[Chitown]

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?

[Nucky]

Originally Posted by Chitown

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

[Bay Kid]

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!

[Strongel]

Originally Posted by Chitown

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?

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.

[Number 10 GI]

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.

[queasy27]

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.

[bilcon]

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.

[Decadeofdave]

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

[fdpaq0580]

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.

[Stu from NYC]

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

[villagetinker]

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.

[Martinhome1204@gmail.com]

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.

[lem001]

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?

[matandch]

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