Reminiscing about childhood (The "awesome" years)

**TigersPrettyBunny** · 02-03-2011 09:47 PM

I know everyone has a favorite childhood story, hero, food/beverage, outfit, crush, tv show, movie, toy, pet etc. Come here and share some tender memories. Give us some insight into your childhood era and what you did for fun. Come be a kid again, if only for a few moments online

**pretzel** · 02-04-2011 07:33 AM

Well, I voted the 60's but in reality, my childhood was more the late 60's early 70's. (ok, thanks, I'm old) living in the steel belt on the Ohio river. When people talk about black skies, there was some truth.

Growing up, sports was the big thing to do around my neighborhood. Football in the fall, street hockey in the winter, baseball in the spring and summer. Nites playing hide and seek or kick the can. It seemed like every nite, there was at least 10 kids around to play.

I've been pretty blessed to have been young enough to have some of Pittsburghs greatest sports legends as my childhood idols but also old enough to appreciate what they've done for the city. My memories of watching Bill Mazeroski, Roberto Clemente, Willie Stargell, Mean Joe Greene, Terry Bradshaw, Franco Harris and on and on will always be the best memories of my youth.

We grew up barely making ends meet. Most of the families did that. All my friends dad's worked at one of the mills or the shipyard except my dad who worked practically his entire life on the niteshift at Greater Pittsburgh Airport. Nobody thought anything about it. Everyone's mom had the same rights as my own. If we did something wrong, you'd get punished by every mom who saw you on the way home. We looked out for each other and our parents did the same.

**TigersPrettyBunny** · 02-04-2011 10:08 AM

Here's a little nugget of goodness from my past.
One year at my sisters birthday party (roller rink party in '88, '89?) she got her arm rolled over when she fell. My dad had to take her to the office, drug her up, set her bone, and put a cast on. Everyone else continued to have fun and when my mom and I got home with all her presents we found my sister fading in and out of consciousness with her arm propped over the couch. I asked her if she'd like me to open her gifts and show her what she got. I got the green light on that went to town. After she finally zonked out I got to play with her toys. It was a little bit of payback for all my toys she had ruined. I didn't destroy her stuff like she did mine, but I DID play with it which would have been enough to make her crazy with anger.

Hehehehe

**BabyGirl** · 02-04-2011 11:21 AM

I voted 60's too, because I only spent 5 years in the 50's and those years I was at Deaths Door.

The first Fun memories were in Astoria Oregon & Seaside too. Playing baseball in the field or hiking thru the woods,swimming in the rivers, being gone all day with my brothers or friends. In the summer coming home at dark, which was about 10 pm.
We could walk the town and not be bothered or fear any harm from strangers.

I remember the group of us, about 8 or 9 , actually had several Adult " friends'. We would see someone elderly working in their yard/ garden or painting a fence or porch and offer to help them for a quarter for each of us. We'd help, get paid then go to the post office where there was a Soda machine that if you put in a dime you could clear out the Orange Crush section, So 10 cents got us 12 bottles of Crush.
Then we would take the bottles and sell them outside on the street for 10 cents. With the remaining quarters and the $1.10 profit. We would go to Dairy Queen and get burgers, Shakes and Fries.
Ahhhh Those were the days. But that ended when our Mother found out the machine at the post office was broken and reported it. Grrrr. She said it was Stealing, which it was in a way, but she had to explain why it was stealing, we thought it was just a cool Soda Machine. Lol

Then she made arrangements for us sweep the Post Office parking lot and Inside floors every Saturday morning for that rest of the summer, to pay back for the stolen Sodas.
Lesson Learned without violence or spanking or abuse.

**TigersPrettyBunny** · 02-04-2011 09:33 PM

BabyGirl
Thats hilarious! I don't have any theft stories which I find weird as most everyone I know has one when they were very young. I do however have lots of stories of when I used to climb trees like a monkey and pretend I was on a floating pirate ship. My world came crashing down (literally) when our tallest climbing tree got struck by lightning and fell over leaving only a 1.5 story trunk with some measly branches.... So sad... But at least the giant felled tree in the back yard became a nature fort

Then later it became firewood

**BabyGirl** · 02-05-2011 07:18 AM

Tiger, I know the Tree climbing for you was a blast. It's sad your tree fell, but then you had a ground fort, shows you were innovative. then with the tree being firewood, it recycled itself in a way..
In being your Mast from a Pirate Ship, your fort to hide from enemies or study bugs and then to keeping you warm .

**ItsASecret** · 02-06-2011 09:57 AM

Man I grew up in the 90's, I am a youngn' lol. My childhood was of no particular great thing we did not have much money, we did not go on vacations to nice places like other families in the area, we did not have the latest toys or new gadgets-the big thing then was getting and N64 which we did not get for many years after they came out. We could not even afford a basic computer until I was in 5th grade, so like 1999 and at that time the computer was like wow omg a game of tetris this is the best thing ever. Kinda lost interest in the computer after awhile because it was old and we could not afford a newer one.

But the one thing I do look back a lot on is how we (my brother, sister and I) used to play outside with the neighbors who were the same age as us. Going from sun up to sun down playing everything from cops and robbers, to hitting golf balls in the local school football field (like 2 blocks away). I look back and realize that during those times in the 90's on our street there was tons of families that had kids around our age to play with. We were always out playing street hockey or even playing with the dogs. Now there one family on the street with kids that are maybe 3 years old. All the other houses have elderly people or just new couples, those 3 year olds have no neighbors to play with like we did. It is those small memories that make a childhood and I feel bad for those young kids who have no one to just go play dolls with on the front lawn or something.

Other than my neighbors back then the only thing I personally really enjoyed about my childhood is how often my Dad would take us kids out fishing/picnic. Fishing was the best. Not even out in the old boat which had a leak lol but the on the shore stuff catching Perch and minnows. We used to go out in the field by a lake and hit a tennis ball with the racket and we had to go run and catch the ball with our baseball gloves for points. The most points gets to pick from the candies first lol. We had a great time.

**BasketCase** · 02-06-2011 10:11 AM

I watched a lot of Full House.

**ItsASecret** · 02-06-2011 10:19 AM

I watched a lot of Full House.

Full House! Loooooovvveed that show. The cartoons then were good too, Rugrats-my fav, Hey Arnold, Power rangers, Beast Wars, Pokemon before it got dumb, Doug!!!!!, Rocko's Modern Life, Pinky and the Brain. Now the cartoons are all anime jump into space and fall back to earth to sucker punch a guy (and by guy I mean mutant rabbit because there are more of those than humans in the shows) type cartoons...dumb.