My buddies and I played a lot of Army back when we were kids. Life was very good before video games !
So true. What the hell kind of adventure is sitting on your ass for hours twiddling with (not your joy stick) but the mighty “controller”? They have like six buttons per side. Go figure that one out grandpa. In years to come medical science will discover why most Gen Whatever’s (GenW?) have flat asses like baboons. It’ll be traced to sitting on their butts for 70% of the day which does include actual work hours which still count for sitting on their butts, but at a computer because they could not identify a 7/16” end wrench nor a 10mm socket. But for some strange reason they know what a “monkey wrench” is, and they think they know what a hack saw is.
Anyway, what was I gonna share?
Oh—- more of “when I was a kid”….
We’d set our bicycles upside down, crank the pedals, and when we couldn’t keep up with the cranking, drop pea gravel into the gap between the spinning rear tire and the fender. Noisy and messy, but fun!
In my second childhood home we had a miles long earthen drainage channel in our neighborhood. Seasonally the tadpoles turned into these cute little frogs. Then my best mischievous friend and I would collect these frogs into a 1lb coffee can, which we’d previously punched a 1/4” hole in the bottom to which we’d afix a fire cracker. Light the Black Cat firecracker then flip the can upside down reeeeal fast and run backwards to see the can blast off. Yep…you get the picture, another messy one. Now that was an adventure.
Throwing cherry bombs into the street gutter rain catches. That BOOM reverberated in the storm drain system for at least one full block! Frikkin LOUD!
Oh- back in the day, we’d take old vinyl records and head over to the elementary school. Frisbee wasn’t as fun to throw as records. I mean…the frisbee you could see. But those records? Once thrown, and they got flyin’ you couldn’t see them anymore. Yeah stupid I know.
Remember those box kites? I don’t think anybody makes them anymore. Well, unless you pick one up from an actual kite shop for like $149.00. I’d try to replicate it myself before I’d spend even $20.
And speaking of kites…trying to figure out the correct tail weight to offset that crazy circular spinning was a real task. Or sending “messages” up the string. Kids don’t fly kites anymore I don’t think. But I remember.
One grandson who’s the “gamer” I mentioned in an earlier post is still the gamer. On a FaceTime call last night to my son and daughter in law, he couldn’t come out to say “hi” to me and grandma because he was too involved with multiple players… that he doesn’t even know.
One of my greatest fears is as they age up, they’ll become something akin to those “basement dwellers” but without the basement. I guess it might be termed a “Slab Slug” or something like that. Relationally retarded and completely self absorbed. That computer can be a bad thing at the fingertips of a pre teen.
But back to better things; Sheriff John for those who remember, and I can still sing that silly birthday song (Put another candle on my birthday cake….).The TV show Whirlybirds, Skyking, Bozo the Clown, and even further back Romper Room, Hobo Kelly. Saturdays were cartoons galore, until my mean step mom would just walk up and push the power button. Step families or blended as they call them now can be hard. Some say it can take up to 10 years for that type of family to “blend”. My dad had had it after 6.
Felix, Popeye, Looney Tunes, Clutch Cargo and his pals Spinner and Paddlefoot to name a few. Later it was The Ed Sullivan Show, CBS At the Movies and Bonanza, and after all scheduled programming was over, that Indian Head in the circle. Looked like the old NHL Chicago Blackhawks emblem. Or the multi colored stacked blocks until regular programming resumed in the late morning.
Ahhh yes. Those were the days.
It’s been freezing outside all day, and dinners almost ready, but another stroll down memory lane with you guys is always fun.
