Childhood Memories
 

I love to hear the kind of things people did when they were kids. So let's share some fun stories.


I remember playing games when I was in grade school that you just don't see anymore. Blindman's bluff / Drop the Hankie / Freeze tag/ Mother May I? /Green Light Red Light/ Red Rover/ I learned to do cat's cradle in 3rd grade. I still do that one with the kids sometimes. I remember playing chess in the gym on rainy days. We had to make our own fun.

I had a window in my bedroom that had a screen you opened by sliding sideways. We used to have one person at the window as the clerk and the rest of us would ride bikes up to the window and "buy" mint water. I dissolved mints in water and that was our product to sell. LOL

I also spent alot of time climbing in the old oak tree in our back yard. I rigged a pully so I could bring up things in a bucket into the tree. One branch was the living room one branch was a bedroom one was the kitchen and so on. I spent a lot of time playing in the tree. And had lots of spider bites because of it. But it never made much difference to me. They weren't much more than a mosquito bite.

Hope you share some of your childhood memories!!

This time of year, I think of simple summer time fun......catching fireflies, "shorty" pajamas, jump rope, lemonade stands, jacks, marbles, roller skating, popsicles, running through sprinklers, watching heat lightening, pitching a tent in the backyard.

We used to play jail break. From the alley that cut our block in half to end of the block were our limits. All of my cousins would come over and we'd run and hide, get caught and go to "jail" then wait for our team to break us out. I think we only got to do this because that entire half of the block was really kid friendly and didn't mind us in thier yards!

Fishing is one of my most loved childhood memories, It was always the best day when my dad would take me (he's a truck driver so only home about 8 days a month). We'd get loaded up head to the river, he'd bait my hook *cuz at 8 I thought worms were gross lol* and we'd sit and wait..... well he'd sit, I'd go explore the river bank, woods, need something from the car, anything to keep from sitting still! When something bit it was like we were fishing for sharks out in the middle of the ocean, it was such a big to-do :) When we managed to pull it in we'd ooh and ahh and take a picture with whoever caught it holding it ( didn't matter if it was a guppy or a monster they all got the same amount of enthusiasm) and then throw it back. Now those were the days :) I only hope we give our son equally great memories.

we had a bare spot in our front yard--it became home plate for kickball and softball. there was a small hole in the middle of it which was great for playing marbles. our path from front porch to driveway was the net for badminton and volleyball.
Best memories were when Dad would wake up (he worked nights) to use the outhouse and join in on our ball games. I remember the time he hit the softball and it bounced off dining room window---luckily it didnt break but Mom yelled at us kids. we told her Dad did it but she hadnt seen Dad go pst her on way out so thought he was still upstairs asleep. Dad snuck back to bed and Mom never realized we were telling the truth.
we fixed a lot of picture puzzles as a family. everyone would pitch in and take a certain area to fix and grumble when someone would determine their section fit in. Dad would help when he come down to eat a snack before going to work.
Of course he never told us that he would put one piece in his pocket before he left. we all would vie for the dubious honor of putting in last piece and when we found one missing,we would hunt all over the floor for it and when we couldnt find it, we would know Dad had struck again. How he always managed to pick a piece almost dead center every time is what I want to know!

We had a long front walk leading up to steps to our front door and used to play Giant Step and Red Light. Also used to play Chinese jumprope - we used the picket fence as a stand in when there were only 2 of us.

We had a couple of big rocks in the back yard we used to play on - one was mostly horizontal so we could pour water on it and make rivers, lakes, etc. Used to make mudpies too.

Of course chasing the mosquito fog truck in the summer - who know what was in that stuff, oh well, I'm still alive!!

In the rear of the schoolyard at the elementary school was a wooded hill that went up about 50 feet at a very steep angle - the fence was at the top. We girls used to play in there every recess. I imagine nowadays the fence is at the bottom, so Special Snowflake won't hurt herself.

