Originally Posted By Big Thunder wow, great topic, it includes two of my favorite subjects, childhood and summertime. I've been enjoying your stories so far. I LOVE summertime, always have, I'm sure it stems from summer vacation and school being out for many weeks, but I love the weather, the casual dress, baseball season, the scent of Coppertone, watermelon, water sports, barbecues and more. My favorite holiday is fourth of July, I could go on and on why I enjoy summer. I enjoy recalling fond memories of my childhood. Most of my childhood memories include a key element... "mischief" I grew up in burbs east of Los Angeles and there was a group of us hooligans that were constantly searching for fun forms of entertaining activity. Problem was, most times it ended in some sort of trouble, injury, or damage. Regardless, I had a LOT of fun growing up. Summer was peak season for fun. Not everything was mischievous, a lot was just normal growing up stuff for a kid in the 60's 70's. As I think about summers past, I realize there seemed to be phases through the different years. I'll describe some of those in various parts as I have a reputation for writing too long a post, so I will spare ya'll and cut it down into smaller posts later
Originally Posted By Lisann22 Big Thunder I bet summertime makes you think of music by War. I know it does for me. ;>
Originally Posted By Big Thunder <"Big Thunder I bet summertime makes you think of music by War. I know it does for me. ;>" > YES Lisann, now that you mention it... Summer of around 72 - 74 "Cisco Kid" "The World is a Ghetto"
Originally Posted By Ursula I don't have any clear memories. I do remember starting clubs and trying to have these clubs sell lemonade so that we could get enough money to go to Foster's Freeze. I just remember all the drama! If you were friends with on neighbor, then the other girl neighbor hated you. Then, when those two girls were friends, then I (or my sister or both) was the one to be hated. I think my clearest memory was of this one girl who was a bit older and more daring than me. She went across the street (which we were not allowed to do but I did thisone time to watch) and actually jumped her bike on the boys' ramp in a dirt field that had an oil well in it. She landed poorly and broke her arm. I remember her trying so hard to not cry, but of course we screamed for one of the grown-ups and she was properly taken care of by that nice guy down the street until the ambulance came. I also remember my mom's dumbest rule. If you had on shorts, you had to wear shoes. If you had long pants, then you could go barefoot. Why? I still don't get that one to this day.
Originally Posted By gaydsnywitch >>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.<< The image that brought up made me laugh so hard I almost fell out of my chair. I think it's time for you to get a new nickname. Maybe Snuffles or something.
Originally Posted By TALL Disney Guy <nasal Snuffy voice> "Oooh, deeeearrr..." </nasal Snuffy voice> ;-)
Originally Posted By tapdancemom My sisters and I did so much of what you have all described. We were outside all day and just came home for lunch and dinner. We had a wooded area not far from our house that was constantly being made into some sort of fort. We would be very elaborate in setting up "rooms" and hiding places. Walking to the pool and the baseball field were almost daily events. We would walk through huge wooded areas, not a safe thing to do these days for sure, but thought nothing of it way back then. We put on lots of plays and pageants and had a homemade barbeque that made a great backyard stage. We would play dodge ball, baseball and football in the streets and stay out till dark playing Red Light, Green Light and Red Rover.
Originally Posted By SuzieQ How many of us had the evening rule: Be home when the streetlights come on? I grew up less than 10 miles from Disneyland. In the early 70's Orange was still filled with orange groves instead of buildings. On warm summer nights, my brother and I would climb up on our roof and watch the fireworks. We would always hear the boom's shortly after the streetlight rule.
Originally Posted By Labuda We didn't have the streetlight rule, but that may be because we didn't have streetlights out in the country. We had the "be home by dark" rule that was argued on occasion as to whether it meant "starting to get dark" "kinda dark" or "full dark".
