Today’s world is full of safety lids, seat belt laws, restrictions and many other things that have been created and forced upon us for safety’s sake. When I look back at some of the things we did as kids in the 70s I often wonder how we made it to adulthood.
This is a list of things that my friends and I did but probably should not have done. We made it through every one of these events without major injury. I post this list to inform my daughters that I know about these things and I will be monitoring that they are not repeated.
1. Like most kids we snuck out while spending the night at a friends house. The danger here was that is would be 2 am in the morning and we were between the ages of 9 and 12.
2. Roofs. We climbed onto or out on every roof we could find. In grade school we would climb on the school roof to retrieve any dodge ball that might have been lost earlier in the day.
3. We actually used to slide down the valley of our two story roof on a Frisbee. We would sit on the Frisbee and slide almost to the end of the ridge and at the last moment we would use our feet to stop just before plummeting off the edge and falling two stories to the ground.
4. We would sometimes sneak the trampoline close to the garage so we could jump off the roof onto it.
5. We spent many an afternoon winding through the drainage tunnels under our town. Many times we would get several blocks underneath the streets. Of course nobody knew where we were in case we ever got stuck.
6. Fire. A really bad one. We set a few things on fire that we probably should not have. Especially at the houses that had fireplaces. Anything plastic was meant to melt!
7. Climbing trees. We used to climb some trees so high that we were on branches that could barely hold our weight. I remember feeling a few trees lean so far that I thought I was a goner.
8. Throwing things at cars. We had a ritual of throwing eggs and snowballs at cars. Our biggest problem there was that we usually threw from one of our own houses and those that got hit knew where to track us down.
9. Pool hopping. Many times we get a big group of guys together and go from pool to pool hopping in and running like heck. We would hit the hotel pools and as many backyard pools as we could find.
10. Sledding down hills on pieces of cardboard. This one did cause me to get 6 stitches when I ended up hitting a broken bottle with my knee.
11. I may add to this list as I remember more long lost adventures that we had as yutes.
I know there were many other things that we did that we knew were on the “do not do” list but as kids you do as much as you can get away with. Like I said earlier, we all made it to adulthood and we’re no worse for wear. What daring things did you do as kids?
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