Boys being boys. Ah, those were the days. So glad my childhood was in the late 70's to early 80's.

Not ice deliveries, but most of the rest. I don't know all of those games, at least not by those names.

I do remember ice deliveries, but in Detroit they used trucks, not horse carriages. I remember milk deliveries (my dad was a milkman for a while) and milk chutes (even crawling through them to get inside when parents locked themselves out of the house). We had bread and fresh vegetables/fruits deliveries on the street, too. And ice cream trucks.

I never heard of half the games listed--they must have been regional in nature, or later in time than my childhood (1940s).

flashguy

Do you remember when Wiffle bats were made of wood?

We collected bottles in the alleyways to get enough money to go get candy. When I was a young teen (13ish?) there was a new box sitting in the curb store, said "Asteroids" on it. Didn't take long for us to forego the candy in lieu of seeing who could get high score.

We played BB gun war (no shooting in the head, one pump rule for pump rifles) across 2 blocks through back yards and over fences as if they didn't exist, simply a momentary impediment to overcome.

We had "tree forts," which had really cool hanging chain ladders (later determined to be an old set of tire chains) leading to headquarters. An ample supply of grenades (aka Magnolia tree bulbs) ensured our sisters didn't encroach.

Everyone would gather a couple yards down from our elementary school principal's house (his sons were a couple years younger but ran with us some) for Sunday afternoon football. Almost always tackle, full contact, unless someone got hurt and went and told their mom, whereupon the adult boom would be lowered and we'd get a scolding to play touch so that the younger boys could also participate. Pansies.

Scout meetings in the summer were in the city park closest to the city pool, so we would take our 50 cent entry fee and wear swim trunks under our uniform, then go swim after. I remember the summer that Margaret L. got rid of her braces, eyeglasses, and nerd status all in one afternoon at the city pool. Man, did she grow that summer....

No to the ice man, yes to most of the rest.
Highlight was the week my net worth went up 50 %. Soda bottle refund went up from 2 cents to 3 cents. I had 2 cases stashed for a rainy day, or the next major catastrophe like a totally lost baseball.

Thank god you didn't ask about remembering Alf, Small Wonder or Punky Brewster.

Polio vaccine on sugar cubes.

quote:

Digging trenches in your lawn for Army Men wars..

My street was lined with large trees. We used the exposed roots of the trees to stage battles with the little green army men.

What? No Cowboy and Indians?

quote:

Originally posted by Warhorse:
Polio vaccine on sugar cubes.

I still have my "participant" card for that.



And yeah, dirt clog fights at every available construction site.

Then there was stringing wire between houses with empty cans for an erstwhile private telephone communication system.

Ha! We used to dig trenches in our backyard for war. We used fallen and rotten oranges for grenades (grew up in fla)

Ahhh... digging trenches. I lucked out. When I was a kid we built a new machine shed on the farm. Asked my dad to take the backhoe the construction guys left to make me a trench. He did. Old cut up metal posts and some old left over rusty barbed wire kept the enemy at bay.

Roof top football is where one of “the crew” threw a football on the roof of a house. Two story or even taller was preferred. Everyone then stood under the eaves. Being the shape a football is one would never know where it was going to come off the roof at. First one on the football by any means necessary was the winner. There was clipping, pushing, tackling, etc....

Being a kid in the late ‘70’s through the ‘80’s rocked!!!

quote:

Originally posted by Tubetone:
What? No Cowboy and Indians?

Not really, but we were always being told to sit Indian Style.

Bike rides up to the old Nike Missile site were always the 'big adventure' of the summer.