Go Out And Play

Awwww those were indeed the days. We used to play hide-n-go-seek for hours. Hop scotch, ( the kind with two rocks each ), make-shift forts out of lawn chairs and sheets ( no plastic pre-fabricated ones like today ),.... we used to ride our bikes around all day ( do kids still do that? Can they? )...popsicles were 25 cents each ( we'd count out our penny jar )....and of course hours and hours of sandlot baseball.....sweet sweet memories.
I wonder if my children's memories will be a keen in their minds and as fondly remembered as they get older, as mine are?

I hope so.
I really hope so.

Activities seem to get more and more restricted with every generation.

My father grew up in Beaumont, TX, in the 1930s across the street from acres and acres of undeveloped land. As a 10-year-old, he and his buddies from the neighborhood would camp in the woods for 2 and 3-day stretches with no parents in sight.

I have fond memories of flashlight tag games with all the neighbor kids at night. In the summers, my cousins and I would roam the acreage of my aunt's country home, searching for arrowheads, enjoying the swinging rope over the swimming hole, and walking across the hot pavement in our bare feet to buy a popcicle at the country store. Our beds at night were hammocks stretched across her long front porch.

I will not even allow my 14-year-old daughter to walk a half-block to check the mail because there is a registered s e x offender who lives nearby -- and we live in a nice neighborhood. It is a sad world we live in.

Hopefully, the organized activities our kids participate in will provide memories as wonderful as what we as adults enjoy.

quote:

Today everything is supervised and costs money.

I can imagine asking my father to buy me a 300 dollar bat? Or hundreds of dollars to play on a "travel" or "select" team

We "traveled" to the playground and "selected" our own team and played and played. made our own rules settled our disputes not an adult in sight. Cost? everybody chipped in for a ball which by the end was loaded with tape to keep the cover on. We would have few wooden bats that were cracked and fixed with wood screws or nails.

We would bike down to some scrubby fields with old backstops and play for hours with no supervision.

Sadly, in many areas there is too much crime for parents to feel comfortable doing so now.

Will - I bet it was a lot more FUN in your day on that playground!

Just for the record, my boys still get to play flash light tag at night with their cousins. There are still a few havens out there where a kid can play. But I have to admit I'm not comfortable with my daughter getting too far out of sight. Sad.

It is sad, isn't it?

"Those were the days, my friend, I thought they'd never end, we'd sing and dance forever and a day...."

But hey, do you remember the mosquito abatement truck driving at dusk through the neighborhood and all the kids chasing after it either on bikes or on foot?

When I was in seventh grade, we would ride the "el" (elevated electric train) to Wrigley Field--it required a bus and two "els" to get there; Wrigley Field was about 20 miles away, and and took hours to get there. The route would take us through all kinds of neighborhoods. This was in the late 60's and it was a real eye-opener for us suburban kids to view firsthand the results of the riots. We'd stay for the game--only day games--no lights! and we could only afford to sit on the bleachers. (They were CHEAP! but always filled with drunks...) By the time the game would be over and we would get home, it would be dusk....It was great fun and always an adventure! (One time in high school--ok ditching--one girl left her uniform in the bathroom at Wrigley...oops) Anyway, if my SONS wanted to do this now there would be no way!!!! that I would let them....For one thing, the neighborhood has changed ... ...the girls would probably be fine... But, no, I would not let my 7th grade daughter do that now....not even my 9th grade daughter.....

Yep. We had a streetlight rule too and we chased the mosquito truck... Be gone on my bike all day; if my kids have 15 mintues unaccounted for now I'm in GPS mode, things have changed. I kind of miss Dragnet too

And you will have those that say kids have it better today?? I guess it depends the definition of "better"

quote:

Originally posted by trojan-skipper:
I kind of miss Dragnet too

To get started...

http://www.audiosparx.com/sa/local/ax151285566/43182.asf





"Ladies and gentlemen: the story you are about to hear is true. Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent."

Tonight's episode: "Hold the mayo"




Think! Think skipper! After you hoods rolled the mosquito guy where did you ditch the mosquito truck? Think! This is no laughing matter skipper. People rely on that truck. Do you have any idea as to how many kids will be absolutely on edge if they don't get their DDT fix...we'll have riots...unimaginable riots in the serene streets of the City of Angels!
.
.
.
.
.

