the pussification of american kids continues

Airplay355

We used to tie a skateboard to the back of a bike and drag someone (me) around on it.

We also used to get on our bikes, get super soakers and footballs, and launch a war on the bees nests in the neighborhood. Nothing was more fun then pissing off a whole nest of hornets.

Killing bees with water guns was a great pass time. It was like being a Marine when you were 8. I know you other guys out there used to love killing bees, or **** with other animals that could potentially fight back haahaa.

madmax

We must never keep kids 100% safe. To do that is to sentence them to a life which will not be worth living more than a few years. That actually works out because the ones who never do anything will not be around that long anyway due to crime, health or ending their lives on purpose. Besides, they would be useless human flesh, probably the bottom feeders anyway. When I think of everything I've done and what I learned from it I get a warm feeling inside. At least I'm alive today because I can assess the situation and deal with whatever comes up. Every kid should get to wreck his bike, get his eye blackened a few times, ride in the back of a pickup, fall off the jungle jim, hang around with some delinquents, take a few chances here and there to know his limits and yes, even get in some trouble. If they haven't, there will be real trouble when something happens.
madmax

hearingimpared

A smart man learns from his mistakes;
A wise man learns from other's mistakes:

An idiot learns from no-one's mistakes.

These kids need to learn how to be adults. . . not perpetual pussyfied children.

markmarc

Last year at my current school a 5 yr old fell while playing soccer and had a severe brain injury. Thankfully the parents were smart enough to realize that suing the school was only going to punish all the kids and keep them from enjoying recess. The poor lawyers that descended on them got screwed out of their 30-40%.

9 months later, the kids are still playing tag, soccer, football, dodgeball, you name it. Chalk one up to common sense!!!

George Grand

When I was about 10 in Brooklyn, we'd all go down in Ray Nader's basement, divide up all the darts, turn out the lights, and count to ten. In between one and ten was when you found a hiding spot. At ten, the darts started flying. Good, clean, wholesome fun. Ray comes and visits on a regular basis. Stephie loves her Uncle Ray-Ray, and Theresa has been trying to fix him up with somebody for years. Good luck Theresa. Ray Nader was a lunatic Lebanese LOOOOONG before it was fashionable to be one of those.

Ashcan fights were always fun. Most societies called them M-80's. I don't know where the name ashcan originated, but it was probably because they looked like small, steel, silver garbage cans. Close range Roman candle and bottle rocket wars were a big diversion too.

To put things in perspective for you, there was a slightly older crowd that hung in our neighborhood as well. Guys that were maybe 5-10 years older than us. Guys like Rabbit (William DeCarlo), Rodney Elkins, Artie Jacobsen, Duck (I never knew what Duck's real name was), Dennis McMahon, and Junior Sirico. You all know Junior Sirico. He now goes by the name Paulie Walnuts.

hearingimpared

George Grand wrote:

Ashcan fights were always fun. Most societies called them M-80's. I don't know where the name ashcan originated, but it was probably because they looked like small, steel, silver garbage cans.

Yep George we called them ashcans down here too. We always thought that they were 1/5th a stick of dynamite. . . whatever they were, they were louder than any other kind of fireworks we could get. We used to flush them down the 2nd floor toilets in the men's room in high school. Needless to say, school let out early those days because the ground floor was flooded.:D

mrbigbluelight

We had a sweet gum tree in our front yard. It was a great source for sweet gum grenades. A bunch of kids would drive by on bikes, taunting and cursing, and we'd blast the snot out of them with hard, green sweet gum balls.

BB gun fights were great. If you had a pellet gun, the rule was no pumping it more than 4 times.


Back in the day, you could buy A-class fireworks: bulldogs, silver salutes, cherry bombs (of course), m80's.
We decided to build a rocket out of a toilet paper cardboard tube. We unrolled what must have been a gazillion Black Cats for the gunpowder (propellant). Got tired of that, so we got a box of shotgun shells and dug the gunpowder out of the shells.

...gawd, were we stupid ! But we had fun, and nobody else got hurt.

BTW, that rocket didn't work worth a crap. Fizzled on the launch pad.....left a nice scorch mark on the concrete, though.

