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

[antlercarver]

At the country school there was 2 bus runs but only one bus. We were in school 45 minutes before the 2nd bus run came in to start classes. After school we were there for almost a hour before the bus came to get us on his second run. All sorts of stuff happened and sometimes windows got busted. Behind the school was a muskrat slough where we had traps set and stretchers under the steps. We kept some dried hides in reserve, because no one had money and if you did it was soon spent. We sold the hides to a store 1/4 mile away, bought glass, fixed the windows. No one in authority ever knew so no one had to suffer consequences.

[Ken07AOVette]

Some of the stories you guys wrote are just awesome. You have either been listening to Treeguy and followed his line, or you taught him. Well Done!



I don't have any as fun as those, but I do remember playing a prank on Mom and Dad when I was about 10. They were going to Grandma's house, for some reason Mom left earlier than Dad, and they took both cars. I did not want to go, so I of course told Dad I was going with Mom, and told Mom I was going with Dad.
Mom left without incident early Sunday morning, and I thought I had the perfect plan. I would hide in my room until Dad left, then I would have the entire day, the entire house to myself!
About 15 minutes later I was soaking wet with sweat, it hit me what Dad would do if he found out I lied to both of them. While he was in the garage, I ran out and snuck in behind the back seat of the little Astra, hidden well. He came out, started it and let it warm up for a minute. I don't know what hit me, but I started tapping on the side of the car, thump thump thump as it idled. Well jeezus krist I hear, and Dad shut off the engine to check the car.
A minute later, hood down he started it again. As he revved the engine and let it idle, I followed suit, thump thump thump then taptaptaptaptap while he was revving it.
I learned some new words that day, new scary words, multiple syllables, and some real short quick ones.
Trouble was, on the third time just as he shut off the car, and I thought he was out I let loose a little giggle, and he caught me.
After a few very tension seconds, he laughed too, realizing he had been pranked and away we went, happy that he did not have to fix the car. I dont think they ever pieced together my plan to stay at home alone.


I remember being about 4, riding up the block every day to the church on the corner, turning around and coming back on my little tricycle. One day I did my thing, got to the church, turned around and was heading back when my hair blew over my face, my tricycle flipped and I was really, really warm. The propane tank had been leaking apparently, and all that was left of the little church was a smoldering mess. I got just far enough away before it exploded.

[hornhead]

back when i was a kid dinosaurs ruled the world and all the women looked like Ursella Andress.

[Desert_Faux]

Originally Posted by dale7637

Ahh, the memories.

When i was a kid, my home town ( High Level) was growing like a weed. Our house was on the edge of town, and it was bush and swamp as far as you dared venture. We used to chase frogs, build forts and get in to trouble.

Then we moved to the county, and the real trouble began.

When i was about 12, my dad put me to work for the summer around the farm. I spent most of my time mowing grass, shovelling out barns and taking care of animals. But most importantly, my dad gave me the job of going to war with the magpie population. I spent every waking minute dreaming up ways to kill magpies. I set traps, and caught cats. My sister could never figure out why her cats always hated me. I guess after throwing a tarp over them to get them out of the steel jaws, they werent big fans of me.
I also got my first .22 that year. It was a savage bolt action, and it is still one of my proudest posessions. I spent all summer practicing with that gun. I shot tons of magpies.
We built a shop that summer, and my dad was so proud of it. I remember one sunny morning, i stepped outside to do chores, and there was a magpie sitting on the peak of the tin roof on the new shop, eating something. I slowly snuck inside (by now, the magpies were wise to my tricks, it was rare for them to be around when i was out and about), and grabbed my .22. I remember aiming at the magpie, and thinking about the potential of hitting the barn roof. I also thought to myself " ive been practicing all summer, i can hit a lonnie at 50 metres, i wont miss".
Well, i missed. Twice. I put two perfect .22" holes in dads new shop roof. I stood there for a minute, and weighed my options. Running sounded good, clamming up sounded even better. So i shut up.
About a month later, dad was in the attic of the shop running wire on a rainy day. I remember it like yesterday. He looked up after rain hit his head, and started cursing the builders. He was sure that the builders had made the holes. I tried to talk him into keeping it quite, and we would just fix it ourselves.
No dice, he says. He figured that since the builders put it together, they can come fix their screw ups.
Off he went to the house, and phoned his builder. After a lengthy conversation, the builder agreed to come take a look.
I was sweating bullets. I thought for sure that dad would kill me once the builder got to the top of the ladder and had a look.
The builder came out, and i made myself scarce. I figured that if i was gonna catch hell for it, dad would have to find me first. I spent the hole day checking horses on a field a few miles away.
I came back around supper time to find the builder busy changing 2 sheets of tin on the roof.

