Odd Things You Remember From Being A Kid

[Orignal Earl]

Probably not a big thing in the states, but everyone had these white mukluks or Cree boots with no fur on them.
They were great for bumper shining

edit- and super slider snowskates, crazy carpets and everything ktel

 

[Sluggo]

Strangely I remember how prevalent smoking used to be in pretty much every restaurant and how now that everything is smoke free, how clean the restaurants now are.

I can remember people smoking on airplanes. Then it was smoking only in the terminal before getting on the plane, then it was going outside the terminal and I guess soon it will be a non-smoking airport campus.

 

[Iron Woode]

Probably not a big thing in the states, but everyone had these white mukluks or Cree boots with no fur on them.
They were great for bumper shining

edit- and super slider snowskates, crazy carpets and everything ktel

damn it!

I was trying to forget all of those things.

 

[IHateMyJob2004]

I mostly miss electronic gadgets that were not connected to the internet.

It used to be that you would all go to a friends house and play video games together in a social setting. Do kids even visit friends anymore?

 

[Squisher]

I got a Chase card a couple months ago and it has no raised letters or numbers.

 

[ScoobMaster]

when oil came in a can and you used a spout to puncture the can and pour it in the engine:

 

[gorobei]

when oil came in a can and you used a spout to puncture the can and pour it in the engine:

when oil came in different weights for each season and you changed it 3 to 4 times a year.

that and manual chokes for car engines.

 

[ScoobMaster]

"Chopper" style banana-seat bikes:

 

[ScoobMaster]

The sticky gooey plastic stuff in a tube the came with a small straw to blow into balloons:

 

[John Connor]

I was born in 1980. Things I remembered were Ronald Reagen, the challenger and Gremlins. When I was about 10 I would buy these from the ice cream man 7-11 had Street Fighter arcade game and I had my Nintendo.

 

[ScoobMaster]

Toys where safety was not given any consideration. Unlike the mamby-pamby over-protective parents of today that scream if little Johnny dares to get on a scooter sans helmet and full body armor, our parents could care less what death machines we rode.

For example, the SKAT SKOOTA. It all sounds so easy.... read the directions. Simply push up and down with your feet and you'll be cruising down the driveway and into the street.

 

[esquared]

"Chopper" style banana-seat bikes:

Here's the original Sting Ray. circa 1962

 

[esquared]

Soda machines that worked like coin operated fridges. You put in your coin, and that caused wired shackles to loosen from the neck of a bottle, and you opened the fridge door to retrieve it.

This one where you manually moved the bottles (4 or 5 choices) down the row to the exit point and then pulled up.

Or this one. Only one choice

 

[Squisher]

Toys where safety was not given any consideration. Unlike the mamby-pamby over-protective parents of today that scream if little Johnny dares to get on a scooter sans helmet and full body armor, our parents could care less what death machines we rode.

For example, the SKAT SKOOTA. It all sounds so easy.... read the directions. Simply push up and down with your feet and you'll be cruising down the driveway and into the street.

I got that as a present one year, I almost killed myself until I got good at it after a couple of years. It was always fun watching kids trying to do what I was doing on it. Very steep learning curve.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Metal slides! High, very high ones, and 6*6ish beam playground jungle gyms. Ones where the beams had round holes in them for the metal bars to pass through. With more slides on them, and also plastic spiral slides. The yellow ones that gave you a nasty shock when you got to the end.

I remember most of the parks also had a "secret" entrance. I remember biking to this one park and found one of these entrances and it brought me to a whole different neighborhood I never knew about, and if I kept following the hydro lines there was like 3 more parks within that trail. One of them had a steering wheel, we use to pretend it was a space ship. Ahhh fun times... Obviously you can get to these places by road but as a kid I just saw it as being a "secret spot" and never really questioned it further than that. :biggrin: Later on discovered how to get there by road though.

Kids today don't see these type of parks anymore. Lucky to even HAVE a slide now. Stupid lawsuits and liability BS. They've been selling off most of those properties now for more houses as there is a shortage of land/housing, and the city has a shortage of money, so it fixes two problems at once.

I could go on, so many fun places we'd hang out at. Found the old KFC bucket once, remember the big ones that would be on a pole and turn? Yeah, we went inside it lol. Was on the ground next to a tree at a sign shop. I'm curious now... bet it's still there. Totally have to check that some day lol.

 

[Linflas]

PF Flyers.

 

[Linflas]

This one where you manually moved the bottles (4 or 5 choices) down the row to the exit point and then pulled up.

Or this one. Only one choice

From his description I would guess one of these: http://en.allexperts.com/q/Collectibles-General-Antiques-682/2008/7/Cavalier-Coca-cola-vending.htm

They used to be very common.

 

[Rudee]

Being so terrified from a Looney Tunes cartoon the first time I saw it as a kid, that I had to sleep in my parents bed.

 

[3chordcharlie]

OMG... No Tattoo!

 

[SP33Demon]

 

[Rudee]

Obsessively trading Wacky Packages cards with my friends in the late 70's.

 

[IHateMyJob2004]

Kids used to go outside and run around!

 

[Iron Woode]

Obsessively trading Wacky Packages cards with my friends in the late 70's.

LOL

I forgot about those. I think I still have some kicking around here.

I still remember the Cheer one that said Cheap.

and this:

 

[pontifex]

A local general store that sold groceries, and everything else, including guns.

still got one of these about 30 minutes from me.

 

[IronWing]

Kids used to go outside and run around!

And they're playing smear the

Spoiler

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