Went berry picking with my grandma and got a bad bad baaaaadddd case of chiggers. I was so miserable for 3 days as I was totally covered! She had me sit in a soda bath that helped some but not alot then my aunt had me paint them with fingernail polish. That helped some too.

I remember long hikes in the hills of Kentucky, picking huckleberries (wild blueberries), swinging on grapevines from boulder to boulder, dropping down into piles of leaves. Finding a creek and stripping down to our undies and cooling off (my 2 sisters and I). My cousin (a male) always kept an eye out for us to make sure we were always safe. Yes we were definitely hillbillies. But we sure did have fun!

I grew up in a city but we played many of the same games. Hot summer days we would sit on a stoop on the shady side of the street and play cards. One thing I remember is that certain seasons were for certain games or activities. Summer time we played stickball or dodge ball in the middle of the street (that was back during WII and there weren't many cars on the street due to rationing of gas) and as soon as school started we would get out our roller skates and the street was for staking instead of ball games.
Sometimes my mother would pack our lunch and I'd take my younger brothers and sisters on the bus to the big public pool, we left home at 11am, pool opened at noon and we left the pool cooled to the bone about 4:30 and arrived home tired and hungry for dinner.

Of course, it wasn't all play time, we had chores to do for our mothers, making beds, washing dishes, going to the grocery store, etc. and all done without any thought of us receiving any money for doing them.

There were quite a few relatives that lived next door to each other (we were in the middle) - so a total of 5 back-yards were "shared" into one giant green-space for us kids - as well as a central "hang-out" for the adults around our back-yard BBQ (in the summer, most of our weekend meals were shared by extended family).

My Uncle Dom (next door) was a genius at keeping the kids occupied. He told us that if you sprinkle salt on a birds tail, it couldn't fly - and you could catch it. He then handed each of us a salt shaker.

Dad was military so we only got to grandma's once a year.. but when we got there so did all the cousins. Folks never had extra money for treats like Ice cream or coke. We kids, about 8 of us would scour the neighborhood for pop-bottles to turn in for deposit money. It took a few bottles at 3 cents per bottle to buy Icream. then the parents would scoop out the treats for everyone. My grandkids would not know what a deposit on a bottle is.

We played ball in the pasture using dried cow patties as base. When we were done we would then go to the creek and wash up before going to the house. We would catch fire flys at dusk and put them in jars or we would play hide and seek after dark. We rode our bikes barefoot and without helmets. We drank from the water hose so we didn't have to go inside. We played in our sand box with trucks and cars. During canning season we helped Mom snap beans and shuck corn. We also mowed our own yards with push mowers. But best of all we all sat down to dinner together as a family. Those were the days. I miss them. Things aren't the same anymore.

We grew up with cousins who lived a mile down the road. No one knew who was brother and sister or who was cousins because we were all so close in age and looked alike..dominate family genes...We loved growing up like that. We would play ball or ride our bikes or ponies. We played in the woods at grandma's house and build forts in the trees. we were always outside. We still talk about things we did as kids when the family gets together.

we made stilts and walked all over the place in them played kick the can and smashed milk cans with our shoes to walk on played red rover made a lot of mud pies and went to the creek to swim

I loved reading these great memories! One of my favorite things in summer was playing outside at dusk until we got called in at dark...catching fireflies, playing hide-n-seek, etc. Did anyone else have a Popsicle Man who came through your neighborhood? We had an ice cream man in a truck and a Popsicle Man in a van that played chimes as they hit our baby boomer neighborhood full of kids. Money was tight, but sometimes Mom would allow a popsicle treat because it was less than ice cream and two of us could split a popsicle (banana and root beer were my favorite flavors). I loved visiting my grandmother, we'd sit on her front porch glider or back patio swing and she taught me her favorite poems. Loved Memorial Day and Labor Day, when we got together with the side of the family with 20+ cousins at our house. A big cookout, playing ball and all the cousins lining up, smallest to largest, to crank the homemade ice cream freezer. Then the adults "packed it off" in brined ice to harden. Could hardly wait to eat it. And long summer days reading anything I could get my hands on. I would zoom through my library books and re-read my favorite worn paperbacks bought at the Scholastic book sales. I read most of the volumes of our Encyclopedia some summers!

