrows. Use to shoot them straight up and watch them come down. On there way down we use to try to get as close ad possible to it before it stuck in the ground.

[yoteblaster]

When my brother and I were 9 or 10 years old we stole a pack of smokes from the old man. Went across the road to my grandparents farm where we climbed up under my uncles 57 Chev that he had up on blocks. The motor was out of it, so we sat on the frame rails under the hood. We had a contest to see who could smoke the most cigarettes at one time. Well we just get them all lit and in our mouths when my grandmother walks past to hang some clothes on the line. Next thing we know my grandfather yanks the hood open and is about to throw a pail of water on the "fire". Apparently there was enough smoke coming out from under the hood that they thought there was a fire under there. My grandfather said he wouldn,t tell my parents if we promised never to smoke again. We said DEAL!

[Lornce]

Originally Posted by Sushi

yup, and the Atari for rainy days.

actually Monopoly or cards and maybe some fly thing. No electronics in the 50's-60's

[Okotokian]

Originally Posted by dale7637

Turns out, that right before they left, dad's company had started recording mileage on the company trucks. He wanted to know why the spare truck had 300 extra kms on it. I was busted. It was over.

I had a similar experience. Ever seen "Ferris Buehler's Day Off"? That was me. Took Dad's nice new sportscar (240Z) out while they were gone for the weekend, drove it all over Edmonton. What joy... even picking up a cute female hitchhiker! Put it back in the garage, worried about the mileage so jacked up the rear end and put her in reverse! I DID find out that this isn't really very effective.

Anyway, I never got caught on the mileage... I got caught because I forgot to fill the tank back up.

[Okotokian]

Originally Posted by Okotokian

so jacked up the rear end and put her in reverse!

Before you even start, I was talking about the car, not the cute female hitchhiker.

[rhuntley12]

List could be long, one thing when young growing up in Washington the entrance to our neighborhood right at the start was a real sharp wind. We used to build snowmen on the few days it snowed right around the bend then hide and watch the cars freak out and run into it.

We'd also take these huge water guns we had where the water was stored on your back and spray at cars going by on the road at the bottom of the hill.

[jpohlic]

Originally Posted by Rigby

We also use to have those really cheap bow and arrows. Use to shoot them straight up and watch them come down. On there way down we use to try to get as close ad possible to it before it stuck in the ground.

I was visiting my cousin once when we were kids. He lived in a trailer park and the owner of the park had a house with an outdoor swimming pool. Well, we were in a field near the owners house and I launched an arrow straight up. The wind caught it and the arrow landed in the dead center of the pool cover. We thought about sneaking in to get it but deciding running away was a better idea.

[nekred]

Lots of fun stories... My brother and I were worst of enemies and best of friends at times... Dad sometimes wondered which was worse.. putting up with us when we were fighting or dealing with the results when we were conspiring together...

One day we dcided o build a cannon so we got a piece of 4" pipe wleded a cap in the end and then cut apart a box of shotgun shells and filled the cannon with poder. We the placed ina metal plug for a wad and dumped in all the bbs, we decided that was not good enough so added some nuts and washers for good measure. We bilt a little stand for it and out behind the shop we went... We anhored it all down to the corner of a granary and lit it... When it went off th cannon moved with the recoil... and hit a pile of brand new lumber dad had bought.... The carnage in the last 2 feet of the lumber was incredible so we wondered what to do....

We got the idea to cut off the last two feet so we got a chainsaw and bucked it off rellay nice.... Dad's 16' tx4's were now 14' 2x4... we cleaned up all the sawdust, and carnage and then threw our cannon into the dugout to get rid of all the evidence...

Two weeks later dad went to build a roff on a shed and measured the 2x4's and found they were 2' shorter... he phoned up the lumberyard and gave them supreme what-for for delivering the wrong lumber... out they came with a lift of 16' 2x4's and loaded up the 14' 2x4's and all was well...

My brother nad I mae a pact never to tell my dad and to this day I still think he would kick my 40-year old arse for that one....

In school my brother and I were known for fighting and one day we really got into it and we were dragged into the principals office bloody and beaten and the teacher says we were fighting... The principal asked who we were fighting and the dumfounded teacher said... they did this to each other!... The principal just shook his head and gave us both detention... seperately...

one day as we were fighting another kid decided to jump in and hit me and my brother grabbed him and beat the living dyalights out of him explaining that the only one allowed to fight me was him!.... We laughed and carried on...with our own fight... we used to be rivals in everything and whenever we played pickup games whtehr it be hockey, football, baseball etc... we always were put on opposite teams because we would do our best to beat each other... every 2nd year we were on same minor hockey team and one year the other minor hockey team did not have enough players so they moved my brother over... every game we had we always got into at least one fight

In our final fight he threw me through a wall, and I threw him though a banister and over the stairs we learned how to do a large drywall repair... and some finsihing carpentry...Since then we have learned to treat each other with a great deal of respect. My oldest boy is named after him...