The builder blamed it on his guys. Said something along the lines of sloppy roofers drilled holes in the wrong place. I was off the hook!!!
I breathed a sigh of relief and swore i would never tell anyone. Up until i wrote this, i hadnt.

I will tell dad one of these days, just never seem to remember when we are together.

Dude... Quoted for PURE GOLD!!!

Your Story and writing style just screams, "Bestseller"!!

Oh the memories...

[ak-71]

Originally Posted by tara_13

Cell phone ??? What is that ? ha ha

Phone? Didn't your neighbor already have one? (different country which doesn't exist anymore, we got phone when I was ~10yo)

Most stupid I can remember:

Washing machine handle got all black and melted in a home-made rocket stationary engine test going wrong. Sanding it to be white (but really smooth and flat) was so stupid that it almost got me out of trouble. Still a mystifies my mom, I think, as my story wasn't very sound
A crack in a toilet bowl while designing a new miniature cannon to combat our neighbors in modeling clay toy castle battles was my older brother’s idea and fathers powder we borrowed (he was hiding it his winter boot). I don’t remember my brother's story, but bowl was a write-off and he somehow kept all his fingers.
Letting a younger guy take a spent dud RPG shell home after a trip to a local military academy(?) shooting range - I had to take a fall as the oldest in a group @9yo. This one involved a scared police team as his mom was bad at IDing these things.

If my son did half of what we did - I would have all grey hair and he wouldn't be able to sit most of the time.

PS. And when I was really small I worried that these imperialists will drop an H bomb on my hometown some day.

[Private Ear]

Originally Posted by Desert_Faux

Dude... Quoted for PURE GOLD!!!

Your Story and writing style just screams, "Bestseller"!!

Oh the memories...

X 2!

And your Dad probably doesn't want to know about it.

I rolled the lawn tractor once. Broke the carb off. took 2 weeks to get a new one from the dealership in Warburg.

Dad never knew but he was sure amazed at how clean a 20 year old carb was when he had it off a couple of years later.

[dale7637]

I remember another time, when i was about 13.
Mom and dad were taking off on holidays for a week or so. They wanted grandma to come look after my younger sister and i. Of course i argued. I told them i was 14 now, i was almost a grown up, and i could take care of myself. To my amazement, they agreed with me. They took my kid sister to our aunts place, and left me on my own to take care of the farm. They arranged for the neighbour to check up on me every day after supper. It was going to be heaven.

Dad had just started his own business, and had a couple of employees. Before they left on holidays, one of his employees quit. The employee had a company truck, so the truck was brought out to the farm for short term storage. Dad left the keys with me in case i had to move it, and away they went.

I will never forget that truck, i tried like hell to buy it when i turned 16.
It was an early 90's F-250 extended cab long box diesel. White with a green stripe down the box. Hell of a truck, with a stick shift five speed to top it all off.

After a few days on my own, my little adolescent mind started to wander. I was still getting my chores done everyday, and keeping the magpies at bay, but i was starting to get bored. One of my daily chores was to head over to our pasture and check animals and build a smudge for the horses if it was needed. I would load everything onto my little honda trike, strap it down and head for the pasture. It was about a 8 mile round trip, and it was a beautiful trip across the neighbours fields and across the creeek. It was a 2 hour round trip with the trike, and quite frankly, i was getting bored of it.

