Neighborhood Games

Lawn Dart Tag

All of the games mentioned above. Curfew in the summer was when the street lights came on. We also played a lot of “army”. This was in the time when there were still a lot of army shows on TV(Rat Patrol, Combat et) Since most of our dads were WWII vets this was no big deal. Every year for Christmas and Birthday I asked for a new toy guy and normally got one. I remember one photo of me that I am well armed. 11 guns on me at one time. Wonder why none of us became serial killers with all that access and playing with guns

Played most of the games mentioned above.
Summertime was for fishing and swimming. Ride the bikes to several small creeks and rivers. When fall came and smallies wanted minnows, riding a single speed bike with minnow bucket on the handlebars for 8 miles 1 way, was an adventure not shared by to many guys. It was usually just me and 1 friend.

I grew up rural and could ride my bike 1 mile to one friend’s house. We played with a lot of fire. A lot.

On our dead end street in suburbia my kids are getting the go outside and play with the other dozen kids experience.

buschman wrote:

shooting stuff with wrist rockets.

If you ever have a stupid thought to see how far you can shoot a nail into a tree dont do it.

This time of year we would be out bumper skiing (AKA Hookie Bobbin’ or Skitching) Never got old.

Summer we turned our bikes into Choppers (Easy Rider style) Or we were making jumps at the bottom of the steepest hill in the neighborhood. Evel Knievel was THE COOLEST person on earth back then.

-J.

Rode bikes a lot. Had a spot at the end of the block we called the jumps. It was an oval bmx course with a pit and we were always making the jumps bigger to see who would hit them. There was also a spot a few miles away we called little woods with a bigger bmx course than we had that we would go to occasionally. Also street hockey, 2 hand touch football (usually turned into tackle) kick the can, ding dong ditch, sling shots down by the river, r/c cars. My mom was a teacher so we were at home all summer and always outside. My kids are outside for the most part weather permitting but it just seems different than when I was a kid.

Ripjiggen wrote:

Difference back then is there was not that many things to do in the house.
Video games were limited. TV was limited. Toys were limited.
Friends running a muck were not.

All I had to do inside was clean and Legos. The 18” black and white tv that you had to get up to turn the channel sucked and you only had 4 choices of what you wanted to watch. I am sure I would have spent more time on the TV as a kid if I had unlimited viewing options on a 65”.

We built alot of forts when I was a kid. Lived in a new development and the guys would supply us with free lumber if we picked up nails for them. Some of them were pretty sophisticated for kids our age. We also built a 10′ ski jump in an undeveloped lot. That was shut down pretty quick by the builder and the city due to liability. But, not before I thought I broke my ass in half trying to use a Target brand snowboard on it.

We also built a boat….wish I had pics of that. We used scrap plywood for the hull and strapped a 5HP johnson on the back. It leaked a bit but we never sank it. We also built a trailer so we could pull it behind our bikes.

Wow. Great Topic. My BS is a little long so feel free to disregard, but I can see myself right back to the old neighborhood as if it was yesterday.

We raced bikes for hours on end down the city street. We used the same city block with kids of all ages. The neighbors were all used to it and didn’t ever mind.

A typical day of “racing” would have 10-12 kids with their bikes showing up at the same spot. One person was always the designated judge at the end of the block. Who would yell “GO”. Once the designated judge was chosen…we had a “draft.” The bikes were always lined by the curb and for the first round the youngest would choose their bike first. To race you had to be willing to let other people ride your bike. We had everything from tiny 16″ youth bikes with no gears or hand brakes, to “stunt” style bikes, to mountain and the occasional nice road bike taken from a parent when they weren’t home. Having gears was nice, but it was a short enough sprint that the bigger tires that came with mountain bikes weren’t always advantageous. The smaller lighter bikes geared lower would always be easy to take the lead with, but the mountain bikes would catch up and make it a tight finish. If one or two people were really dominant, we’d start to handicap them by either tying on a radio flyer wagon (man were those some rough crashes at times going 8-10 bikes wide down the road with a wagon swerving in tow), or make them start 10 feet further back. The ultimate goal that everyone agreed to was wanting close highly contested races with photo finishes, arguments, and laughter as we walked the bikes back down the block for the next draft and race. I remember waking up with bruises on my calves from peddling with everything I had for hours on end doing the same thing over and over without any adult involved. I’d pay an absolute pile of money to go back and relive those moments.

