Tales for spoiled brats

[Ad Astra]

If you missed The Great Pumpkin or Rudolph, that's it for a year.

Dolly Madison Zingers, indeed.

Cox gas airplanes; let that PT-19 or Stuka propeller hit your finger ...


AA

 

[ChiefHA]

In high school I had a tendency to end up in the principles office and my punishment was to take the school tractor (not lawn tractor) and brush hog the 10 acres that the school had bought for a future new sports complex but was still a pasture at the time. Imagine a principle today sending a student out on a full size open cab tractor running a rotary mower oh and no hearing or eye protection.....

 

[Dave-the-rave]

You could take somebody's eye out with that.

 

[Ad Astra]

You could take somebody's eye out with that.

And we did, too.

Another kid lost half his foot while jumping the train ...


AA

 

[oc_in_fw]

Let's see, some things from my childhood (which began in 1980 and ended however many years from that childhood lasts) which my kids (12, 9, 8, and 2) don't believe.

To this day they think I'm putting them on when I tell them about Saturday morning cartoons. The same with our 4 (later a 5th) television channel. The Big Three and PBS. I didn't have a proper remote control, but I did have a little sister (still do, actually) which worked out to be the same thing.

Free play is a difficult concept for my children's friends. But all the neighborhood kids meeting up at the big field at the end of the block in summer and just goofing off. Nothing scheduled or structured. Not even adults. Just be home when the street lights come on.

Someone already touched on dealing with bullies. I had a problem with a bully and my old man taught me how to throw a right hook. And called it "Standing Up for Yourself". Also, bullying took place in person directed at you. And if it wasn't physical, it wasn't bullying.

Any of my stories involving tobacco. Ash trays in malls and grocery stores. The drug store had an aisle that was candy on the right side and cheap pipe tobacco and cheaper cigars on the left. A very young me running to the corner store with 6 quarters to get a pack of Tarryton lights for my old man.

They cannot wrap their heads around the Cold War. Anything beyond that's where the modern idea of what a spy is, it's gibberish.

And the entire idea of looking anything up in a book makes so little sense to them that the whole idea is deemed silly and dismissed out of hand. Growing up, the most common question in acquiring knowledge was by far "Where is vol. __ of the encyclopedia?' It's been replaced with "Hey Siri/ Alexa..."

And how about the Dewey Decimal System?

 

[Dave-the-rave]

And we did, too.

Another kid lost half his foot while jumping the train ...


AA

I very nearly took someones eye out with a homemade catapult, or slings as we called them. The kind made with a tree fork and cut up inner tube. He was lucky and kept his eye but it was bad. He later joined the Army, met his wife while serving, had 3 kids and served 22 years. Strange to think had I knocked his eye out he wouldn't have got into the Army, wouldn't have met his wife and his kids would not have been born.

Of course at the time I was just a tad concerned my dad was going to murder me.

 

[RookieGuy]

Here's one for those with newer drivers. "Are you kidding me? There's NO FREAKING WAY I'm paying $0.85 for gas! They're nuts!"

 

[StuMcB]

Don't know about you guys but I sometime mess with my daughters head. I tell her a truth but that sounds possibly not truthfull but only for todays kids. One is about colour film being available way back in the 20th century as well as black and white. I mess with her by first a few days earlier saying that black and white photographs were often coloured in. Others have included, some of the first cars made were electric or steam, I been on the first iron battle ship for the royal navy which also had sails (don't mention the steam power). And if the toe next to your big toe is either long or the same height as your big toe then 'scientist' say your directly related to neanderthal man. Seem to remember something about that from way back, now disproved I think.

 

[Owen Bawn]

Rented TV's with a coin slot.

I lived in a bedsit in Galway in the 80s where I still had to feed shillings to the heater to get warm... well, technically I got a little less cold.

 

[DocPapi]

How about the days when you rented a VHS video player for $25 and they threw in a couple of movies? As a young married, my wife and I would invite a few friends over for potluck, and we all would split the cost of the video player and watch a couple of movies together...on our little 13" TV. Good times.

 

[Owen Bawn]

What happened to "Side Two?"

 

[Razorcan]

When I was growing up we had a military junta running the country, electricity and running water in less than 40% of the country and one , military,tv channel that broadcasted for six hours per day (but less than one tv per 10.000 households ).

It was also quiet and traffic free (extremely few people could afford a car and public transportation was virtually non existent).

I remember LOTS of WALKING...

 

[chilehed]

We'd make tennis ball cannons from steel soda cans, and run around shooting at each other with them while the local cops laughed at us for being idiots.

When I was eight or nine I was buying nitrates at the drugstore for pyrotechnic experimentation. The cops laughed at that, too.

We didn't have a remote for the tv, but if the one at my dad's favorite bar got lost the owner would shake her keychain at it and the channels would change.

 

[Dave-the-rave]

A question for American members, and anyone else for that matter. Did you collect birds eggs? It was definitely a British schoolboy thing among generations older than me although we seemed to catch the tail end of it. I was given a huge collected of eggs by an older cousin, which included a much coveted an illegal, swans egg.

I still remember my dad climbing trees to get an egg and pop it in his mouth for safe keeping for the descent. I don't think he approved of the hobby much, but he did pass it on to us anyway.

We made a small hole in each end, blew out the contents, and stored them in big biscuit tins lined with saw dust.

 

[emwolf]

And how about the Dewey Decimal System?

I can only hear "Dewey Decimal System" as spoken by Catherine O'Hara

 

[_MementoMori_]

A question for American members, and anyone else for that matter. Did you collect birds eggs? It was definitely a British schoolboy thing among generations older than me although we seemed to catch the tail end of it. I was given a huge collected of eggs by an older cousin, which included a much coveted an illegal, swans egg.

