Great Childhood Memories
 

Does anyone remember when we were young and most of the families on the block sat outside on the front porch. The parents would be on the porch and the kids would be playing Red light green light yellow light stop, Ollie Ollie ocean free, Marco Polo, it, the girls played hop scotch, Red Rover. And of course the Good Humor Man. The Good Humor Bar, Chocolate Eclair, coconut bar, fudge sickle, or my favorite the X15 popsicle shaped like a space ship. Sunday nights watching television. Ed Sullivan. Gun smoke, the man from UNCLE, Get smart. And since you couldn’t afford a color tv you bought the multi colored plastic cover for your black and white tv. Can anyone else share childhood memories?

Sounds like a typical day in our neighborhood. We had the dream neighborhood as far as people getting along. We were there for one another as the years passed and then real-life kicked in and we were supportive for anyone needed anything on any issue it was a given that it was taken care of. The early years and Baseball all day and Basketball under the driveway lights and the Lawnmowers we picked out of the junk and made a good one out of many still sticks in my mind. We would take the same engine apart time after time just to learn. I can still smell all the oil, grease & when you mentioned the TV you brought to mind the smell of the tubes and the noises the set made when it turned off.

If I could buy a current model Console TV like the old days I'd do it in a second. Best of all I remember being The Remote Control before they were invented. Sometimes I would fake going to sleep so I wouldn't have to move and nowadays it's unusual that I can find my remote.

I would say that the best accomplishment for our little gang was the year we finally collected a couple of bucks over a thousand dollars for the Jerry Lewis Telethon. We were in amazement that Mr. Lewis could stay up for 24 hours and can remember crying with everyone else when he sang the song at the end and announced if they hot a Million Dollars in the collection. YouTube. What a great childhood. I never knew that we weren't rich. I had it all. Other than my Bike and Go-Cart and Minibike my most favorite and protected thing was my beautiful Bowling Ball. I was so happy. God Bless my parents.

Thank You for starting this thread. Along with the Ice Cream, and other thread like that it makes me so happy considering the way things are nowadays. Chitown #1 :bigbow::bigbow::mademyday:

Fishing with a string on a stick, dip netting crabs, swimming on the bay, playing baseball, riding bikes, selling Grit newspapers, growing up in my Grandfather's country store and friends.
Clean, family tv with NO cursing.
Life was great!

Yes, grandpa came to live with us and after school grandpa and I would sit and chat while we each petted a cat on our lap. I still get a good feeling thinking about it. We could ride the buses or walk all over the city without fear of anything ...we’ll perhaps loose big dogs now and then. We had paper routes, helped in the home and respected our neighbors. We were not perfect but by comparison to today, it seems like a wonderful dream. We lived in a mixed cultural neighborhood and no one was rich. If someone was Polish, Jewish, black, we would say that meaning nothing negative and they would call us Irish and make good-humored fun...and we new it was just fun as we loved each other, needed each other. I can’t remember any over-riding group trying to make trouble or get rich. We had unions, people disagreed, got angry, got over it and continued on.

Grew up on a farm in Iowa not too far from the Missouri River. At some time in the past there were Indians living there as we would find piles of flint and broken arrowheads where one of them was making arrowheads. Spent quite a bit of time clearing rocks from one field near a natural spring fed creek. Found a nice tomahawk head one day. Apparently there had been a village there and the stones were used around cooking fires. It must have been a good sized village as there were a bunch of rocks. They had to have brought the rocks in from somewhere because in that part of the state there are few rocks of that size. You can dig down for 40 feet and not hit a rock.
There are bluffs along the Missouri River and you can see quite a ways into Nebraska. A neighbor lady was what they called relic hunters, collectors of Indian artifacts such as arrowheads, tomahawk heads, scraping tools, etc. which were quite plentiful in our area. We were up on the bluffs one day with her and her grandmother looking for relics. The grandmother said her mother told her about when she was a young girl standing on the bluffs near Council Bluffs, IA, she watched wagon trains forming up for the move westward.
All of us neighbor farms kids would get together and roam all over the area exploring the hills and creeks. Hunted small game in those areas, ran a trap line and fished in the small ponds on some of the neighbor farms. We had a large pond on our farm and there was an old creek bank where we could dive from into the water. The water must have been 20 feet deep in that area. Spent many a summer swimming every day and had a full body tan. Who needs swimming suits when you are a bunch of boys getting cool in the hot summer.
What I wouldn't do to have that freedom and energy again.