Playing dressup! Thegirls,wore " gowns" the boys were pirates! Cops and robbers' jumprope! 24 robbers came knocking at mydoor, as i ran out they ran in........how about the hand clapping games girls? Miss susie had a baby, she named him tiny tim... or my darling play mate, come out and play with me..... dont forget playing doctor/ patient or teacher/ students or house!!! Grew up 1\2 in usa 1$\2 japan. Games were same just said little. Differently!!! Dont forget rock,paper scissors!! Still say in japanese not english!! Lol

Once our household chores were done we played outside all day (4 of us kids + any neighborhood kids around). We lived at edge of town and would walk a 50 gal barrel on its side around the yard to see who could stay on the longest. It was kinda like a log roll only with one person at a time. We played hide 'n seek, Red Rover, picked berries, and caught horny toads. When it got really hot we would sit inside and play cards with our dad or dominoes. Had to learn to count to do either of those. It kept our minds agile. TV was only allowed for a couple of shows of 30 minutes each then off it went. I don't think we ever told our parents we were "bored."

mltquilt

All of the above. I thought using a single nail to hold a syrup bucket lid to the side of a stick was the neatest thing. Of course the ideal was to get the nail in the center so it would roll. I spent hours rolling it around to make designs. Was this the beginning of my quilting. We lived on a farm and had all the chores to do. I was the oldest and only girl with 4 brothers. I always helped mother with the laundry done in the #3 wash tub with the rubboard. Then hang them on the line just so. Everything had to be lined up with largest first. Always put the sheets next to the house and your unmentionables behind them so if someon drove by they couldn't see them. I truly miss those days when our parents had all the responsibilty.

Sounds like many of you had similar memories to mine. :)
Walking a mile to the little one room school - where we had a water bucket and wood stove, brought our lunches and used outhouses, played in and on top of the storm cellar, learned our ABC's well enough to go on to high school a hour bus ride away with 1,000 students and were we lost; oh yes!
Attending a country church and saying our speeches at the Christmas pageant every year - scared we would make a mistake, wearing brand new clothes made by Grandma at her treadle machine, smelling the evergreen trees all aglow with lights, and at the end each child receiving a paper sack with candy, nuts and orange inside.
Winter time - sledding down the many steep hills and sometimes landing in the creek at the bottom, wearing ice creepers on your boots to walk upright, doing your chores in the barn with blue fingers, wonderful smells from the kitchen as soup simmered and coffee cakes baked.
Summer was hot, sticky, smelly when the county oiled the dirt road, and fun - all the games you have mentioned plus finding kittens in the hay loft, Vacation Bible School, vacations with endlessly long car rides, county fairs and if your 4-H project was good enough on to state competition, tap dance recitals, piano recitals, family reunions, picking and canning jars and jars of vegetables, fruits and jelly, a fan on top the refrigerator blowing hot air as you stirred another batch of hot grape juice while getting the jars ready, eating supper in the basement where it was a bit cooler, turning your pillow over at night to get the other cooler side, hauling water by buckets to the garden, digging potatoes and Dad quoting "If any would not work, neither shall they eat." and since you loved mashed potatoes you worked harder!
Spring and Fall - get the garden ready or put it to sleep, put on the screens then replace then with storm windows, clean and clean and clean some more, stack firewood and put the ashes on the roses, wash windows and organize closets, force your feet into new school shoes and feel freedom to kick them off, sew and patch and mend, weddings to attend, births to celebrate, birthday fun, funerals at the end of a long life.
Thanks for letting me take a brief walk down memory lane. Interesting how "good" some of the experiences now seem when we complained about them back then. :)

Leena I can really relate to your story. I did go to a one room school house for the first two years of school. I remember we had a light pole in the yard and we kids would put our ears to it to hear the hum. We thought we were hearing people in hell talking lol.

