Back in the day, kids ran loose in the neighborhood, playing cowboys & Indians, Army against the "Krauts" and the "Japs", cops & robbers, all with realistic toy weapons and replete with verbal sound effects. There were lots of overly dramatic dying scenes, worthy of a Junior Academy Award.
There was street football, street baseball - remember everybody from both teams running to intercept the baseball before it rolled into the storm drain? And if we were all too slow we struggled to lift the grate cover and then lowered the smallest player by his ankles into the drain to rescue the ball...Of course, anyone hitting the ball over Mr. Jenkins' roof into his backyard was automatically out and also had to take the risk of sneaking over the fence to steal the ball back, under penalty of torture and death if caught by Mr. Jenkins.
In the evening and into the night kids played doorbell ditch and hide and seek.
Our parents didn't worry about us, and every parent in the neighborhood had the approval to whip any kid caught misbehaving before being sent home for another beating, which followed a phone call from the first parent to the offender's parents.
We used to find out who was having the best Saturday night dinner/BBQ and finagle an invite to eat at Alvin's house or at Steve's house. Tacos were always a favorite, followed by hamburgers. Always home cooked, never take-out or at a restasurant.
There were bike hikes to exotic (to us) locations, hikes in the hills, cardboard sledding down grass covered hills, catching tadpoles (or pollywogs) to watch them turn into frogs, pet bluebellied lizards and salamanders and even an occassional snake or two. Big game hunting with our BB guns, cane pole fishing for bream using dug up worms from mom's petunia bed, and the always fun and dangerous challenge of teasing the big bull in some pasture without getting trampled...Anybody else ever try riding a sheep? Rams were always a better potential ride because you could hold on to their horns. At least that was the game plan but it seldom worked.
I could go on and on. Makes me sad to watch kids of today who never made their own hockey sticks, strapped on steel wheeled roller skates and commenced to trying to kill each other while claiming to play hockey. Instead they're too busy playing video gasmes and drinking Starbucks lattes. Sad.
Oh, I almost forgot using your pocket knife to make a homemade spear for frog gigging. Dad's BBQ fork worked much better...until he found out what you were doing with it!