Summers were spent outside, playing baseball, whiffle ball, football, any other games kids could dream up. Didn’t have to come home until the fire whistle blew at 9 pm.

Used to throw a tennis ball against the house to work on my fielding skills, drove my mom crazy.

Winters were spent playing hockey at the rink, or street hockey, building snow forts with the mountains of snow we used to get.

Ahh, the good ol days.

I think the best memory was that first nice spring day every year, probably in April I’m guessing. Temp in the mid 60s, sun out and getting the bike out for the first time since fall. Riding all day with a t shirt on and the snow melting..then the next week being in the 30s again…

Wow guys! its awesome to read all the stories. Really brings me back. Some of these games ive never heard so im gonna look them up. Who wants to organize an IDO game of kick the can? @sharon

Paul D wrote:

Used to throw a tennis ball against the house to work on my fielding skills, drove my mom crazy.

X2! My dad was really mad when i thought the garage could handle the rubber baseball. Did you make a duck tape square too and pretend to be Roger Clemens?

crappie55369 wrote:

Wow guys! its awesome to read all the stories. Really brings me back. Some of these games ive never heard so im gonna look them up. Who wants to organize an IDO game of kick the can? @sharon

That sounds awesome! An IDO snowball fight might be kinda therapeutic for some of us too! 🤣🤣🤪🤪

Same games and adventures here. Whatever sport was in season is what we were playing outside. I don’t know if I had cloths that didn’t have a permanent tinge of grass stains. During the summer we used to go down to the local creek and catch leeches, frogs, and minnows. That lasted up until a couple of kids got beat up by the local idiots. The final nail was when two of us got swimmers itch on our legs so bad we nearly ended up at he hospital. Luckily my mom had some sort of itch cream from Canada because nothing else touched it. That cream must have been something that would have been prescription strength here. When we got a bit older we spent a lot of time at the river fishing for carp and catfish. Bike rides, go carts, swimming and fire works filled my youth.

Forgot to include war with tennis ball cannons. We all got our rear ends beaten pretty bad from our parents. Had a night with all the cops out scanning the neighborhood. We took out some windows on a couple houses and no one found the humor in it. Took about a month for the welts on my legs from dads belt to go away

So…i have to ask Ding dong ditch. Is that where you knock on the door and hide? We called it nicky,nicky 9 doors. We had one neighbor that would chase us so we had a couple of radios and the guy that knocked would hide in his front bushes and wait at the door. The neighbor would wait at his door or window in clear site so we could see him go sit down and it was game on again.

You know,we never did anything malicious and the odd time a car came down the road and wouldn’t go around our hockey nets but just sit there and honk the horn and one or two of the neighbors came out and put the run on them.

Oh man! We did all the “traditional” stuff that’s been mentioned, but growing up in the country we did ALL kinds of stupid things that I hope my kids never do.

I had a cheap youth compound bow with wooden arrows and the rounded metal practice tips. At my friend’s farm we’d go out at night and fire it straight up and watch the arrow disappear from the illumination of their yard light and into the darkness. about 8 seconds later it would re-appear and we’d have about second to run before it hit the ground.

At the same farm (a dairy farm), I brought over a wrist rocket sling shot I had and my friend and I fired a class 5 rock down the length of the barn and into the hind-quarter of a cow that his dad was putting this milkers on. We got chased from the barn and ended up in the house where we grabbed some grapes from the fridge and realized that they hit the wall with an extraordinary explosion. I’ve never heard a woman cuss and swear so much as my buddy’s mom when discovered the mess we made.

we rode the bikes everywhere within 10-15 miles. I remember when jacob wetterling was kidnapped and the the local parents kind of tightened the reins on us a bit, we didn’t know what top do with ourselves.

once we got to be teenagers we camped a lot at the nearby state park. it was a way to get totally away from the adults and we got away with a lot out there.

in the summer we swam almost every day. first the rope swing by the train bridge (how 80s is that?) — then when we got bored of that we graduated to jumping off the big bridge into the lake, probably about 40 feet. some of the guys were crazy, we’d sneak out at night and they’d do back flips off that bridge in total darkness. One day my mom happened to be driving by right as i launched myself off, got an earful for that. a neighbor kid also had a pool in the backyard. We scaled the deck and climbed up on the roof and jumped off the roof into the “deep end.” I don’t know how nobody ever got hurt.