I would find kittens in the loft above my grandpa's tool shed and spend hours trying to coax them down the stairs to play with me. We climbed up on the hay bales and there would be cats sleeping in them. We spent many hours playing with barn cats.

My grandpa's chicken house was long and wide and it had a floor of mixed straw and sand. My cousin Jim and I made roads in this and played like it was a sandbox with all his metal tractors and dump trucks etc. We weren't allowed to go in there when Grandpa had a bull in the one half of that building. He would put one in there when he was getting ready to take it to market. They were usually mean and we were told to stay well clear of him.

I grew up playing with the pigs and the calves and dogs and cats of course. My grandpa had a really big dog probably had great dane in him and I use to ride him back to the back pasture with my grandpa to go bring up the cows for milking. His name was Jack. How's that for exercising my brain? LOL That was 50 yrs ago! Surprised I still remember his name.

My grandma had a full kitchen in the basement where she did her canning. They also had the tv in the basement. So grandma and I would make popcorn balls and sit with grandpa and watch tv and eat popcorn balls. Such wonderful memories!

Here I sit with misty eyes enjoying the escape into all these familiar childhood memories. Isn't it interesting -- and very reassuring -- how far we apart we live but how much we are all alike. I guess many of us are coming (or have come) to the time in life when past memories are easier to grasp than recent memory, and often much more pleasant!
I add bee stings in the clover and stubbed toes from going barefoot.
Somebody in the neighborhood with a cast on some broken bone by mid-summer.
Picking cherry tomatoes from the patch planted just for us kids....we all carried a miniature Morton salt box in our pockets, rolled the tomatoes in our mouths to wet them, them tipped our heads back to add salt to the mouthful. YUM! We also chased each other and squirted tomato juice as we bit down, LOL!
Hearing soft grown-up voices through the open window as we fell asleep and they visited outside in the dark at the end of day.
Peeling mimosa pod "peas" as food for our dollies when we played "Indians".
Using clothes pins to attach playing cards to our bike spokes so we had that great noise as we rode like the wind.
Hiking deep into the woods to get to the creek where we could swing out over it on a huge grapevine.
Playing in the soapy tub of washing machine suds one mom provided from her wringer washer.
Evening picnics behind the country school where we'd watch the swallows fly down the chimney at dusk.
Homemade peach ice cream that was the reward for minding the hand crank for 'hours'.

These are so precious!

Jan in VA

Wow! Don't we miss those days. We, too, grew up with cousins nearby. One cousin was older than me and he could think of very creative things to do. One day he talked me into curling up inside a tire--and he promptly rolled me down the hill toward the road. Another time, we found an old chicken nest. He told me to go put a can in the fork of a tree so we could throw the eggs at it. When I went to put the can up, I became the target. He still laughs about all of the mean things he did to me! I love my cousins!!!!

There was a large "wash" erosion in our pasture where Dad would let people dump clean trash (no garbage, no paint cans). People would dump all kinds of stuff. We found damaged bicycles, pedal cars, etc. and would drag them home for daddy to fix. The best was when someone dumped pieces of a house that had been torn down. We took the tractor and hay wagon to the dump. I believe we were 5, 8 and 10. We worked for a week getting all the pieces that we wanted loaded onto the wagon. We then took it to our house and built a playhouse in the back yard. We used old paint that had been frozen so it was quite lumpy, hard to spread and all different colors. When we were all done we ran a cord and attached a bulb to it so that our house had electricity. It was 9' x 10'. Our little house lasted way past our childhood. Even a lot of the grandkids got to play in it. When daddy finally tore it down, he showed mom why it never blew over. We'd put huge nails about every 4" when we put it together. :D

One of the things that I remember is being able to go outside to play and our parents not having to worry about where we were (in the neighborhood ) When the street lights came on it was time to go inside. We also had a collective bunch of neighbors who kept an eye on us and set us on the correct path when needed. I grew up in North Dakota where it was not unusual to be snowed in for three days after a blizzard. My mother had a special drawer where we stored puzzles, board games etc to keep us busy during that time. She also had an emergency winter cupboard where she stocked canned goods, crackers and other things for those times. Does anyone remember Hop Scotch and jacks? Marbles for the boys.?