That's right Sgt. Friday...we've found the mosquito truck. I gotta' tell ya'. I have no idea how they pulled this off. They stuffed the whole thing in a Jack in the Box on Whittier Blvd. just west of Atlantic.
.
.
.
.

And in closing...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLLUCvUifvs&mode=related&search=

I grew up in the thriving metropolis of Midland, TX (West Texas).

Not lonly did we play outside until dark and play all the games you described, but when it rained (rarely), they would pump out the playa lakes near my house. The pipes ran right beside my house. In the summer, we would play in the water that those pumps were pumping into the streets. I doubt is was terribly pure water, but we survived.

And the pipes were in the street, but somehow, no one was run over.

A little while back, late in the summer, my oldest sons came home from college/summer ball around the country. I had not seen him for a long time. He asked me if I would go out with him to hit him ground balls and throw BP. I was so happy!

After going to about 5 different HS' and/or public baseball fields we finally found one which was not locked up! The field was in terrible condition and it was two towns away!

I got a game I bet nobody else played, cause we made it up. We called it "Hot Beans" I have no idea where it got its name. It was a little like hide and go seek but the person that was "it" would hide a belt in the back yard. Once it was hidden the rest of the players would search for it with hints about being hotter or cloder when either getting close or farther away. Once the belt was located the finder would chase the rest of the players back to base on the front porch snapping the belt at them. This game could cause pain but we sure thought it was fun.

I am sure these days this game would generate lawsuits, but back then it just kept us outside having fun.

In NYC we called it 'Hot Pease and Butter'.

Having the perfect diction that we did, it would sound like 'Hot Beans and Butter'.

http://www.rhymes.org.uk/pease_pudding.htm

What I remember best was riding horses all over Parker County. Just three of us girls, no parents. We would ride our bikes to the creek and use a rope for a swing. Ride several miles down the highway to the store. I also had a pond on our property and we would play for hours around it.

My parents never knew where I was. But they never had to worry. Nowadays I freak out when my son is down the street riding his bike.

A few years ago we lived in a town for a while where a little girl was kidnapped out of the front yard of her grandmother's house while playing with friends. It took a long time for them to find her remains and just recently solved the crime. That will definitely change the way you let your children play, and it changed me.

I grew up in a very small town. I rode my pony to LL games and tied him up on the scoreboard. The league officials didn't mind because he kept the grass down around the scoreboard. We left the house every morning and only came back for dinner. The TV was not allowed to be on in my house until after dinner. I can remember the few rainy Saturday afternoons that we would be able to sit around a watch the Saturday game of the week. Most of the baseball I got to listen to was on the radio, I still miss Chuck Thompson.

Summer was being at the playground to play baseball by 9am. We went home for lunch, came back and played until mid-sfternoon, when we rested for our LL practice of games by playing Strat-O-Matic baseball in the shade of the porch. After LL games or practice we played basketball under the lights until a parent would say it's too late to make noise outside.

If we weren't at the playground we were in a backyard playing whiffle ball. From breaking to many windows in the house, in my yard we used a bathroom Dixie cup stuffed with newspaper. How come we didn't wreck our arms snapping off curves with a Dixie cup?

We drank from hoses. No one got sick from it. Being a hyper type when we hung out in the shade for rest, anything I could swing would be a bat. I swung rakes, shovels, tree branches, anything. I believe it helped my swing.

I didn't learn how to track angles on flies and liners up the gap at a baseball academy. I tracked hundreds per week in pickup games on the playground. I still say if a dad takes a kid to a field and shows him some basics, with enough work he can adjust and figure out the rest. No one taught me how to play football, basketball and baseball. It was trial and error. But I played all three through high school and baseball in college.

Unfortunately we now live in an era where it's difficult to play three high school sports. My son is entering high school. He dropped football to play fall ball and practice his shot for basketball. When he played middle school football and fall ball his body never got to rest from football.