My primary memory of childhood is warm, golden summer days and freedom. We lived in San Diego during my elementary school years and my sister and I would take off in the morning and ride our bikes everywhere; to a Saturday matinee with a double feature and cartoons, to the library, playground, corner store to spend our allowance on nickle candy bars. There were small canyons in our neighborhood and we'd find old cardboard boxes behind the supermarket and use them to slide down the hills. Eat prickly pears. If we wanted to go to the zoo, we'd hop on a city bus. I believe it was free at the time.

There was a cement culvert behind our apartment and if it had rained, we'd spend hours there exploring and floating on inner tubes. Our mother worked and arranged for a neighbor to fix lunch for us, but otherwise we were completely on our own.

There was a stand of castor bean plants on the perimeter of the property and mom idly told us once not to eat the berries. No big deal.

We went to grandma's house every Sunday. We'd play barefoot in the yard and run through the sprinklers while the adults "visited." Sometimes grandpa would take us rock collecting, which was just an excuse to go for a long afternoon drive to the desert. We'd sit on his lap in the car and pretend to steer. Dinner often included lime Jello with cottage cheese and angel food cake. Bonanza on TV to cap off the day.

Was any of that safe? Definitely not! But great memories now.

Wonderful post about growing up memories. I would be redundant if I added anything. Thank you. Too bad today's kids didn't get to sample what life was like when FAMILY LIVES MATTERED.

4 Hammocks between the trees in the backyard. Talk all day about girls
with other kids. We had 30 kids our age in a one square block area. Everyone was outside after dinner.
Riding bikes, playing in the creek, building a tree fort, sleeping out in the back yard. Priceless

Think I'm gonna cry.
 

Thanks,Chitown, for starting this.
The Good Humor man came by and all the kids gathered around.
The tv shows I remember are Crusader Rabbit, Kukla Fran and Ollie, Time for Beanie, Howdy Dudey. There were others, of course, along with Saturday morning cartoons.
Saturday matinees with travel log, cartoon, short subject like 3 stooges, and a "B" movie (usually scary).
For outdoor adventures, we would go to a stream not far away and catch crawdads, frogs, and my mothers favorites, king snakes and "trapdoor" spiders.
Those were the days, my friend.

Going to the duck pond with my parents and siblings to feed the ducks. Afterwards heading to the dairy for fresh ice cream. It tasted better back then.
Listening to The Goldbergs on the radio with the family. No ipads or iphones so we played together as a family.

We used to play all kinds of game on the streets of Brooklyn. When a car drove down the street we would stop for a minute to let him go by or sometimes they had to wait a bit.

Painted bases for ball games or for other games we played. If we saw a policeman we would always be polite would never occur to us to be nasty to him

I remember a late season snow storm, I was at my grandparents. They managed to get within 300 feet or so to my house, but could not get any further as the street was not plowed. So I took of running (well attempting) to the house in snow that was well over waist deep. I looked like a snowman when I got to the house, mother annoyed at the snow, but I was happy. My grandparents arrived a few minutes later after carefully walking in my trail.

I loved riding my bike just to ride it, not to get somewhere. But it take me to the market to buy bread for my Mom, only if I promised not to squash it. We had on going games of kick ball in the street and when a car came, we yelled, “car” and waited for it to pass. Bases were rocks and water meters if we didn’t have chalk.
Thank you for taking us down memory lane to a more simple time.

So many errors - where do I start
First - it was Ollie Ollie OXEN free

Allowance Nope- had to collect pop bottles and turn them in for the deposit 1 Cent for regular size 5 cents for quarts ( Pre 2 liter)

play withe parents - nope - we ere out the door after breakfast and never got back home until every mother in town called their kids home for dinner
and if you didn't hear your mom , it didn't matter - the other moms would tell you to get home - or else

how did we ever survive?

