Originally Posted By Lisann22 Summertime always makes me think back to when I was a kid growing up in the old neighborhood. A couple of my mom's sisters and one brother lived a couple blocks over from us so there were always atleast 7 to 12 cousins to play with on summer days. We'd hang out in our front yards and ride our bikes or roller skate from their block to mine. We were adventurous kids and a bit mischeivous. Always looking for a project, a new show to put on, a fort to build, the next animal to catch. ;> We'd play baseball at the local park from sun up to sunrise each day. Or go fishing, bike riding, swimming, mudsliding on our slip and slide. My one aunt used to watch us all, we ranged in age from 12 to 3. She'd line up all the bag lunches packed by our parents and divide everything up, give us a jug of Kool-aid and kick us out of the house for the day. We were quite the sight to behold 12 kids, 2 dogs and a duck walking down the street. Yes a duck, Herman was his name. One day he just magically appeared in her front yard and he lived there for 3 years. Slept and ate with her dogs Biscuit and Blackie. He was protective of the little ones. Quacking and chasing after anyone who tried something funny with his little ones. Herman must have been old as he died and we buried him with a grand duck funeral in her backyard. I have a lot more stories - what are your stories or memories of summertimes growing up.
Originally Posted By SuzieQ We lived not far from the Santa Ana river bed. Every summer we'd get tons of little frogs in the yard. Of course, frog hunting was one of our favorite things. We'd each get a bucket and a marker pen then catch as many frogs as we could. At the end of the night, we'd count to see who caught the most, then mark them in our color so we knew who's frog was who's when we turned them loose, LOL
Originally Posted By Lisann22 Ah frogs - there was this one year I spent a week on restriction because I baked baby frogs in my Suzie Homemaker oven and they exploded. Ewwwwwwwwwww, it was so gross but so cool. Unfortunately, my mom didn't feel the same.
Originally Posted By Fe Maiden I was 7 when we first moved to South Jersey from Philadelphia we were one of the first families to move into our neighborhood. Alot of the houses were still being built. We'd spend a lot of time climbing in and out of the houses once the crews left for the day. The nearest cul de sac wasn't paved yet and it had this big mountain of dirt in the middle which we played on for hours. It's also where the bulldozers were parked. Our street was the ultimate playground. Dangerous but fun. Aside from that it was out the door by 8, playing every imaginable sport till 8 o'clock that night. As we got older we'd play games like "jailbreak" or "ring and run", one of my favorites. If the weather was nasty we'd stay inside watch the Stooges or the Little Rascals, play video games and listen to album after album on the stereo. By then we all had our favorites and would argue forever about important stuff like who's the best drummer, guitarist, band, etc. We'd also the perfect the ultimate crank calls. I can't tell you how many children I fraudulently signed up for CCD.
Originally Posted By SuzieQ <<I can't tell you how many children I fraudulently signed up for CCD.>> ROFL!
Originally Posted By LVBelle Growing up in Arizona, we lived just a 5 minute walk from a wash that was turned into miles and miles of parks. The best part of the park was what we called the "spray pad." It was a couple of cement hills with fountains all over them. It even had a slide made out of cement. If you were going to go down the slide, you had to have a frisbee or something to sit on or you'd tear your bathing suit. I ruined so many bathing suits and shorts on that thing! Looking back, it was really dangerous but SOOOO much fun!!!
Originally Posted By wendebird >> was 7 when we first moved to South Jersey from Philadelphia.<< If you don't mind me asking, where did you live in South Jersey? I grew up in Beachwood/Toms River. Since I grew up near LOTS of water, we'd spend lots of time at the beach, crabbing, seining, etc. Crabbing was lots of fun, especially when you realized how much fun it was to turn the crabs loose on your friends. lol, Good times running around with a crab clawed to your butt! We spent lots of time playing kickball in the street, jump rope, hop scotch, riding bikes, hide & seek, climbing the Summers tree in their back yard. They had THE BEST climbing tree! Man, when I fell out of it, it hurt so bad & lost my breath, but I was back up climbing it again. It's actually quite sad that my kids don't get to do 1/2 of that stuff. Mainly because there just aren't many kids around in our neighborhood.
Originally Posted By Labuda Well, I did most of my growing up in the country - from 5th grade on - and we were in a eighborhood with lots of kids around our age - I remember playing capture the flag in the big wooded area that was right across the street from us, behind the houses on that part of the hill - never worried about sakes or anything else, as those were OUR woods. Funny we did that, considering I would never use our front door, as shortly after moving in, I opened it to find a curled up rattler hanging out. lol Also, we'd play kickball, jump off the roof of our neighbor's shed into the little pile of grass or hay next to it, shoot our BB guns at targets we'd tape to the trees. When I was little, we'd go swimming ALL THE TIME - almost every day, it seems - great fun that was! Oh, and then the three years we lived in Mesquite, we'd go to camp for a week during the summer - mostly day camp, but the 2nd to last day, we'd spend the night camping out. Summers were wonderful for me growing up.
Originally Posted By alexbook Wow, all you wild ones. I was purely a city kid, and a bookish one at that. The highlight of my summers as a kid was an annual week-long (more or less) visit to my cousins in Newport Beach, where we got to spend as much time on the beach as we wanted. We also took a lot of family camping trips--my mom has a whole collection of pictures of me sitting in various wilderness settings, reading a book (and doing my best to pretend I wasn't stuck in the middle of nowhere with my family).