On about day three, i decided to take the company truck. Of course, i didnt have my learners or drivers license, but i figured to hell with it, i am a farm boy, i can drive tractor, so i can drive pickup.

I loaded my dog and all my supplies into the truck and headed for the pasture.

But, i was smart. I took chalk and marked on the driveway exactly where the truck had been sitting. I also made note of exactly how much fuel was in the truck before i used it. That way, i could park it back in the same place, with the same amount of fuel, and there was no way mom and dad would know that i used the truck.

So, off i go to the pasture. I spent the whole day driving around the fields, checking horses and killing time. I even ventured down the creek trail for the afternoon, shooting muskrats and generally getting into trouble.

I figured life was good. The truck had a/c and a stereo, whereas the trike just had a backfire and a tore up seat.

I spent the whole week or so that i was alone living the life. I felt like a bigshot. Truck, dog, rifle and off we went to enjoy the summer days.

But, back to reality. Mom and dad will be home soon. So, i fuel the truck up to exactly where it had been. I park the truck back on the driveway, right where it had come from. I washed the chalk off the driveway to cover my tracks.

I even washed the truck down to make it look like i was a good boy. I vacuumed all of the dog hair out of the cab. I had all of my bases covered.

Mom and dad get home, and everything is great. I had the yard looking good, and mom even commented that it was amazing how much i got done while they were gone. She was so proud of me.

Fast forward a week. I was out doing chores, when dad comes over and tells me to take a seat. We need to talk, he says. I panicked. I had done so many "bad" things while they were gone, that i had no idea what i was in for.


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 didnt sit right for a week after that.

And it was a few years before i got to stay by myself again.

[Ken07AOVette]

Originally Posted by dale7637

Fast forward a week. I was out doing chores, when dad comes over and tells me to take a seat. We need to talk, he says. I panicked. I had done so many "bad" things while they were gone, that i had no idea what i was in for.
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 didnt sit right for a week after that.
And it was a few years before i got to stay by myself again.

ROFL!!!

Great story!

[dale7637]

Originally Posted by Ken07AOVette

ROFL!!!

Great story!

The sad part is, I could go on all day.

I think Karma is gonna kick me in the junk when i have a kid.

[Ken07AOVette]

Originally Posted by dale7637

The sad part is, I could go on all day.

I think Karma is gonna kick me in the junk when i have a kid.

Go on, please.

The stories should be published somewhere, too bad we don't know of a magazine that prints stories.....

[Lefty-Canuck]

Originally Posted by dale7637

The sad part is, I could go on all day.

I think Karma is gonna kick me in the junk when i have a kid.

You need to submit some of these to "Readers Digest"....seriously they are pure gold.

LC

[Skybuster]

Taking my bike and riding down to the creek. cutting a pole and fishing with worms for 8-10 inch trout.

building go-carts and racing them down the hill. We had to use big tires, off dead bikes, cause the hill was gravel. I had dreams of hooking up a chainsaw motor to drive the thing. Probably a good thing I never found one.

My fondest memory is from a bit older, at 14, I worked all summer haying and that fall I bought my first gun, a Remington pump 20 guage. Still have it today. Man I was one proud kid.

[Lefty-Canuck]

Dale your stories remind me of how when 2 brothers who fight all the time (my brother and I) can come together and be best friends in a moment of crisis.....

Growing up my younger brother and I were always on each other....both our parents worked so we had to fend for ourselves....one day him and I get into this huge fight and seeing as the bathroom was the only locking door inside the house it was "the safe haven".....So my younger brother would fly off the handle when I would bug him sometimes (likely I bugged him because he did) I was running for the "safe haven" while he was chasing me with his skateboard....as I closed the door to the bathroom he came down on it with the skateboard and busted a hole in the door.....ok NOW WE ARE FRIENDS! instantly!

So we pull out the surrounding wood from the hole and start filling it with wood putty of the same colour.....thank goodness Dad had some in the work shop. The door was one of those really dark laminated doors that used to be put into homes in the 70's.....so we get it filled in and I remember using a toothpick to copy the wood grain.....

