I also forgot, i was bad to, playd doctor with billy across the street.
No one ever seemed to come look for me, id be gone all day
this was from three tosix. I guess things were different then
But i will tell you one thing...we still had child molesteresback then
we just didnt tell, or wed get our mouths washd out with brown soap.

Oh and wed go to the sumps areas that were fenced in as a reservior for water and go froggin and polin ( getting tadpoles) and paly in houss that were being built. On cranky days, wed sometimes break windows in the houses being built. I guss the six years of catholic school scared those younger years out of me for good. Im a goodie two shoes now.

Ohhh, Lynnie, you were a little devil, hahahahah. I could just see me trying some of that stuff. My backside would have been 'switched' off. I always had to go get the switch to whip me with and was instructed to be sure it was limber! (I'd try to find one that was dried out and would break after about the third lick across my backside/legs!)

when I was 3 my mom tells me I caught the back porch on fire. didnt burn anything down but dad spanked me so hard he swore he would never spank me again and he never did. Mom did all the correcting after that. LOL

We lived on a farm and my dad was a farm hand for the guy who owned the house. We moved when I was five. So I can tell what memories were age 5 or before.

I always had parakeets cause my uncle would bring me one. IF someting happened to it he would get me a new one.
One drowned in the toilet (I had nothing to do with it! We found it that way when we came home from the store. Another one got loose outside and my uncle climbed up this huge tall spruce tree trying to catch it LOL

I had a lab mix dad brought home when I was about one. They named him butterball but i couldn't say it so I called him Pudder. He was my friend my brother my playmate and my protector til I was 12. He had to be put to sleep with distemper.

I remember my dad telling me a bedtime story about the sandman. I used to dream that an elevator door would open up in my wall and the sandman would step out. He would sing to me and scatter sand and I would go back to sleep. I can still see that image in my mind.

OMG the Boxcar Children - my first grade teacher read that to us and we were very quiet and I still remember the warm feeling of that story. NOW, I'm reading the whole series to my Grandchildren and they LOVE it. This whole thing has blossomed into a very interesting adventure. The Am. Girl Doll story of Kit Kitridge is excellent history for children to see. And thru this - 3 quilter friends and I divided up the Hobo quilt blocks because Hobo's (of course) rode the boxcars. My Grama's house was marked with a Hobo sign - wish I knew which one!! Memories!!!

Thanks for sharing Pollytink - loved your story - thanks. You could write a book and warm everyone's hearts. \

This is now one of my favorite threads!

I had ten cousins all in one family that lived across the street from me so I always had plenty of kids to play with in addition to other neighborhood friends.

I use to love to play hop scotch in my back yard, roller skate the kind with the key! I played Jax, rode my bike and I loved playing with paper dolls we called them "cut outs" back then plus Yo Yo's the kind with the string! We had to amuse yourselves. No computers back then!!

I have 4 brothers and we were inseparable growing up. Our front yard was Lake Erie.We fished all year and my brothers took turns putting the worm on my hook. We had one bike to share.We ice skated and jumped iceburgs. We had bonfires almost every night of the year. Mom raised us by herself. We didn't have much materialistic stuff but we were spoiled with a lot of love and quality time with her and each other. Mom's gone now along with my oldest brother but the rest of us are still inseparable and we still go fishing as often as we can and I can put the worm on all by myself now : ) They are so proud of me lol - I will always know we had the best childhoods because of Mom's brand of spoiling

How fun is this!

I grew up in Louisville Kentucky. We didn't have a lot, but a whole lot of love from a large family. In the summer we would catch mason jars full of lightning bugs, make mud pies that my grandpa always sampled and go to play in the flooded street after a typical horrific afternoon summer storm that built up after a steamy humid day. Dad always had a huge garden and mom canned or froze everything. Because summers are so hot and we didn't have air conditioning a lot of the cooking for canning was done outside over an open fire. Me and my two sisters had to help, my favorites were pinching the skins off of the beets after they were blanched and dumped into a big wash tub of cool water from the garden hose and eating the salted cabbage we sliced up to be jarred for sour kraut. I spent a lot of my summer weeks at my Grandmother's farm in Elizabeth Town. My cousins and I had to rise early to get the cows in for milking that started at 6, shuck corn to feed the chickens, gather and clean eggs and help hoe the corn fields - that was well before they soaked corn seeds in round up! Often we would escape the summer heat by swinging on a wild grape vine and jumping into the creek down the hill. We had to take turns because someone always had to sit on the bank and sound a warning when a water moccasin or blue racer came floating down the creek. What a wonderful storybook childhood!