All these horses! Here's me thinking I'm one of the older websters, and now I hear about all these folk pre-motorcar

del, when you've got a good broadcaster, there is no better way to follow the game from a distance than in your mind, guided by the radio. TV tends to limit the view to the pitcher and hitter, with no attention paid to how the field is playing or what the runners are doing. Remember when baserunning was important and the Saturday Game of the Week would give you split screen?

quote:

Originally posted by Will:
And you will have those that say kids have it better today?? I guess it depends the definition of "better"

Better is relative. I think my boys have it "better" than I did however, I do pine for the "good old days."

If we has three kids, we had a ball game. If we have twelve kids, we had a ballgame...just alter the ground rules to suit the situation.

We used to put a stick inside those skinny yellow wiffle ball bats, we tried to cork our wood bats, we had one aluminum bat in the entire neighborhood....then we discovered how far you could hit a racquetball with an aluminum bat!!!

Bigger papi,
Don't forget the wiffle ball bat with enough tape on it to make it a -3 big barrel. It was amazing how far you could hit a tennis ball when you squared it up. Talk about end loading.

This thread reminds me of a great movie!

My folks always told me to go outside and play...in the street.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnK9zEgBeYA

Orlando thanks I had forgotten about that split screen. I was about 17 the first time I got to see Brooks play in person. But I had seen him play in my mind a thousand times. I still listen to a lot of games on the radio, just no better way.

quote:

Originally posted by deldad:
I grew up in a very small town. I rode my pony to LL games and tied him up on the scoreboard. The league officials didn't mind because he kept the grass down around the scoreboard.

Here I am with My Little Pony...you had all of the luck deldad...your pony actually ate grass...I've been stuffing grass into mine for years and nothing...absolutely nothing.

how about all the nails and screws with about 2 rolls of elec. tape holding the bats together. we had no aluminum bats back then. and if you needed some money for a soda, cost a nickel. you'd look for bottles and get a penny a piece, exept for quarts you'd get 2. if my mother couldn't find me i'd be at the Moerrlli's she was a great cook.

You know I am only 25 and after reading this I am really sad. They renovated our baseball fields but they lock up the grass fields unless you get a permit for them.

Played sandlot ball as recently as nine years ago right in the middle of brooklyn, ny.
Every day all day for about 4 months straight in the summer.

Its where I honed my instincts for the game. How big of a lead to stretch, when to dive for a ball etc....

It is still being played by the rare few. Also remember taking the one bat one of my teammates broke and putting nails into it to keep it together.

I can talk all day about this. Think I'll stop now before this message becomes too long.

BUT!!!!!

My kids play whiffle ball and running bases in the front yard. There is a large circle of yard that used to have grass on it, now it's just dirt. That is home plate. Yes, we have a rather large back yard, but when you play out in the front if anyone from the neighborhood wants to play, then they just come over. And yes, when they were really young, it made me really nervous...

...Anyway, first base is a large limb from our neighbor's Flowering Crabapple tree that angles skyward. The flowers on the tree are really pretty. Earlier this spring, my neighbor apologetically told me that they would remove the long limb that angled skyward because the limb was dead. NO!!!!! I screamed in horror. You can't!!!! Why not? she asked...Because it's first base!!!!!

So on the beautiful Flowering Crabapple tree there is a long limb that has no leaves on it nor any flowers. Passersby must think, oh dear, look at that long limb that's dead. It should be cut off. But that limb is just so full of life and love. It's kind of like our version of THE GIVING TREE.

We lived by the street lights rule too, brings back memories. Sometimes we got to stay out past dark to catch lightening bugs or watch shooting stars.
In summer we went to day camp, and for a few weeks every summer went to Lake George to visit relatives or off to the farm in Michigan.
One day my dad came home with the news we were now going to be a boating family.
This eliminated our outdoor playtime on the weekends for a few years but we traveled everywhere in that boat, Fire Island, Coney Island, Mystic, Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket, Florida in winter with our home port of Seaside NJ. The jersey shore was a blast.
But there was nothing like playing out in the woods behind the house all day, swimming in the stream and waiting for the Good Humor truck and baseball games on TV at night. My brothers would disappear after a few innings but I always stayed to watch with my dad, that became our special time. He loved baseball and I wish he were alive to see his grandson, not in his beleoved Yankees uniform but in uniform for a professional team.

My dad was in the air conditioning biz so everyone came to our house to cool down in summer. As a gift one year from Westinghouse, he got a color TV (RCA) and I remember the day it arrived, everyone had to come watch Bonanza that night in color. That was so cool.