Originally Posted By Lisann22 Never had the streetlight rule. Streetlights on meant time to play Hide n Seek. Everyone's front doors were always open, we played outside till 10 and 11pm most summer nights. We'd eat dinner with half our head scarfing the food down and half our head looking out the window to see if anyone else was outside again to play. ;>
Originally Posted By Big Thunder <"Everyone's front doors were always open, we played outside till 10 and 11pm most summer nights. We'd eat dinner with half our head scarfing the food down and half our head looking out the window to see if anyone else was outside again to play"> ^^ just described summer nights in my neighborhood. Night time was play time... hide and seek, street light baseball, ding dong ditchem, and more.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan >>Everyone's front doors were always open, we played outside till 10 and 11pm most summer nights. We'd eat dinner with half our head scarfing the food down and half our head looking out the window to see if anyone else was outside again to play.<< LOL! Yep, same for me. We had a small vacant lot next to our house for many years, and that's where we spent most of our time. It had some big old trees on it to climp, and we created a pretty good little motocross course through the rough dirt and weeds. "Goin' to the lot," was something my brother and I would holler out to my parents if they weren't at work that day. We got an above-ground pool in our backyard, but weren't allowed to swim in it until my parents got home from work. We lived across the street from a cul-de-sac, and spent most of our time at one kid's house. Their garage door was almost always open, and they had a couch and a radio there where we'd listen to Top 40. "Rollercoaster", "Play That Funky Music White Boy", all those sorts of 70's tunes were always playing somewhere. Almost every day at some point, we'd get into a water fight. Sometimes water balloons but usually garden hoses and buckets or pots of water. We also lived near a flood control channel with a paved bike trail on its levee that lead to Coyote Hills by the SF Bay. Once you got theren there were paved roadways just for bikes all around the hills, and they were painted with a white line down the middle just like a road for cars. The biggest memory was chasing down the ice cream man. As kids, you can hear that scratcy "Turkey in the Straw" music a mile away, and the first to hear it would shout out "ICE CREAM MAN!" with the same enthusiasm as I imagine gold prospectors did when they'd discover a big chunk of gold. Then, everyone ran in all directions home, trying to gather together change or beg from parents to pleeeeeeeassse let you have some ice cream money. 50/50 bars are what summers taste like.
Originally Posted By Lisann22 Fudgesicles and Rockets!! Did every neighborhood have a "lot" where we rode our bikes. Ours was called Honda Hills, it was just mounds and mounds of hills with a track worn in it from so many kids riding over and over again. Best was when it had rained and it was all muddy!
Originally Posted By Big Thunder <"The biggest memory was chasing down the ice cream man. As kids, you can hear that scratcy "Turkey in the Straw" music a mile away, and the first to hear it would shout out "ICE CREAM MAN!" with the same enthusiasm as I imagine gold prospectors did when they'd discover a big chunk of gold. "> LOL, ice cream man music coming has that effect doesn't it? <"Did every neighborhood have a "lot" where we rode our bikes"> Yup, we did in my neighborhood, I don't remember if we named it or not, but it was *our* motocross lot and we ruled it like surfers rule their local beaches. Kids would hear about or track and come looking to ride it, they'd usually meet resistance from us, then they'd have to prove themselves until we could see what they were made of, if they rode good, we'd keep em around, if they didn't we'd chase em outta there. I remember the funnest part of that lot was digging the berms and dips, we had shovels and stuff, but my friends black lab [Killer] would dig on demand if Ronny said "Killer get the rock" he'd dig for miles till he found a good rock to bite. Half that lot was dug up by Killer. LOL
Originally Posted By Lisann22 LOL - we did the same thing. You had to pass the mustard to ride in our lot. We were always fighting another group of kids from another neighborhood for Honda Hills. We painted "KEEP OUT -ONLY FOR PALMA CEIA KIDS" on old plywood and stuff. Fun stuff.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan One summer, we made a tiger trap by digging a hole a few feet deep, then covering it with sticks and pulled weeds and stuff. After a couple days, nothing had been caught in our trap, and we were tired of waiting. So I got the bright idea to get my dear old dad and while all the kids watched, I told him there was something fantastic he just HAD to come and see. He was always the nice dad, always the one who would get in the water fights, too. So, I lead him by the had and tell him to close his eyes as we got near the trap. He did and when he stepped on it, it was only large enugh for one leg. His left leg dropped down while his other one was at ground level, causing him to do a particularly painful version of the splits. Of course, everyone else ran away and left me there with my dad screaming at me. Buncha cowards.
Originally Posted By beamerdog >>Washington Twp, aka Township, aka South Philly East<< LOL! never heard that one ;-) My dad was from S Philly. Summers I went to camp like all the other kids in the neighborhood. First, when I was little, a day camp. I loved it. Then, later when I was 9,I went to a camp for diabetic kids. What a great place. We swam in a river (the Murky Perky - Perkiomen River - we called it) and in an olympic sized pool, went on three day camping trips, canoed, sang, played baseball everyday, had arts and crafts and learned to take care of ourselves and enjoy life away from our parents. After I got too old to be a camper, I was a counselor for a number of years. I wish I could go back, but I understand that they built a bunch of McMansions on the site :-( My neighborhood must have looked like a ghost town with all the kids gone.
Originally Posted By Ursula We didn't have a proper ice cream man. All we had was this old Chinese man who had a converted van/ice cream truck. The music was mono-tonal, if that is a word. It just went: DINK, dinkdink DINK. Strange. I want to grow up with you people.
Originally Posted By SuzieQ I went to summer camp, too, but not with the neighborhood kids. In fact, the year they all discovered 'my' camp, was terrible. I never went back. Camp was my time to be whoever I wanted to be. Not who other people thought I was or expected me to be. I got to have a horse of my own, go rock climbing, and do all those things my mother would have fainted over watching.
