I'm glad many of our family pics from decades ago are preserved. Here is one from 1968, us kids being kids.
I'm the little guy. Dad went to the US for military officer training, and he brought back a bunch of toy guns upon his return. We were so excited, grabbing them, running all over the house shooting at each other. Fond memory.




Let's see your ooooold stuff.

Don’t have access to my childhood pics right now, but I miss simpler days with a healthier culture. I loved summers in the Chevy Chase hills of Southern California when you could see clear skies and ride bikes all day with your friends.

Absolutely not.

As I told one of my brothers long, long ago, it wasn’t until I became an adult that I realized how much better that was than being a dependent child. I wasn’t abused or anything, had many of the things I thought I wanted, and had much more freedom than many children do today (or even then), but the level of independence and actual freedom was nothing like I’d ever had before. And that was even as a slick sleeve private in the Army.

Despite the many things I wish were different in my adult life, there is nothing about being a child that I have ever yearned for in the 60 years since that was my legal status.

Thus endeth the rant.

Some days yes, some no. What I really miss are the late teens to low 20’s. So much I would have done differently before I learned I wasn’t actually going to live forever…

Parts of it - Yes - So many things that I enjoyed without fear or concern of the outcome. One example - My Uncle took a 55 Chevy Belair and turned it into a homemade dune buggy for his two nephews and one niece. That is me in the back. No functional seatbelts, no doors, and a 5 acre open field to drive it in. Also, no speed control….And we did not hurt ourselves or die (amazing that we did not). Notice that the roll bar is not attached to anything on the bottom (HaHa). Miss those days.

quote:

Dad went to the US for military officer training

Was he at Ft Benning in 1967?

We had a lot of fun outside when kids. My brothers and I had a bad childhood, grew up in poverty along with a rough family life. But we had some good times as kids, building log cabins, playing ice hockey in fields during winter, getting pulled around on a sled by three wheeled atv, BB gun fights, bottle rocket fights, BB gun hunting excursions, making our own bmx park in the woods, trapping animals, walking a half mile outside the neighborhood to hunt.

Unfortunately no pics to post. Most of those disappeared when my parents died.

My actual childhood? Not really. It was fine, but once was enough.

I DO miss a lot of my neighbors and friends from that time tho.

quote:

Originally posted by Anush:

quote:

Dad went to the US for military officer training

Was he at Ft Benning in 1967?

Don't know what named military installation it was, but not Benning, since he trained in Indianapolis, where the late Senator Richard Lugar was mayor at the time. Still has the Honorary Citizen of Indianapolis Certificate that Lugar gave him hanging on the wall.

Some days yes - only for the simpler life - but then there are a lot of things I don't miss.

I went back to my old home town about 10 years ago. Drove to my old neighborhood and had a difficult time finding my old house. They renumbered the street. All the forest land has been cleared out and now cookie cutter houses. The farm I used to work at is gone.

Drove out to my old schools. Looked exactly as I remembered it. The chairs were so small. All the teachers I knew were dead.

Most everyone I grew up with is gone. Only know 3 people left there.

You cannot go home.

good times/memories!!

6th grade class pic:

me, far right on couch, 7th grade

9th grade class pic, back row, 3rd from left!!:

I miss my kid days. I grew up in a small town in south eastern Idaho and I still love going back to visit old high school friends. We were a pretty tight group that many of us still stay in touch. Lots of shooting (OMG, our parents didn't worry about us going out to the desert with guns for a day at 14 years old), camping, and fooling around in general. Also lot's of work. Almost all of us started buying our own school clothes in the sixth or seventh grade. Easy to find summer work at 12 or 13 in a farm community. We had really good schools too. I didn't feel like I was behind anyone in math or science when I went to college. I did hate it at the time but in 20-20 hind sight it made our education work. Teachers could, and more than once did, go "hands on" with kids getting out of line. I learned a lot from witnessing the results of a few other's ass hattery tricks

Sometimes. But that's the magic of having your own kids. One gets to relive all those special moments and fun times all over again through you kids' lives every day as they grow up.

I grew up in a neighborhood where most people looked out for each other and all the kids who lived there. I think those days are now gone. I could leave home after breakfast when school was out and not come home until dark. It was safe to do so (unless I was doing something really stupid) and now that is no longer done. The last time I went home to my old neighborhood I immediately noticed it had no children outdoors at all. When I was growing up, the yards had kids in them, and the street was full of kids on bikes.
Was it a better time, for kids? I think it was. I dont really miss that time of life, but the changes sadden me.

I miss jr. high and high school. I grew up in central Europe in the '90s. It was shortly after the fall of communism, everything was simple, and everything was cheap. It's what I'd like to think being in the US in the '50s was kind of like.

I lived on the outskirts of Prague, and via public transit could go pretty much anywhere I wanted by myself by the time I was 10. My buddies and I had a blast riding bikes, going to movies, eating at street vendors, playing football in the middle of Old Town Square, capture the flag in historic parks, baseball in Letna field behind where the giant statue of Stalin used to be, blowing stuff up with fireworks in the woods...you name it. It was a great place and a great time to be a kid.

When I came back to the US to go to college, I was stuck in a little midwestern town with no car and no driver's license. The only thing to do off campus was bum a ride to Walmart or Taco Bell. To my 17 year-old mind, it was not an improvement.

Things have changed a lot since then...both over there and in my situation here. I realize that those days are over and gone for good. But I'm darn glad they happened!

No.

Nope, not at all.

Nearly all day everyday.
Growing up in the 80s and 90s was an absolute blast. I even enjoyed High School and College and would go back in an instant if I could.

I listen to lots of music from when I was growing up it takes me back and I smile.

Now, I am an adult and a dad. All I do is everything for everyone else, always fixing something that is broken everyday and have list of things to fix that seem like it will never end.

Every time I set some time aside for myself something more important comes along. I get to look at a Mustang everyday that I spent many years enjoying and will likely never drive again.
Have to make practical decisions because they can drastically affect 4 other people. But boy was I close to saying screw it the other day and selling the Tundra to buy 1996 Mystic Cobra and a 2006 LS430 to haul the kids around in but reason set in.

I have to drop everything I am doing to drive to Cincinnati or possibly Florida to get Mom and and Granny out of a bind.

Won’t even get in to having a sick kid that no one can figure out what is wrong with him even after a hospital stay totaling well over $60k.

So being that sadly enough work is my escape.

I’d go back to being a kid raised by a single mother since I was 2 years old, quicker than you could blink!

But hey that’s part of getting old I guess and having true responsibilities.

Forgot to mention that since turning 40 something always hurts.
And the second it stops hurting something that felt great a second ago now hurts!

I miss being nieve , clueless and not having a care in the world.

I miss everything bad being thousands of miles away.

I miss knowing that no matter how bad of a day I think I had
by the time my supper plate was clean almost all was right in the world.

I miss the dream of becoming a person that I could be very proud of ,without critical judgement.

I miss the promise that life will get better and better for most people.

I don't miss going to school, I found it exasperating, confusing and full of mean kids.

With two better than average parents that cared a great deal for their broke child, I had a most fortunate upbringing.

quote:

Originally posted by mrvmax:
getting pulled around on a sled by three wheeled atv

Hahaha! I had a Big Wheel. My friend Gus had a minibike of some sort. (Yeah, I was envious.) We found jumper cables. Tying the "vehicles" together with them Gus would pull me up the dirt-and-gravel hill and I'd ride back down the hill chasing him.

Mom was... um... less than amused..