Fast forward several YEARS ahead....Mom and Dad are selling the house so time for a deep clean.....Mom decides to wash down the doors and all hell breaks loose....

LC

[Swolf]

I remember burning bugs with a magnifying glass then when I got bored with that I tried burning everything my old man owned!! Ha ha he is still finding holes in things 18 years later.

I also set up a dart board in his shop however it was not long after I set it up that I got bored with the darts and started shooting it with the pellet gun. And it was not long after that that I got bored shooting at the dart board and put holes in anything that was interesting to shoot. Pellet holes in everything!!
Nothing was safe or off limits.

[grunger]

Dad gave us his old Datsun truck when my brother and I were 12 and 11. I swear that truck was made out of rust but it made us the coolest farm boys around. Faded red with a white top and a Cowboy Cadillac decal. You had to hit the dash to get the radio to work, and make sure you were careful working the clutch cause if you missed the pedal you were playing Fred Flintstone. We must have put 100,000 on that thing without ever driving on pavement.
We lived 14 miles from town and I had never seen the RCMP out there in my life so we weren’t scared about getting caught driving down the grid roads and dad wasn’t either. We had a friends that lived 6 miles away and we would always drive over to pick them up and then go fish down by the big hill for chubs.
One day as we are driving down the road to the fishing hole an RCMP cruiser is pulling out of a farm yard just as we drive by. 3 of us in the cab and 2 in the box. I was driving and out of the 5 of us my friend Dallas was the oldest at 13. Looking back it must have been quite a sight to see this faded red pile of rust and electrical tape flying by with 2 kids sitting in lawn chairs in the box of the truck with a couple dogs and the driver to short to see much past the speedometer.
The flashing lights came on and we were caught. The officer walks up to the window and I’m sitting there with some new brown underwear and my brother looks across from the passenger side and asks, ‘Is there a problem, officer?”
I thought that cop was going to die he laughed so hard.

[Achilles]

This is a great read...

[althetrainer]

Growing up on an island, we didn't have much to do other than going for a swim. We were too young to drive but too old to have babysitters so our parents let us do "our own things". One summer we got bored hanging out by the beach so we went to climb trees, our neighbor's tree that is. In Hawaii almost every yard has a couple of fruit trees. Our neighbor had a few of them. The mango tree was easy to climb but not the papaya tree. If you've ever seen a papaya tree you'll know it's near impossible to climb it. Even if you have spikes the tree trunk is just too fragile to support the climber. We had our eyes on a golden papaya but we it was too high up. Instead of trying to climb (or shake) the tree for the papaya we decided to chop it down! Dad's machete was locked away so we went to the kitchen to get mom's cleaver and went to our neighbor's yard to chop away. Half way through we saw our neighbor charging out from his house. We dropped the cleaver and ran for our life. The same evening our neighbor showed up at our door with mom's cleaver. Needless to say we got into a heap of troubles and that ended our tree chopping adventure for good!

[Jiffy10]

My mother was visiting a few years back. SHe was waliking with my
year old daughter and she asked. Gramma " what did daddy do when
he was my age "

my mother replied " took his gun on his motorcycle lunch ..the dog
and headed for the pasture for the day "

My mother looked at me kind of startled and said.
" Oh my .... that's wrong now isnt it "


I'll probably never forget that ....... it was funny

[C.Noble]

My brother and I got pellet guns from my uncle when we were 8 and 9. Raised by a single mom who didn't want us to play with them at all. She came home one day web we were 12 and 13 to holes in the walls, broken blinds and my other brother who was 11 covered in welts. Needless to say the guns got put away for a while and one wooden spoon broken over my brothers back end were the result of that game

[DarkAisling]

Originally Posted by dale7637

I took chalk and marked on the driveway exactly where the truck had been sitting.

lol! My father did that as he was afraid of me stealing his car while he was in Iraq on a tour of duty. But, he also ran the car out of gas in the driveway. And, he took the distributor cap with him to Iraq.

