When I was a child, the ice man came in a truck to deliver ice for our 'ice box' (refridgerator). He had a grappling hook and would pull out this huge block of ice and little pieces of ice would fall off which we grabbed. My brother and I rode our bikes all over our part of town and played football with the neigborhood boys until dark. NO TV, no cell phones, no WIFI, no games except the board games. Played cards and monopoly all summer long with friends. I was born in 1945, now 67+. It was a safe world then.

I grew up out in the country and had all my cousins to play with. We played "Simon Says", made paper dolls out of pages from the Montgomery Ward Catalog, layed on our backs in the yard in the summer and picked out shapes of all kinds of things from the clouds, scared each other with ghost stories at night. We listened to the coyotes howl across the fields at night and prayed we wouldn't have to go to the bathroom as it was a outhouse and it was so dark at night. We took our mom's old string mops and braided the strings and pretened they were movie stars. Oh what wonderful days those were. I think kids today really missed the best of times.

So many fun times and memories! My dad worked for the railroad his entire life, and when we were kids he used to take us for rides on the train. I can remember sticking my face out the open windows, with the wind in my face! Loved those train rides!!

Friend just read some of these and raised an interesting thought: She said she could tell where the posts were from (or should say where the poster grew up) by the words they used. I said of course, crayfish, corn, etc. in certain areas. She said yes but also pointed out the use of the tern "cement floor" (or walk, drive etc.) and laughed. She said that was impossible. Cement is an ingredient in concrete and its like saying "I will bake you a nice loaf of flour." She thinks that is a Midwest saying but I have heard that term used incorrectly in several states. Do you hear it in your area?

Wonderful memories everyone!! Thank you for posting your memories! This is always a fun thread to post!
I hope to see more posts so keep adding stories as you remember them!!

I grew up on a farm in Southwestern Pa. We all had to work doing chores like helping milk the cows...Throwing feed down from the hay mile....We had to feed chickens and gather eggs, and slop the hogs....We had to help in the hay fields and help hoe the garden.....We worked hard but played after working in the hay on the upper barn floor...We use to go swimming in the creek below our house after we finished the haying and field work in the summer.....We didn't have a lot of toys but we were very creative with the things that were lying around....There were 6 of us so we always had a playmate....

I grew up in north St. Louis in an Irish German Catholic neighborhood. Those distinctions were very important back in the 50s-60s. It was our culture. Our lives revolved around our church and school. I grew up in a different environment than most. My parents split when I was three. My mom, two sisters and I lived in two rooms in the basement of my grandparents' house. It was a shotgun style house, meaning long and narrow, just three rooms. My aunt and her two kids lived on the first floor. Her husband had passed away. My grandparents lived on the top floor. The house was 100 years old in 1969 when we sold it. It had been built by someone in our family and someone in our family always lived in it. We didn't have heat in the basement in the winter so my mom, two sisters and I slept on the first floor with my aunt and her two kids. So there were seven people living in three rooms. My mom, my two sisters and I slept on a sofa sleeper. The seven of us ate dinner together every night. On Sundays we all went upstairs to my grandparents' for Sunday dinner. During the winter on Saturday nights my grandparents would come down to my aunt's. The adults would watch Gunsmoke and Death Valley Days. The three youngest kids, my sister, my cousin and I would play in the kitchen. In the summer we kids would play outside until 9:00. An ice cream truck, Mr. Softee, came around. There were a lot of kids in the neighborhood and we all played outside. My family would sit on the front porch. We were the only ones with a porch. We walked at least a mile to school. Our neighborhood was poor. I didn't realize we were considered poor until I got to high school.

I grew up in Manhattan, N.Y. right near Central Park. My brother and I used to roam the park and make believe it was ours. In March when we would roller skate the wind from the park would blow us down the block. Also in those days the Mothers would show up at school with our boots and raincoats if we had left home unprepared. Good times.