On a fram we had so many things we could do and we did it all. When I look back and see how much we had... i think of how much more fun we could have had if we got along a lot better. We motorbiked together, fished, hunted, snowmobiled, and just played together a lot.

He was a firebug and one day he come running into the shp where I was working on something and he said that a fire got away on him... I come out and the whole fricking yard was on fire... It was a dry spring and all the dry grass around the buildings, shop, house etc. was ablaze.... We had to start up equipment to move it out if harms way and we were fighting fire to keep buildings from burning up. We used our trike to fill buckets with water and then beat out grass fires with wet gunnysacks.... After we were done.. we saved the buildings (fortunately very little wind) and machinery but lots of junk got cleaned up.... We looked at the reamians of our charcoaled yard and wondered how we could fix this...and thinking about the butt whoopin we were about to recieve... We get the smart idea to fire up the tractor and we disced the whol yard under and made it look really nice... when dad and mom got back they were surprised yet pleased the yard looked so nice... Until dad took a closer look and saw the charcoal blended in.... then we got a double whoopin... one for setting a fire and another for trying to cover it up...

Fun- times and lessons learned...

We also had wild cucumbers growing on our house and we used to use a slingshot and have wars with these... It was awesome... I would ambush him and watching a wild cucumber explode on impact was hilarious.... Of course one day we got carried away and he was running into the house for sanctuary... and just as he open the back door which went into our kitchen... i fired one with the slingshot which he ducked and it caromed off the door and drilled mom at the kitchen table right in the side of the head... I saw the explosion through the kitchen window and my brother come out of the house like his tail was on fire... and pointing at me... Mom was just wild (red-haired and all) and recieved a well-deserved beating...

Once when i was downstairs doing homewaork at my desk i looked out my window and saw a wolf in our back pasture... I stuck my rifle out the window as i had done many times before and shot this wolf... i heard a gawdawful commotion upstairs... and then remembered mom had the PTA meeting that afternoon...

Another day my brother and I were rebuilding a snowmobile motor in our basement... It was -20 out so we snuck it into the house... We thought mom and dad were gone for the day...So when we were finished. we used to test engine without carbs on by spring WD 40 (lubrication) and ether into cylinders and then flip the crank and engine would instantly respond and do about 5000 rpm and then quit... but without exhaust pipe or muffler the noise was awful... well mom had just got home and with two of her frieds just walked in for coffee when we fired this thing up... the noise was horrible and her two friends pretty much lost their cool... and when engine died off all we heard was screaming... and then we got another whoopin...

I hope this does not offend anyone but we usually moved to town for winter and we would have the JW's come around just about ocne a month and knock on doors... they would hit my buddy's house first and so we would prepare... we would round up a posse... and practice our BB gun and pellet gun sniping techniques... and keep score... all shots had to strike butticks in order for them to count we had all our favorite hidey holes and away we would go... all in good fun but if we would have ever been caught...it would have been death penalty I am sure...

There was an annoying kid in neighbourhood that ratted us out on another thing once... (throwing snowballs at vehicles) when he was right with us and he ratted us out even though he was doing it too... So my brother and I decided to get him back... again we were in town for winter so we had a great spot for preparing out snowball ambush with a line of trees along the road but there was a chainlink fence behind the trees. in order to hit the cars we had to climb over this fence when the car would stop and the guy would get out to chase us... So my brother and I built a gate into the fence... we could lock it so the person chasing us had to climb the fence and thus give use more time to make our getaway... We drilled this car and my brother and I went through gate and before the rat could make it through we took out a pair of handcuffs and locked him to the fence and made our getaway...we enjoyed watching him recieve the whoopin he so richly deserved....EVIL!...

My brother always had a temper but an awesome sense of humour... we were playing pickup baseball and the backcatche used to always interefer with him by slipping his cover over the end of the bat when he was about to swing... the picther threw a meatball and my brother went to crush it and felt resistance... he swung backwards and anded up hitting this kid in the head... and he was much bigger than my brother. my brother turned around and this kid was already knocked a bit loopy... and he was dancing around and punching my brother... my brother just reached out with bat and gave him a tap and dropped the kid... he turned to me at first base and said... the dummy forgot who had the bat... It was all good the kid came too right away and we helped him home...