Kids today just don't know ..... and apparently neither do their parents.
Or should I say parent ? That is the problem, in my opinion.

F1nut

M-80's were an 1/8 of a stick. Blockbusters were a quarter stick. Did we attend the same high school because we had the same flushing issues.....hehe.

One of my favs.....we'd have flamethrower battles using cans of butane and a lighter. Then there were the war games in the woods at one of the local colleges which involved BB and .22 pellet guns. My team rigged up some heavy duty cable in the tree tops and we'd move around up there, dropping in behind the other team. They never did figure that one out. We had to stop that after one of the guys got shot between the eyes. Anybody have "bigwheels" races down a steep street hill? That took balls, believe me.

hearingimpared

mrbigbluelight wrote:

Or should I say parent ? That is the problem, in my opinion.

BINGO!!! You nailed it. You have single women bringing up boys and girls for whatever the reason. Before I met my wife and step son (in the process of adopting him) the poor boy lived in a house with four women. This kid behaved like a little girl this is no exageration. All he had for role models were women so he behaved as such. We've been a family now for two years and he is now behaving like a little boy or at least a 9 year old boy. Hell I can't get him away from the WWE and come Eagles games he's ranting and raving and yes he wears a helmet when he rides his bike. That was his choice though because after falling backwards off his bike learning how to do wheelies and smacking the back of head on the ground a couple of times he started wearing it.

Now before any of the women here get bunched up, I'm not downing the ability of women to bring up a boy. I am however saying that a child, boy or girl needs two parents. IMHO a male model and female model.

Do ya think I am opening up a can of worms here?:)

bikezappa

Many of our male role models are taken from TV shows. Every week we see these men with NO balls act on TV. The only TV shows that have men with balls are Cop shows. Look at Sienfeld, Big ****. To be male on a TV show you need to have your balls removed.

Where is the John Wayne character on TV?

bobman1235

Oh come on, Jack Bauer baby!

krabby5

I was watching the news this morning and now schools will no longer have the daily newspaper in the library.

"too much sex and violence"

You can't make it up...

Holydoc

bobman1235 wrote:

Oh come on, Jack Bauer baby!

And you wonder why "24" has such a following. Love that show.

venomclan

When I was a teenager, a buddy of mine had a large garage that we would hang out in. A really bright idea of a game was invented when we found a large ratan stick in the corner. We would turn off the lights, and in the pitch black darkness, the one with the stick would try to locate the others and swing the stick around while the others just tried to survive.

How I got involved is beyond me. Little known to them at the time is that I had my 80000 watt stun gun on me that lit up like a lightning bolt. As I heard the one with the stick approach, it was hello sparky. I assure you that I never was hit by that stick.
Venom

mrbigbluelight

Venomclam, nowadays a kid would be considered abusive if he rolled a Nerf ball towards a friend too quickly or without proper pre-notification.

bikezappa

OK bobman1235

Jack fits the bill.

Also the tall cop on NYPD.

But for every man that stands up for something there 50 pussys on TV. Look at Freinds, two and 1/2 men, .......

Skynut

Great, I just got off the phone with my wife and her 11yo just fell off the monkey bars at school and landed on his head.

He is in the nurses office waiting for mommy to get him and take him to the doctor.

Damn school and their play equipment, kids are there to learn not play.

I guess we need to call a lawyer.

Ironic ain't it.

Of coarse we aren't sueing, I just hope he is ok.
With his hard head I hope they don't send us a repair bill for the playground.

bert26

Hope he's OK! Keep us posted!

Chris

Skynut

Wifey just called and he is only sore, no bleeding.:)

He was hanging by his feet and slipped onto his head. (who hasn't:cool: ) he has a sore neck and probably a bump.

hopefully he is smart enough to learn something from this that he can use next time he screws up.:D

bert26

Good news!

If he keeps that sorta stuff up he'll end up as normal as the rest of us here!

DarqueKnight

F1nut wrote:

Anybody have "bigwheels" races down a steep street hill? That took balls, believe me.