Originally Posted By Lisann22 All of doings were in SF. LOL We also used to steal crabs from the wharf, and shake down drunk sailors but that's a whole nother story. ;>
Originally Posted By gaydsnywitch We used to spend summers at our grandparent's house in Garden Grove. They lived on a quite street just blocks from the 22 and Harbor. They always took us to Disneyland and one other park. We got to choose from the San Diego Zoo, Seaworld, Knott's, or Magic Mountain. We also spent time at our aunt's swimming pool, going to the beach with our older sisters, and catching tadpoles at Twin Lakes park. When we got older, and our parents moved us to a house overlooking a river, we spent most warm days in the river.
Originally Posted By Fe Maiden <<If you don't mind me asking, where did you live in South Jersey? I grew up in Beachwood/Toms River. >> Washington Twp, aka Township, aka South Philly East. And we used to head out by you all the time and go crabbing. We'd have so much fun. I was just telling my wife a few days ago that when the kids get a bit older we should take them out.
Originally Posted By MomofPrincess I spent my childhood in Garden Grove. We had a large family that lived across the street; seven kids ranging in ages from 9-17. They reminded me a lot of the Brady Bunch! I used to love going over to their house, rollerskating, playing in the clubhouse their dad had built, pretending we were all part of the Partridge Family band while listening to the record "Free to be You & Me," LOL, etc. I especially loved when their mom would load us all up to take us to Huntington Beach for the day. It was always so much fun! I also loved it when my older brother would drive me to my swimming lessons at the park. He would play his 8-track Beach Boys tapes in his old Dodge Dart. Still makes me feel like it's summertime again and I'm 8 years old whenever I hear any of those Beach Boys tunes. I also adored just waking up in the mornings and having NOTHING to do all day! It was heavenly. Nothing like being a kid, you know?
Originally Posted By Mrs 2oon My mom was employed while I was growing up so the three of us kids went to a babysitter where there were LOTS of kids. License??? What license????? Anyway....we used to go to the school recreation program and playground in the morning, come back for lunch and then go to the park in the afternoon. Sometimes we went to 7-11 by the park and got slurpees to have at the park. We also used to do some things that were not so safe....playing on the train tracks and swinging a wooden foot bridge side to side are a few. When we stopped going to a babysitter (I was 10 my sister was 8 and my brother was 6) we used to watch TV in the morning, eat lunch and then play with all of the neighbor kids until about 30 minutes until our parents got home. In those 30 minues we would race around and do our chores so we wouldn't get in trouble. The whole neighborhood did this as we were all "latch-key" kids. If there was any trouble our former babysitter lived across the street and she would handle the situation. When I got older and hadn't yet started working I used to walk to the library and get about six books, read then in a few days and then walk back to the library and get more. Now I'm the taxi for my kids in the summer!
Originally Posted By TALL Disney Guy ^^^You cay say that again! When I was a kid Mommy would be at Ft. Knox protecting the gold (not really, but she does work there, lol), Daddy would be out farmin', and he'd drop us off at our grandparents (his folks) just about a mile away behind the backyard, cow pasture, and forest behind our house (their house was on the other side). If we were inside we'd watch stuff like "Sesame Street" or "The Facts of Life" or other fun/kid shows, and outside we loved to play in Gran's garden, make mud pies, and walk down to the creek to spot frogs 'n fishies 'n other li'l water critters. If Dad would come over to the grain bins (by Gran 'n Pop's yard) we'd run over 'n climb over the white fence and see what he was doin'. He'd also come in fer lunch every day over there. I loved to play "Grover and Charlie in the restaurant" with Gran, and cut off long strings of red yarn from her sewin' stash, tape one on my nose, stick one in the back of my shorts, and lethargically crawl around in my best Mr. Snuffleupagus impersonation. When we got to be a little older and sis was old enough, we were allowed to stay at home alone. While she slept in I'd go outside and play in the yard (I loved to play "ThunderCats" imagining me as the characters, lol), swing from an old swing across the road in the neighbors' tree while singing "Mary Poppins" songs out loud or the song of all 50 States or all the Presidents (both which I still remember to this day, lol)...sometimes walkin' down the country lane to swim in the neighbors' pool (and boy does that place have memories! lol) Then there were good TV times inside watchin' all the great kids PBS shows or cartoons or classic sitcoms re-run in afternoon syndication while drinkin' Kool-Aid or eatin' popsicles. *sigh*...childhood, come back! <They reminded me a lot of the Brady Bunch! I used to love going over to their house, rollerskating, playing in the clubhouse their dad had built, pretending we were all part of the Partridge Family band while listening to the record "Free to be You & Me," LOL,> LOL!
Originally Posted By TALL Disney Guy Oh, Mrs.2oon, my "You can say that again!" was for MoP's "nothing like being a kid", not for your current position as kid taxi driver. LOL (although I guess you *could* say that again, lol)
Originally Posted By alexbook >>When I got older and hadn't yet started working I used to walk to the library and get about six books, read then in a few days and then walk back to the library and get more.<< Summer was a great time to explore the library. I remember reading my way through every Mary Poppins and Doctor Dolittle book in the Santa Monica Public Library. When I got old enough to check out "regular" books instead of just kids' books, I was so excited.
Originally Posted By Lisann22 <<<In those 30 minues we would race around and do our chores so we wouldn't get in trouble. The whole neighborhood did this as we were all "latch-key" kids.>>> ROFLMAO - man, did you bring back memories of the housecleaning scramble! Whew! My mom would get so mad at us. She knew what we were up too.
Originally Posted By TALL Disney Guy <---he and sis also guilty of the frantic "clean the house/do what Mom told you to do" stuff in 30 minutes or less