Sometimes i wonder how we survived!....

[KegRiver]

My favorite memory from when I was 12 ?

I don't think I'm allowed to write that kind of thing on here. Besides, her father still doesn't know, and he just might be a member.

[Dick284]

Taking our 10 speeds down the Walterdale hill and admiring the looks on drivers faces as you passed them...sans helmut.

Building a working Bazooka with model rocket engines...great fun till buddies Dad found it, being he was hard core German he flipped his wig and called it a Panzerfaust.

Buliding the better cherry bomb, you know first it was walnut shells and match heads, then pingpong balls and packed match heads, final encarnation was sodium chlorate and sugar, and empty CO2 cylinders from my pellet gun, with cake sparklers for fuse, watching a cinder block get tossed some 30 feet in the air, was mighty impressive. All fun until someone got 7 stiches in the noggin.

[nekred]

The matcheads thing reminded me of another one...

We used to take two bolts, screw a nut on one just a bit then add matcheads then screw another bolt in and tighten as much as possible and then check it so it landed on ashpalt or conrete and it would make a lovely bang...

So we decided to build a better one... we got some 3/4" bolts and a long nut and made it up with lots of match heads... No matter how we threw it it would not go off... so we get the bright idea to set it up on our shop floor prpped up with some blocks and hit it with a 20lb sledgehammer....

Pierced an eardrum and the nut disintegrated and blew out on the FAR SIDE way from me and my brother.... and had to fill and repaint a bunch of small holes in the walll....

Remains of our experiment joined the cannon in the dugout....

We also did a magic trick where we made my eyebrows disapper.... emptied a box of shotgun shells (Dad bought them by the case and we would take the odd box once he opend it as he did not keep track of how many he used...) into a smartie can to build a rocket. We lined the can with foil and punched a pinhole in the bottom. It would not light and while repositioning it with my head nearby my brother tried again to light it....and it light and took off spraying flame into my face.... fortunately my glasses were really glass and so they did not melt and my eyebrows were GONE!... not singed, not partially burnt but totally gone.... the only thing that saved my hair was I was wering a ball cap... but the stuff sticking out underneath in the front was GONE as well... so we went into bathroom and sheard off what was singed/burnt and penciled my eyerbrows back in... fortunately with glasses i passed inspection for long enough until they grew back....

We also built a rocket launcher with some pipe and model rocket engines and a 1/2 stick of stumping poder with an impact fuse built out of matchheads...and black powder squibed... everything was good we would have been fine if my brother would have loaded it into the launcher gently but he jammed it in and it was crooked and rocket engine did not have enough oomph to leave and I knew there would be an ejection charge that would ignite the squib... and we abandoned it... then it turned into a pipe bomb.... the remains joined the cannon, and the bolt in the dugout... and we had to fill in a crater and mow the yard so we did not have to explain the crop circle behind the shop...

Did I mention my brother was a firebug but I liked to make things go boom...

I have left out some important elements on purpose in cas e my kids ver read this.... we became master at building oxyatylene bangers... a small balloon filled with that attached to a spark plug on a snowmobile for a prank was good untuil we found out the comprssion made by the baloon increased the force exponentially.... my buddy pulled his snowmobile over and the hood left the machine.... and knocked him off of his feet....

Any guesses on what my career is now!...

[FishingMOM]

Originally Posted by nekred

Any guesses on what my career is now!...

Bomb squad

Or

The crazies that bring down old buildings?

[nekred]

Safety!... going back to my hometown high school reunion... When people asked what I did and I told them... I would get the "Huh"... YOU?! look and expression...

The best was from my principal... he just shook his head! and then asked my wife is I was for real?...

[ak-71]

Believe it or not the place where my father worked used fill party balloons for holydays with the HYDROGEN (not for long), we once lit a string in a staircase – made us partially blind for few minutes and deaf for quite some time. Good times.
As a city folk I lived in a high-rise building (as most people did in this part of the world). During the winter most of our less dangerous experiments (some poor judgment calls there) took place indoor and when something worked better than we expected our routine was to run back to the apartment, wait for a few seconds and then go outside to join our concerned neighbors to blame “those hooligans” . Not easy to do when you can’t see much and hear nothing

[CaberTosser]

Having read all of nekreds stories so far I'm kind of thinking he is to Darwin as the Roadrunner is to Wile E Coyote

But by all means keep em coming!