Weird thing is, he'd bought me a car just as nice as his a couple of months earlier: a Honda Accord, which I actually liked more than his Toyota Camry.

[gatorhunter]

Made ourselves some "guns" with 24 inch lengths of hockey stick shafts, piece of inner tube nailed to one end and a clothes pin nailed at the other end. Stretched the tube until it could be secured in the closed clothes pin. Lay a pebble in front of the pin, aim, press down on clothes pin and shoot the pebble. We played cowboy, shooting rocks ateach other for hours.

Built go-carts with kids wagon wheels or lawnmower wheels. No motors. Smallest guy drove and biggest guy pushed the cart. No hills in flatland Manitoba.

Favourite though was shooting bugs off Mom's flowers with sealer jar rubber rings. Woo hoo! Life in a small rural town.

[vcmm]

WHAT, Nothing from Cat,Huntinstuff,Chuck and the other old boys,
Must not have been alot to do other than play with furs,start fires with sticks and do cave drawings

[omega50]

Got in trouble when I was about 8 years old for mentoring the neighborhood kids in the fine art of stuffing a sunflower seed up one of their nostrils and then pressing the other side shut and trying to snort the seed at neighborhood girls. One 5 year boy got overzealous and packed his nose full and started crying when they would not come out.

I sensed trouble when I saw his mother coming and ran for it. My mom was waiting for me when I got home. Apparently a housecall from a doctor was required to extract the offending seeds that were packed in with such vigor as to be immoveable.
The year was 1967.

[leeaspell]

Originally Posted by omega50

Got in trouble when I was about 8 years old for mentoring the neighborhood kids in the fine art of stuffing a sunflower seed up one of their nostrils and then pressing the other side shut and trying to snort the seed at neighborhood girls. One 5 year boy got overzealous and packed his nose full and started crying when they would not come out.

I sensed trouble when I saw his mother coming and ran for it. My mom was waiting for me when I got home. Apparently a housecall from a doctor was required to extract the offending seeds that were packed in with such vigor as to be immoveable.
The year was 1967.

Thats too funny. Me and 3 of my cousins when we were young, like 8,9,10 , decided one day to have a contest to see how many dogberries we could put up our nose, both nostlis. My cousin Edward won with 18 if I remember right. Anyway, we blew them all out except he only had 15 come out. No one realized this at the time, until a week later when his nose started bleeding for no reason. Went to the doc and he went in and fished one out of the left side.
Few days later, right side started bleeding, off to doc again who pulled the other two out lol. And I was the one who got all the crap over the contest because I was the oldest, at 10 so I was supposed to be the mature one. It was my idea, I was oldest so figured my nose would be the biggest.

Another one involved my uncles old big red when I was maybe 8, that was sittin on some blocks with the wheels of the ground. Me and my friend were spinning the wheels watching the chain and sprocket going around.
We got his little bro, 5 maybe, to get some grass and hold it on the chain because we figured it would light a fire, like rubbing sticks. Wel long story short it involved his litle brothers shirt sleeve catching in chain, and hauling his hand into the guard and peeling ALL the skin back to his wrist. I can still remember us yelling to him as he was running home "Its not that bad, you dont have to tell your mom" lol.

Had some red butt cheeks after that one when we finally decided to go home at around midnight.

[greylynx]

Originally Posted by antlercarver

At the country school there was 2 bus runs but only one bus. We were in school 45 minutes before the 2nd bus run came in to start classes. After school we were there for almost a hour before the bus came to get us on his second run. All sorts of stuff happened and sometimes windows got busted. Behind the school was a muskrat slough where we had traps set and stretchers under the steps. We kept some dried hides in reserve, because no one had money and if you did it was soon spent. We sold the hides to a store 1/4 mile away, bought glass, fixed the windows. No one in authority ever knew so no one had to suffer consequences.

Good post.

[hunted]

Growing up in a Hamlet in west central sask. There was a coop store, hall and curling rink. Winter was and still is my favorite season. The parents would curl and party until the wee hours of the morning. The pack of kids tunneled! the snow use to drift over the rink and bank up 20-30 feet deep. We had a small city in there every year.