Picking huckleberries and red topper mushrooms in the woodlands surrounding the Northeast Pennsylvania (NEPA) coal region.

Playing Kick The Can until it was too dark outside to see. So much fun!

We lived on a 5 acre farmette on the edge of the country (when neighborhoods gave way to farms). My dad taught me to ride a bike when I was 7 and we took off on country roads. But soon enough, I was allowed to go out on my own. There were other families scattered nearby but not close. Some had other kids that I'd play with from time to time, but I remember mostly playing by myself. My much older sister often would comment on my vivid imagination. When I was 10 my parents sold the place and built a house across town in a neighborhood. Mostly I remember making my own "entertainment". We didn't have a t.v. til I was 10 and that was limited of time to watch. Our town was safe--one could ride bikes all over or even walk without worries. I'm sure there was a "dark" side to life but I was never aware of it. These times were in the 50's and 60's....too bad the kids today can't enjoy what we enjoyed.

Other things I remember when we lived on that acreage---we had an apple orchard, grape vines and a very large garden. My mom made all our meals from "scratch" and baked bread and canned vegetables and fruit. She hung our laundry on the clothes line and everything got ironed. She didn't get an automatic washer/drier til she was in her 60's in the 60's and never had an automatic dishwasher. We also didn't have air conditioning back then neither.

Ice skating on the local pond after Dad checked that the ice was thick enough. Another winter memory was walking after a snow storm, at night, just to enjoy the quiet & beauty of it in the streetlights

In summer, walking a mile to the ocean for my swimming lesson. Or building forts in the sumac trees behind the house. Yep, we enjoyed watching Bonanza on Sunday nights too, as a family. Then off to bed

Boy, everyone has wonderful yet different memories.

Why would you “correct an error”? Actually the term is “Ollie Ollie OUTS IN FREE!” but most neighborhoods had their own version depending on what they heard from another person. So whatever they said is really not an “error” just because you said it differently.

Swimming lessons every morning at the town beach during the summer...home for lunch (had to wait an hour) then walked up to the swimming hole just up the street....sometimes delayed getting there if the raspberry bushes along the way had ripe fruit.

rushing home from school to put your play clothes on and get down to the field in back of a couple of houses to play baseball until it was so dark you couldn't see the ball...or the older sisters came down and told us to all get home

a week of summer camp....playing marathon games of Monopoly in the basement when it was in the 90's outside

listening to my mother say "why does this ice cream truck have to come every single day just as we're sitting down for supper?"

eating beans and franks EVERY Saturday night

digging for worms and catching buckets of 'blue gills'

building snow forts and sliding down the hill on the street that we lived on....before the days when the town sanded and salted the roads

clearing the ponds off and playing hockey without any equipment beyond a stick and a puck

playing cops and robbers with toy guns in the woods

I remember the taste of honey suckles that was only interrupted by the sound of my dad's whistle which prompted an immediate run home. Saving soda bottle caps that allowed us movie tickets. Catching tadpoles in the canal in our backyard. Television made possible with aluminum foil on antennas and I was the designated mover of that antenna. Halloween costumes made by mom (our favorite, my sister and I went as Minnie & Haha,) ahhhhhh, the good old days.!!

Don't forget jumping rope. Especially fun with double ropes turning in opposite directions. Had to have perfect timing to jump in without tripping up. Also swinging from vines into giant leaf piles.

Ah, the taste of honey suckles, a great memory.

What a great thread.

All the things we used to do before age 10 that our grandkids cannot do now,

Sports were choose up sides with no adults around. When we had arguments we all settled them ourselves.

Some led to fistfights and after 5 or 10 minutes we forgot and were friends again.

Taught us conflict resolution that this younger generation will never learn on its own.

Playing cards like Go Fish and War and 500 Rummy. Playing pick-up-sticks, shooting off cap guns and hitting the pop sickle stick with a rubber ball against a opponent. So many other fun things. So innocent we were.