I lived in Durham, NC where there were long leaf pine trees. We used to take the pine needles and made our play house out of them. We just lined the yard with them and made rooms also. I have not heard of any one else doing this. To do this you just piled the needles up a few inches high and in a row. The pine needles stayed there .
We also played out side as much as possible. No inside playing for us.

These are bringing back great memories. I think we should play many of these as adults!

I used to do this with leaves in the fall. I laid out rows of them and made square rooms with the piles of leaves as the walls.

We lived near a shipping company, so we would bring the huge boxes home and make "apartments" out of them. It was a home away from home. :o

I remember how exciting getting to wear shorts for the first time of the year was. I remember playing outside (riding bikes, climbing trees, playing house) & dreading hearing my folks call me in for the day. I remember jumping out of bed in the summer, super excited to get outside. Here's something that I can't believe we did (& it didn't kill us)... we'd ride our bikes behind the trucks that went thru our neighborhood, fumigating for skeeters. I remember the picnic at school the last day of school.

Remember fishing with a cane pole that my granddad cut down at the river bank. He had a little john boat with a tiny motor. We girls did not get to go fishing very often.

My grandparents had a crick not a creek as my grandfather lectured a crick is smaller than a creek not to be confused one for the other. And my grandma spent most of her time in the summer down at the crick fishing. We were there as a family alot. My dad taught me to float there. My grandparents kept bunches of old fishing rods and cane poles beside the basement door and all the paraphanelia that goes with fishing. It was a major part of my growing up years.

I also was my dad's shadow when he and my grandpa went fishing from the time I was 2. I went with them in the jon boat to throw out nets along the edge of the river and then they also sunk lines along the edge to catch catfish. I was scared of the jon boat as the water came right to the edge of the boat side and I was always afraid we would sink. But I followed my dad everywhere no matter what.

We also took my grandparents for a 2 week vacation in Minnesota or Wisconsin every summer. We are in Iowa so it was a long trip to the cabin dad would reserve. My mom was scared of water so dad would sometimes rent a pontoon boat that had big floats under the boat for her to join in a litte while. I remember fishing off the pier with my grandma for perch.

All the things that made the good ole days. It was really living.

I remember all of those games we used to play too. We also used to just lay out in the grass and watch the clouds change and find all kinds of things in them.. I have my grandkids do that too.
Going out on the nights when there was a full moon and lots of snow on the ground and laying in the snow making snow angels by swinging your legs and arms in the snow
We lived on a small lake and when it froze over in the winter we played fox and geese on the ice.. We also stomped on beer cans (soda did not come in cans back then, only beer) and used them as ice skates. We were poor, but we sure had fun.. Back then there were only about 3 channels on tv and it was on just so many hours a day, you had to use your imagination. Some of these kids now days don't know how.. I know we have to keep up with modern times, but we need to share some of the things we did as children with our grandkids and great grandkids... Ahhh the memories,,, thanks for making me remember...

Dakota Girl, I DO remember hop scotch and jacks. When I taught, we'd use the last 1/2 hour on Friday PMs for clean up and finishing work. If anyone had everything done, they could have "free" time...so I always kept a set of jacks in the room and even the boys would try to master it. Also Pick up Sticks...dominoes...jigsaw puzzles...fun!!

Every summer my knees had scabs, my legs had berrybush scratches and my little brothers and I dug and built little villages with sticks and stones and dirt. Our backyard had steep spots and Daddy built us an on-the-ground slide with board sides and masonite 'floor.' My mother always insisted we play in old clothes--imagine our bottoms with the ground in dust and masonite particles!

