May in Jersey

I was a city kid, we played patsy (hopscotch) on the sidewalk, played marbles, stickball and roller skated in the street and on our front stoop (steps) played cards and stoop ball (we hit the edge of the steps with a spauldin and each hit had a score like baseball. We went to playgrounds to run around, climb the monkey bars and swing on the swings. Prospect Park was nearby and we went over to the lake, climbed hills, picked dandiloins, crossed streams and one time made it all the way up to the zoo. I can't imagine anyone in these days letting their children go to the park and do things like that by themselves.

Indoors we played Monopoly until we grew tired of it, used Monopoly money to play store with items in the pantry, used a small kids desk to play school, I was the oldest so I was always the teacher. We also did radio shows using a soap suds box on the end of the broom handle as our microphone. One time we bobbled for apples for Halloween, what a mess! We didn't dress up for Halloween, boys pounded colored chalk inside of socks and hit every kid they could, mostly girls. We dressed up as ragamuffins on Thanksgiving and went begging at neighbors, sometimes they threw some nuts to us. One thing I loved to do was listen to the Long Ranger on the radio with my grandfather. May in Jersey

raptureready

I grew up on a farm. There was a gully in the pasture that dad was trying to fill in so he allowed people to dump unwanted things there---not garbage but "things". We used to love to scavange the junk pile. Or we'd play in the woods and pretend to be indians. We got pretty good at sneaking undetected and unheard through those woods. We built our own play house in the back yard after someone discarded pieces of an old shed they'd torn down. We climbed trees, rode our bikes, camped out in the yard under blankets pinned to the clothesline, climbed the corn dump or the side of the corn crib, went swimming in the river, or played Tarzan. We were always the tribesmen. We'd sharpen sticks into spears and hide from the Great White Hunters (cars and trucks coming down the road) Sometimes we'd pretend to attack them until the time my little brother(about 4 at the time) actually threw his "spear". It went in the window of the truck and stabbed the man in the arm. Needless to say he stopped, backed up and had a talk with mom. She cleaned and bandaged his arm to stop the blood flow. When he found out what we were doing he thought it was hilarious. Mom didn't. We all got spankings after he left and were told not to ever do that again.

raptureready

Your ice puddles in the field reminded me of our "Carnival Rides" when I was a child. We had a field just North of our house that would flood. If we were fortunate enough to have a rain and then a hard freeze daddy would say, "Come on, kids, we're going to the carnival." We'd load up in the car and he'd set off across the field, hit the ice, turn the wheel and hit the gas. We'd spin and spin. We loved it. Mom never went though, and she hated for dad to take us. She'd sit on their bed watching out the window and crying for fear he'd get one of her babies hurt.
I was grown before I ever had a real carnival ride but those rides in the car with daddy were far better and far more exciting.

Ramona Byrd

I was raised by my maternal Grandma, almost as an only child in the hills of WV, even though I was oldest of 8.
I played mostly alone but sometimes with a same age cousin, in creeks where we caught crawdads for eating, caught rabbits with the help of dear old Brownie, a short tailed mixed breed of some kind who saved us from copperheads more than once. And one thing still sticks with me...our job was to look for strangers wondering through the hills. We could tell them immediately by how they dressed, in 3 piece suits and hats that matched the suits. We were to run and let the dogs loose and tell our uncles about this.
It took me until in my 20s before that well known light bulb went off over my head. (Okay, so I wasn't so smart, just a hillbilly) My uncles wore bib overalls with flannel shirts and big work boots. The only men in that day and time who wondered around the hills were that dreaded breed...Federal Revenuers~
I was married a long time before I stopped having a knee jerk reaction to my DH's wearing a business suit!!!