Home Before Dark



By Daisy Luther| As found at | The Organic Prepper

Raise your hand if you survived a childhood in the 60s, 70s, and 80s that included one or more of the following, frowned-upon activities (raise both hands if you bear a scar proving your daredevil participation in these dare-devilish events):



Riding in the back of an open pick-up truck with a bunch of other kids

Leaving the house after breakfast and not returning until the streetlights came on, at which point, you raced home, ASAP so you didn’t get in trouble

Eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in the school cafeteria

Riding your bike without a helmet

Riding your bike with a buddy on the handlebars, and neither of you wearing helmets

Drinking water from the hose in the yard

Swimming in creeks, rivers, ponds, and lakes (or what they now call *cough* “wild swimming“)

Climbing trees (One park cut the lower branches from a tree on the playground in case some stalwart child dared to climb them)

Having snowball fights (and accidentally hitting someone you shouldn’t)

Sledding without enough protective equipment to play a game in the NFL

Carrying a pocket knife to school (or having a fishing tackle box with sharp things on school property)

Camping

Throwing rocks at snakes in the river

Playing politically incorrect games like Cowboys and Indians

Playing Cops and Robbers with *gasp* toy guns

Pretending to shoot each other with sticks we imagined were guns

Shooting an actual gun or a bow (with *gasp* sharp arrows) at a can on a log, accompanied by our parents who gave us pointers to improve our aim. Heck, there was even a marksmanship club at my high school

Saying the words “gun” or “bang” or “pow pow” (there actually a freakin’ CODE about “playing with invisible guns”)

Working for your pocket money well before your teen years

Taking that money to the store and buying as much penny candy as you could afford, then eating it in one sitting

Eating pop rocks candy and drinking soda, just to prove we were exempt from that urban legend that said our stomachs would explode

Getting so dirty that your mom washed you off with the hose in the yard before letting you come into the house to have a shower

Writing lines for being a jerk at school, either on the board or on paper

Playing “dangerous” games like dodgeball, kickball, tag, whiffle ball, and red rover (The Health Department of New York issued a warning about the “significant risk of injury” from these games)

Walking to school alone