Oh, this is a good thread and bringing back lots of memories:

We also lived by the "street light" rule. Altho, if my dad wanted us home at ANY time we would hear his "whistle" anywhere we were in the neighborhood. There were actually a few different whistles from different dads...but each one was distinct and we knew when we had to drop everything and go running. Freeze tag, tv tag, swinging from the swing set and seeing who could jump off the furthest, red rover, chasing the Good Humour truck, scraped knees, banana legs, clothespinning baseball cards to your bike tires to make those neat sounds,
chinese jumprope, double dutch jump roap, jacks, pogo sticks.....GOSH...I'll have to remember all this the next time my 9 year old says "I'm Bored!".

Catching fireflies on a warm summer night.

Another favorite summer pastime during my youth.

While growing up next to the Schenectady (NY) Municipal Golf Course back in the 60’s, I literally had a public park in my own backyard. During the warm summer evenings, the Muni grounds crew would place one free-standing, metal water sprinkler, in the center of each green for their daily night time watering. They usually stood between 3-4 four feet tall with a 360 degree oscillating arm that shot a 30-40 foot stream of water. To cool ourselves off from a hot summer day, my brother and I, along with all the neighborhood kids, would get into our swim trunks, go to the golf course after sunset, and have a race to see who could get to the sprinkler first. The winner of the race was declared, “King of the Green”. As king, you had to defend your ground by grabbing the oscillating arm of the sprinkler, and with deadly pinpoint accuracy, turn and hit your aggressors with a barrage of lethal water shots. If you got hit, you were out that round. Needless to say, defending a large putting green against 15-20 kids was a daunting task. A new "King of the Green" would be declared if they made it past your defense without getting hit by a water burst. I guess you could say it was a watered down version of “Capture the Flag”. In addition, we would all take turns as lookouts for the Muni grounds crew, who would eventually return later that evening, to turn the water off and collect the sprinklers. All I can say is, it was far more fun than taking your routine, mundane, "Mr. Bubbles" night time bath.

My neighbor's mom worked in a carpet store. She'd bring home those 2'x2' carpet samples so we could have bases.

We played hours of "hot box" with those squares.

Today, my back yard has five distinct dirt spots, one for each base and the pitcher's mound. Looks like **** but guess what? Grass grows back!

Wooden Milk Box Scooters

Wooden milk box, one length of 2"X4" or thicker, one skate separated, a penny's worth of nails and some form of hammer

Weeks of fun

Some of my fondest memories are of endless wiffle ball games with my friends. Oh if I could have made a baseball dance like I could a wiffle ball, I would have a plaque in Cooperstown.

What I would give to go back to my typical summer days as a kid:

- fishing in the morning
- meet up to play wiffle ball or some other sport with my buddies until it got too hot.
- swimming at my friends pond.
- back home for dinner (every night we had dinner with the whole family at the table, how often does that happen now!)
- after dinner meet up on the street to ride bikes and other neighborhood games that lasted until we came in to watch TV (3 channels) before bed.

I have now officially turned into my dad with my own “back in my day …. ” memories of life in the good old days.

quote:

Originally posted by eddiegaedel:
All I can say is, it was far more fun than taking your routine, mundane, "Mr. Bubbles" night time bath.

The Mr. Bubbles in our neighborhood managed to have quite a lot of fun...



"Makes getting dirty almost as much fun as getting clean."

This brings back great memories. We had the street light rule and I, also, grew up taking buses and the "L" all over the north side of Chicago...especially Wrigley Field.

However, I read an article a couple of months ago that challeged the notion that life is more dangerous for kids these days. In fact, the writer felt that life is much safer than it was 50 years ago... that only our perception has changed due to exagerated media coverage and their trend to add a "fear element" to reporting.

He listed example after example of how safety has actually improved...especially in the area of child abductions, which are actually down from 30 years ago. The main difference in parenting decisions, he felt, is that our parents didn't know if a *** offender lived down the street when we grew up and if something happened it usually wasn't reported on the news that night.

He went on to say that today's parents aren't as careful about the things that are far more likely to hurt their kids...obesity, under age drinking, etc.

Wish I could find the article...it was very interesting.