[hihi962]

well I grew up with a few brothers (the sisters don't count), and we'd be constantly pulling eachother in something behind the trike! anything from a GT snoracer to a crazy carpet, or even a cardboard box we tried out once.
was awesome fun! you use a long enough rope, get that trike going in a tight circle, that plastic saucer is goin way better then the top speed that trike could ever do!

ahh trikes!.. when one guy can load it in the back of a pick-up without a ramp, now that's an atv! sure we've rolled ours lots, never got killed.. but my 850lb quad scares me! if that baby rolls once over me, I am sure i'd be typing with a pencil in my teeth...

[220 Swift]

fighting with the brothers and lots of it

shooting arrows at friends when we were playing war. the bow was a carigana and baler twine string arrows were anything that would fly.

shooting every thing that moved, birds, mice, gophers etc. even beetles ad grasshoppers on the ground, when all else was gone with 22.

throwing a golf ball sized rock at the brother, hit him on the head as he was riding my bike, w/o permission, the rock i swear flew straight up in the air 10 plus feet after it hit him on the head. i was about 20 feet from him. he dropped like a rock. Mom was not happy with me.

shooting the brothers friends BBs in the house, white crayons filled the holes after in the drywall

lighting fireworks in the house to scare mom

shooting coyotes and birds out of the top window of the house. LOL they didnt know where you were. neither did mom and dad LOL

digging in huge winter snow huts, stealing some of moms cigarettes and having a fire in the snow fort roasting hot dogs

witnessing the brother drill holes in all the steps in the basement. same brother shot the steel grain bin with a 22. i still get blamed for that.

watching the cousins fight and they were throwing hatchets at each other. Their dad walked outof the shop and they had their hides tanned. at a later date, the same ones were fighting inthe truck inthe middleof now where, and their dad threw them out for a good jog. the fighting stopped.

baseball, hockey-at home and small town sports. rafting and pushing people in. that was fun too.

shocking the dog and pigs and cows on purpose with the electric fence, the pigs were the best for that when they squeeled.

smashing the bottom of my bed and the brothers, on my birthday when the wrestling matches were on. the beds were fairly new at that time. Dad never said much. i was kindof shocked

fighting at school, and one kids collar bone was broke, its never been the ssame for him since, which is too bad.

When i look back those were the days when nothing mattered, no stress just fun.

[CaberTosser]

I recall walking with my buddy from my house on one corner of the block to his house at the other corner of the block. He started whipping snowballs across the street, and he glanced one off the windshield of a vehicle. The driver cursed and turned around; my buddy booked it through another friends yard to go back to his house down thee alley. I continued walking because I hadn't thrown anything. Buddy pulls around and starts playing 20 questions with me and then grabs me and stuffs me in the back of his car saying we're going to the Police station downtown ( I was about 7). Just then another neighbor kid comes out of his house, dressed in jeans and a jean jacket just like my buddy was; so buddy starts to try and grab him. That kids Dad happened to come out and these two were just about to go at it when the police just happened by and straightened everything out. I recall that Dad being pretty abusive to his kids, we'd see it walking down the alley to each others homes, and we steered clear of them because they were always up to no good.

I don't think the cops were real happy with what was essentially a kidnapping attempt, but I never heard another thing of that event.

Same neighborhood (Crescent Heights), about 6 or 7 years old and I was riding my bike home from school at Rosedale elementary. I'm giving it down the street and I see the police behind me; I try to wave them past but they keep behind me. I was signalling all my turns and stops, and after a few corners was going down my alley. They were still behind me. I arrived home at the end of that block and they got out and spoke to my Mom. I was a pretty little kid for my age and I guess they were concerned about my visibility when riding on the street; in a day or two they had returned with an orange visibility flag on a fibreglass pole to bolt to the back of my bike. I kept that thing bolted on for some time.

[marv243]

I had to get up to change the channel,,to the other one !