Before TV we'd sit on the front porch and identify car makes as they drove by or sit in the back on hot evenings and chase lightning bugs. Dad was a carman for the B&O RR and would take me with him on payday across the rail yard to get his wages. He'd lift me up on a coupler, duck under a car and lift me down on the other side. I was only mildly alarmed by the thought that the train would move. The paymaster window was near the Roundhouse and the sight of the great engines, first steam and then diesel was awesome. I can still smell the coal, steam, oil and hot steel. Daddy would give me a nickel and I could make a selection from a vending machine kept there for the workmen. (Mom would let me pick a candy bar at the tiny local grocery but the machine was special to payday.)

We never had pop at home. When we went to town(the town of 400 where I live today) to Glanzman's which had everything groc boots home appliances clothes etc I was allowed to get a bottle of orange Nehi or Root Beer. In the next town over Mt. Pleasant (2000 people) we shopped for clothes at Spurgeons. I was fascinated with the glass display case with all the rows of glass jars full of penny candies.

In Burlington ( twice the size of Mt. Pleasant) we went to Sears where they had an elevator ran by an elevator operator. I loved riding the elevator. I remember the small car with a metal grate door that he had to pull closed before the car could move up or down. You had to tell him which floor you wanted by the merchandise on that floor. As in shoes or women's clothing or kitchen wares etc. This elevator was still running when I was in high school but they modernized shortly after that and now of course the store isn't even there anymore. It's been gone for along time now. So sad to lose those special experiences.

Wow, you all really bring back memories that I had forgotten. I grew up in the Maryland suburbs of Washington DC, so not too much country around us. We played kickball in the street, with someone always watching and yelling "CAR!". We'd all step aside, let it pass and continue our game. We had a deep culvert in the middle of our street that was storm water runoff, but we took it as a shortcut to get to the other side ofthe street, stopping to float sticks or capture tadpoles. We'd cross to go play tetherball at one kid's house, then walk down the street to cross somewhere else. We'd sit on the front porch and make gum wrapper chains or play kitchen or read if the weather was not good. There were so many kids on our block, I couldn't count them and we all played outside from sunup til the street lights came on, Then we had to go home or our parents would skin us if they had to come looking for us! I remember the bus market, which was an old bus that traveled around the neighborhoods and sold staples and sundries, and best of all ... fireballs - 3 for 1 cent. Also the Good Humor truck. We didn't have a lot of money and there were 5 kids, so mom would buy 3 5cent popsicles and split them in half. Aahhhhh, I loved the root beer ones! Also Fizzies that we would drop into a glass of water and make "soda". We roamed freely around the area, walking 1/2 mile to the local rec center to learn the hula or just lounge under the trees or play on the swings (which were wooden boards held up by heavy chains). No one worried about where you were or how long you were gone. So many nights we ate at someone else's house or stayed overnight (3 or 4 houses from home) but it was ok, someone's parents went to your house for a cup of coffee, talked with your mom and the deal was set. They drank a lot of coffee back then :^). ALL the parents looked out for ALL of us. We had a rich childhood, but we didn't know it then.

OH-the memories, we sure did have a lot of them, I tell our Grandson-10 years old about some of the things we did, and what his mother and aunt did when we/they were all young-Grandson says-"But Grandma, that was in the Olden Days" now we have modern technology you don't have to do that silly stuff no more-I roll my eyes, and have a lot of good "Olden Days" memories, hopefully he'll have some of those memories, when he comes to stay with us for a week next month from Ohio-haha

My sister, a neighbor girl and I would play cards and board games all summer long. Monopoly lasted for days! We would mark everything, then slide the board under the couch until the next day. We didn't play rummy to 500, we played to 5,000! Then we would play nertz games forever! (It's a form of solitaire with the aces played in the middle by everyone). The yellow light on the car port would be on so we could play out there sitting on a quilt.