I still remember my dad climbing trees to get an egg and pop it in his mouth for safe keeping for the descent. I don't think he approved of the hobby much, but he did pass it on to us anyway.

We made a small hole in each end, blew out the contents, and stored them in big biscuit tins lined with saw dust.

I've never heard of this, but it sounds fascinating. Thanks for sharing!

 

[Captain Pre-Capsize]

Used to go to the local drugstore and buy a bag of salt peter. Would bring it home and mix it 50/50 with sugar over low heat on the stove. This was done in an empty coffee tin since it could not be cleaned when done. It slowly melted and you had to keep stirring it as it melted into a carmel colored thick goo. Then as it was cooling off you remove with a spoon and quickly and carefully (very hot!) mold it into a golf ball size orb. You would get lots of balls out of one batch. After it was cooled off you light the thing and heave it - an amazing smoke bomb and from a tiny ball like that. It was like a torch shooting smoke and sparks like nothing you have ever seen. No eye protection, and mom right there in the kitchen making cookies. It might just as well have been Play-Dough. That was a major pastime of ours until...

My brother was making a batch in the kitchen and was in a hurry. Mom was tending to other siblings while he was trying to get that batch done fast before the guys got there to have fun with it. Are you ahead of me yet? The heat was too much for the ingredients and a coffee can of ingredients ignited in the kitchen. WHOOSHHH!!!! Flames, sparks and SMOKE - LOTS of smoke! All us kids ran around opening all the windows as the smoke was literally pouring out the house. Do you think that put an end to it? Nope.

(Hands on hips): "From now on, you can't melt it - just mix the powder together and light it on the driveway." So the fun continued. How we got through childhood I do not know.

Oh and mom got a new kitchen floor and countertop out of the deal. Good luck buying any salt peter today, it is used in explosives. Truly, we used to just walk in and buy bags of it, no problem.

 

[Dave-the-rave]

Used to go to the local drugstore and buy a bag of salt peter. Would bring it home and mix it 50/50 with sugar over low heat on the stove. This was done in an empty coffee tin since it could not be cleaned when done. It slowly melted and you had to keep stirring it as it melted into a carmel colored thick goo. Then as it was cooling off you remove with a spoon and quickly and carefully (very hot!) mold it into a golf ball size orb. You would get lots of balls out of one batch. After it was cooled off you light the thing and heave it - an amazing smoke bomb and from a tiny ball like that. It was like a torch shooting smoke and sparks like nothing you have ever seen. No eye protection, and mom right there in the kitchen making cookies. It might just as well have been Play-Dough. That was a major pastime of ours until...

My brother was making a batch in the kitchen and was in a hurry. Mom was tending to other siblings while he was trying to get that batch done fast before the guys got there to have fun with it. Are you ahead of me yet? The heat was too much for the ingredients and a coffee can of ingredients ignited in the kitchen. WHOOSHHH!!!! Flames, sparks and SMOKE - LOTS of smoke! All us kids ran around opening all the windows as the smoke was literally pouring out the house. Do you think that put an end to it? Nope.

"From now on, you can't melt it - just mix the powder together and light it on the driveway." So the fun continued. How we got through childhood I do not know.

Oh. And good luck buying any salt peter today. It is the ingredient in explosives. It is true - used to just walk in to the store and buy two pound bags of it, no problem.

Fantastic.

 

[emwolf]

Used to go to the local drugstore and buy a bag of salt peter. Would bring it home and mix it 50/50 with sugar over low heat on the stove. This was done in an empty coffee tin since it could not be cleaned when done. It slowly melted and you had to keep stirring it as it melted into a carmel colored thick goo. Then as it was cooling off you remove with a spoon and quickly and carefully (very hot!) mold it into a golf ball size orb. You would get lots of balls out of one batch. After it was cooled off you light the thing and heave it - an amazing smoke bomb and from a tiny ball like that. It was like a torch shooting smoke and sparks like nothing you have ever seen. No eye protection, and mom right there in the kitchen making cookies. It might just as well have been Play-Dough. That was a major pastime of ours until...

My brother was making a batch in the kitchen and was in a hurry. Mom was tending to other siblings while he was trying to get that batch done fast before the guys got there to have fun with it. Are you ahead of me yet? The heat was too much for the ingredients and a coffee can of ingredients ignited in the kitchen. WHOOSHHH!!!! Flames, sparks and SMOKE - LOTS of smoke! All us kids ran around opening all the windows as the smoke was literally pouring out the house. Do you think that put an end to it? Nope.

(Hands on hips): "From now on, you can't melt it - just mix the powder together and light it on the driveway." So the fun continued. How we got through childhood I do not know.

Oh and mom got a new kitchen floor and countertop out of the deal. Good luck buying any salt peter today, it is used in explosives. Truly, we used to just walk in and buy bags of it, no problem.

my friend and I would mix charcoal, saltpeter, and sulfur. It made a very slow burning gunpowder (just like the cartoon trails of burning gunpowder). We decided to add powdered magnesium and woosh! Great stuff.

 

[Owen Bawn]

A now retired friend worked as a game warden (they call them 'conservation officers' nowadays) in northern New Hampshire. He told a story about a couple kids he once caught throwing quarter sticks of dynamite into the water in secluded inlets of Lake Francis or another of the Connecticut Lakes on the Quebec border. After the explosion they'd scoop up the stunned fish, often big landlocked salmon, out of the water with nets.