llweezie

Those were the good o'l days.... where did they go? I remember in the summer at the park, which was only 4 blocks away from where I lived they had craft days, we would make crafts, and everyone would bring a can of some sort of vegetable and we would make mulligan stew over the open fire.... in a big black pot. It was the best ever! I went swimming everyday at the local pool which was also only 2 blocks away from where I lived, and in the winter (at the park they would flood the tennis court) and I would ice skate all winter, there was a warming house there so you could spend the whole afternoon there.... then playing outside till the street lights came on, we played ball in the road ( it was a dead end street) all the neighbor hood kids played and we had so much fun.... I miss those days for my grandchildren...

donnajean

Did you notice how much time we spent outside compared to kids now a days?

pollyjvan9

I am in my 70's and am amazed at the fact that we all share so many memories. This is one I haven't read about yet. I have one brother 15 mos younger, 1 uncle 6 mos younger, 1 uncle 2 yrs older, 1 uncle 4 yrs older and so forth. My mom was the second oldest of 12 children. My brother and I spent summers on my grandparents farm and most weekends. I was usually the only girl in the group and we all loved playing cowboys and indians in the woods, which was about a three block walk across a field. A creek ran through these wood with a swinging bridge over it at one point. The creek banks were steep and there were many "grape" vines hanging from the trees. We played Tarzan a lot (as the only girl I always had to be Jane!) and would swing from those vines across the creek or from tree to tree. I really don't know why there was never a broken bone, but there wasn't. Many memories of those long hot summers, homemade ice cream, finding wildflowers with my grandmother, horseback riding, gathering eggs with my grandma, riding on the plow with my grandpa. I wish my grandkids had such wonderful memories.

pollyjvan9

Donnajean, yes, I noticed. We always had really wild card games when the weather was too bad to go outside, but it had to over 100 deg or below 0 deg before we would stay indoors all day!

mandyrose

I love your story

mythreesuns

I was a lucky little girl..I am the youngest child in my family of 5 kids...and the only girl. So I got lots of attention from my entire family. But besides that, we kinda lived in two different worlds. We were being raised in Milwaukee, but during the summers we spent all our weekends and several weeks in a very small country town of 800 people up north. So we grew up with all the newer fancy things in life (swimming pools, rec centers, neighborhood clubs, zoo's, bus rides, fast foods and etc..) then when we came up north, we got the walking in a field, swimming in an open lake, river, camping, sleeping under the stars, wild blue berry picking, raspberries etc.. gardens, bear watching, little country stores, wildflower picking, snakes, woodticks, fire flies, cookouts, huge family gatherings, and church ones, etc... when we lived in Milw we did some of the items Lynnie did... oh the trouble we caused. Dropped water balloons on people from above the A n P grocery store roof, picked tulips from a guys garden to give to our mom on our way home from neighborhood club, climb up a garage and slide accross the huge black pipes connecting one building to another... two stories up, I was 4 years old and went ice skating with my older brothers accross the street, and I couldn't skate, so I got upset and wanted to go home, so I just left and never told my brothers.. they couldn't see me, because I was crawling on all fours accross a 4 lane road in Milw... my mother happen to look out and saw me... oops... lol Then a girlfriend and I decided to take a ride with a stranger and he took us from one side of Milw and dropped us off way on the other side... oh my mom made sure I knew I did wrong... oh did she... lol Then we made the official complete move up north..and at first I didn't like the move, because it seemed like we had less to do here. Until I started school 3 weeks later and became friends with a gal...and we came up with our own fun.. we would ride bike 10 miles into town to go to the Sunday movies, Dairy Queen or Parades... then we would ride bikes to go swimming, fishing for trout, row a boat in the ditch by her house in the spring... yup we were geeks lol... ride our bikes under the irragation system in the summer to cool off. Go behind the harvester to pick up taters, pick dandelions for wine making, (her mom) learned how to officially polka, polish foods, use to play in their clothes shoot, run down stairs and pile all the dirty clothes in one spot and then climb into the shoot and drop down.. lol

mandyrose

missmay your story reminds me of one of my favorite movies a tree grows in brooklyn oh i cannot think of all the actors in it but love the movie

helenquilt

My best memory is comimg home from school and seeing Mother quilting on her quilt hanging from the ceiling. Getting to see how much she had accomplised that day. We would pile our coats and books on the quilt and she would roll it up for the night. It hung over her bed. Then looking at it from the bottom. That to my Mother was the pretty part.

mythreesuns

Now another memory.... my grandfather worked for the county highway department. He lived 21 miles from where the shop was, so they stored all the plow trucks etc at his farm and they even put in a underground fuel tank for his work vehicles. We knew right from the start, we could NEVER enter the shop where some was stored, nor ever touch his work items... so they never had issues with that. I remember coming to stay for a week or so at a time, and us kids would wait for grandpa to get home from work, and we would race down to see who would make it first to turn the handle to fill his fuel tank...or get his lunch box to get at his left over food to eat.. he always had left overs..now we know why he did...back then we didn't.. lol and sometimes we could go to work with him..that was a treat in its self..oh those were my special memories. One time we went to drop off his co-worker who had a farm, and he had baby kitties and I wanted one. So my grandpa made me call my mom at his house to ask if I could have one, and she said yes... I brought all four home, cuz I couldn't decide what one I liked best.. lololol I remember sitting on his lap steering the grader in the dump parking lot.. Now days no way can you take anyone with ya to work for the highway department. My dad was a contractor...owned his own business so we grew up with that also on a daily basis.

My fondest memory of all time... was my grandfather, mother and I building our log house together. From cutting down the balsam trees, to peeling the bark to drying them...to building the entire 42 x 36 foot two story house. My dad did the cement work..basement and all three fire places.. but then he had to keep working to keep money coming in for the new house we were building, my older brothers all had jobs..so it was down to us three..grandma cooked all the meals for us. I sure learned tons those three summers it took us... the worse part was peeling the bark off...sooooo sticky and yukky.... and her house is 100% old style log house...even using wood dowls, no spikes (nails) including my grandpa even made all the windows him self, we started in 1973 and moved in 1976. So I was 11 when we started, and I was using chainsaws, hatchets and etc... would I have allowed my kids...NOOOOOOOOO lolol.

fireworkslover

I grew up in a neighborhood that was a circle, so mainly played with the kids on my end. We played outside more than in, climbing trees, made tent houses, rode our bikes all over, had Kool-Aid stands in the summer. Sliding on the hills behind our house on the golf course, everyday in the winter. We even went sliding on the steep long grass covered hills in the summer on cardboard boxes. Was great fun. You hardly ever called friends to play, you went over to their house, rang the doorbell and asked in person.