At about 4 or 5 I recall lashing 1"x6" lumber wings to my pedal tractor, fully convinced I'd be able to get airborne. We used to get onto the Quonset roof of the local curling rink by jumping the gap from the garbage shed, which was climbable ( the old Crescent Heights/Rosedale rink, years before it burnt down and was rebuilt).

Remember when you could bring empty bottles to any local corner store
and use them to buy candy with the deposit?

[hal53]

Originally Posted by CaberTosser

Having read all of nekreds stories so far I'm kind of thinking he is to Darwin as the Roadrunner is to Wile E Coyote

But by all means keep em coming!


At about 4 or 5 I recall lashing 1"x6" lumber wings to my pedal tractor, fully convinced I'd be able to get airborne. We used to get onto the Quonset roof of the local curling rink by jumping the gap from the garbage shed, which was climbable ( the old Crescent Heights/Rosedale rink, years before it burnt down and was rebuilt).

Remember when you could bring empty bottles to any local corner store
and use them to buy candy with the deposit?

I remember swiping pop botttles from BEHIND the store and taking them in the front to exchange for candy....found out years later that, of course the owner knew exactly what we were up to....

[greylynx]

Five farm boys, aged 11 to 13. All of them owned guns.

Old Farm pickup truck driven by one farmboy

Five Farm boys driving around pastures. One driver, one passenger window gunner, two truck box side gunners and one truck box tail gunner.

A highly effective system on vermin and grouse.

[Whipper Billy]

(a) When I was 12, one of our early Elementary science experiments was growing crystals. One of my ambitious classmates read up about crystals at the library and discovered how to make crystals that would expload. So he made some at home and brought his samples to school. We stepped on them and each went Bang like a cap gun. So a group of us thought that was "neat" and began making these crystals at school. I think the process took a day or two but there they were.

So after lunch and before French class, during unsupervised reading period, we decided to lay a path of crystals on the wooden floor from the door to the teacher's desk, which was on the far side of the room. We also put some on the wooden chair itself (my contribution). We figured the French teacher was the best target as we only had it once a week and as it was a new introductory class with no text or marks, we thought there would be no significant consequences to our prank.

Well he comes walking in swiftly. Bang! Bang! Bang! His expression was priceless. Complete surprise. He didn't know what was going on and continued towards the desk & the chair for safety setting off multiple crystals with each footstep. Bang! Bang! Bang! So he quickly turns and sits down. Bang! He jumped about a foot from the ceiling and ran out swearing in
French. Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! We couldn't stop laughing!

Then a teacher from down the hall, who didn't know what the problem was, looked in from the doorway and told us to be quiet. Once he left we quickly cleaned up the leftovers and sat there for 20 minutes in silence. Then the Principal walked in. He spoke to us in a raised voice for some time letting us know the teacher had quit which screwed up the assessment of the trial French program. He asked who was responsible and our ambitious classmate stood up immediately and took all the blame. I can't remember his punishment, but it wasn't too bad as he was so young. The lesson I learned from all this, other than the French swear words, was how useful a library could be!

(b) So I started going to the school and public libraries. Read about gunpowder and rockets. Got the raw materials together for my first project and started making black powder, fortunately in small quantities. Now our family was large and my room was the partially developed third floor attic. This was great as it was very private and made a good clandestine laboratory. Now every fall my Dad and I would put storm windows on all the windows. (FYI: Storm window is a framed window installed on the outside over the existing window for insulation). My storm window contained an small 8" x 8" sliding window to let air in when desired. When it got cold outside I started to conduct my experiments on the ledge outside my
window where there was lots of snow on the ledge and the ground down below. I didn't think it would start a fire and I got extra air time that way. Unfortunately on my 2nd rocket experiment I scorched 3" on the bottom of the 8x8 window. I cleaned what I could and moved my rockets outside from that point forward.

However, in the spring when we went to take the storm windows off my Dad noticed the scorch mark! He asked me where it came from. I couldn't think of what to say and remained silent. He finally said "You've been smoking haven't you?" Now I had started smoking in the last two months - every Saturday under the bridge with my friends while we walked on the girders 30 - 150 feet up! So for the first time in my life I came to an important fork in the road. A choice. Do I admit to smoking or to my rocket experiments? I decided rockets were more important and admitted to smoking. Dad extracted a promise never to smoke unless it was with him. Of course that takes all the fun out of it. So I haven't smoked since.

[Ken07AOVette]

Great stories guys. I was trying to read a couple to YD but started laughing and couldnt finish.

You guys need to write a book, there are many like your stores, vinyl cafe by Stuart Mclean, etc.

Funny funny stuff!