Come home when street lights come and on. Neighbor mom's were to be respected. This hurts me more than it does you..

It would be great if a good humor person would roam our streets. Geez. We would flock to that truck all the time when I was a kid. probably against the convenients here.

Almost forgot...
 

Almost forgot the school play ground, with METAL jungle gym, METAL slide that burned your butt in summer and froze it in winter. Don't forget tether ball, 4 square and the merry go round. And swings that when you got real high you would jump out. Now that was fun!

I have so many but some stands out the most......
Sitting at the Ebbets Field, Polo Grounds and Yankee Stadium ball parks watching the Greats of Baseball play.... :popcorn:
Stick Ball - Johnny On the Pony - Skelsies - Spin the Top - Punch Ball - Kick the Can, Boy Scout camping, etc. etc..
My 7th Grade favorite was "Spin the Bottle".... :a040:

Wonder if they still play spin the bottle?:coolsmiley:

Childhood memories
 

I remember summers growing up in Baltimore City (it was safe then) when old men in horse-drawn wagons would drive around the neighborhood selling fresh melons and corn. They'd cut out a plug from a watermelon for you if you wanted to check the ripeness.

Fudgesicles WERE good. American bicycles were heavy, single-speed, had fenders, and other trappings. Kids put balloons in the spokes to become a motorcycle. Sears was a big thing. We cut our own bows from trees and used them in VERY dangerous manners. Those were the days, my friend!

Those were the days my friend
We'd fight and NEVER lose
We'd laugh away all those blues
About the future, we had no clues
Cared less, no need for that mess
Save us please, Beetles
From Rock Hudson and Doris day
No more, no less

I remember the good old days, running home from school so I could play different sports in the neighborhood. Used to make money as a 10 year old, cutting next door neighbor’s yard and riding my bike to the private country club in Kenwood, Ohio to caddy (about 4 days a week). Used to put my earnings on my Dad’s dresser to put into my savings account. Seems like most kids today, couldn’t start a lawn mower, use a paint brush, or wax a car.

My mother, born in 1905, grew up in Baltimore, way, way before your time I am sure, but she told me about the horse drawn wagons and block ice being delivered for their "ice box" as she also referred to our electric refrigerator.

We moved from New Jersey to Albuquerque, NM in 1945 where an old local farmer drove a Model T Ford truck with the bed loaded with locally grown vegetables and fruit. He would stop and park it on our block. She always bought some fresh picked vegetables and fruit from him. One day he did not show up as usual. Turned out when he was seated in his outhouse a black widow spider had bitten him on his privates. He did not show until the next year but he did recover.

My mother cooked almost everything from scratch as she was a stay at home mother, a rarity these days. She had been a high school teacher of Mathematics and French but gave it up to raise her children. My father managed a small Safeway store so we always had good meat and other groceries. We rarely if ever ate out as we could not afford to do so.

My brother and I rode our bikes all over as they were our transportation to school, the movies, the swimming pool and friends' homes. There was no need to lock them at that time, either.

We played cowboys and Indians with cap guns and hand made bows and arrows. We made sling shots using inner tube rubber for power. I made a sling and learned to use it to throw rocks pretty accurately a very long way. I had a pump action Daisy BB gun I loved until its spring finally broke. I built model airplanes from scratch using balsa wood. Gliders, rubber band powered and finally glow plug motors. Those were the days!

Good memories. I made an Australian Bola and would TRY ? to hunt rabbits with it, usually unsuccessfully, but it took skill and was fun. After the nest apocalypse, I may have to practice again.

Had an English racer 3 speed and went all over Brooklyn including places that we had no business going. Put playing cards in the spokes for our noise

I was an editorial assistant in the mid-60's at Grit. I wrote the Doris Lee advice column. I have a lot of Grit memorabilia, including a bag the boys used to carry the paper. I plan to sell it all one of these days.

Watched didn’t have color tv or air conditioning til high school

I grew up in the Midwest and my memories are the same as most of you. Everyone helped each other. Adults never talked about money, religion and politics, their thinking was it was your business and no one else need to know. How wonderful life was !!!