Yep. Four bicycle wheels on a wooden go-cart and NO BRAKES. How did we stop? We (1) crashed into another go-cart as we were racing down a hill, (2) crashed into a ditch, or (3) simply ran out of momentum.

Sometimes a wheel would fly off as we were cruising down the hill.:eek:

Skynut

What about the time when we found a perfect tire that we could fit in so of course we had to find the perfect hill; only we didn't realize how fast we could get going?

My friends and I did this and I thought my head was going to explode. Finally I fell out only to roll several more times on the hill before stopping.

Thank god the owner of the parked car didn't see what happened next.

daniel_paul_

George Grand wrote:

When I was about 10 in Brooklyn, we'd all go down in Ray Nader's basement, divide up all the darts, turn out the lights, and count to ten. In between one and ten was when you found a hiding spot. At ten, the darts started flying. Good, clean, wholesome fun. Ray comes and visits on a regular basis. Stephie loves her Uncle Ray-Ray, and Theresa has been trying to fix him up with somebody for years. Good luck Theresa. Ray Nader was a lunatic Lebanese LOOOOONG before it was fashionable to be one of those.

Ashcan fights were always fun. Most societies called them M-80's. I don't know where the name ashcan originated, but it was probably because they looked like small, steel, silver garbage cans. Close range Roman candle and bottle rocket wars were a big diversion too.

To put things in perspective for you, there was a slightly older crowd that hung in our neighborhood as well. Guys that were maybe 5-10 years older than us. Guys like Rabbit (William DeCarlo), Rodney Elkins, Artie Jacobsen, Duck (I never knew what Duck's real name was), Dennis McMahon, and Junior Sirico. You all know Junior Sirico. He now goes by the name Paulie Walnuts.

This may be the dumbes game I have ever heard. We played bombardment(sp?) once with baseballs...once. Nothing good comes from darts.:eek:

We did the hill sports. A very steep hill about a mile long. Skateboards, shopping carts (years before Jackass), rolerblades, 5 guys on one bike. I am the only one that never lost a tooth. All because my dad tought ne how to fall properly. My 2 best of all time.

Sleeping back fights. Everyone gets in their own sleeping head first and you kill each other.

kung-fu on the trampaline with no protective net. there wasn't one day in the summer when I wasn't bloody.

George Grand

We were 10 years old. If you want to spell "dumbest" you'll notice there is a letter "B" in there. You got bombardment right though! Go treat yourself to a Twinkie for getting it right! No editing now!

And I BELIEVE it is sleeping BAGS. Give back the Twinkie. TrampOline has an "O" in it. Rollerblades has two "L"s.

Please don't edit your post. I want my friends from Brooklyn to log in and see it JUST THE WAY IT IS!

It's obvious had you lived in our neighborhood we never could've gotten you to play darts in Ray's basement......you being pre-occupied with The National Spelling Bee and all.

hearingimpared

Bigwheels races??? We didn't have no stinking bigwheels!!!

At 6 years old living at 59th & Windsor in South West Philly, we would take wooden milk crates (anyone remember them?) screw the side to a long 2 x 6, pull our roller skates (the ones you locked with a key to the bottom of your shoes, anyone remember them?) apart and screw them to the bottom of the 2 x 6 and nail a 3' - 2 x 4 across the top and viola' there was our scooter.

We then saw a movie about knights jousting. We started nailing bottle caps (any one remember bottle caps? and I'm not talking about twist tops, no such thing back then) all over the outside of the milk crates for armour. Then we got the bright idea to take broom sticks sharpen the ends, push them through the front of the milk crate and that would be our lance. Many of us went home with gouges in our legs and arms and a more than a couple of occasions some of us took a few to the nuts. Always after our moms would patch us up, we would be right out there going at it again except maybe the one guy who busted a nut.

See we made our toys and invented our games. Today they sit in front of a tv set stressing and drooling over video games and have no social skills to go outside and play with their friends. I remember talking to one of the mom's at the little guys school and her telling me "how bored" her boy was. Yeah the little wuss didn't know how to do anything except stare at a tv set.

F1nut

We didn't have no stinking bigwheels!!!

Neither did we. Let's just say they were borrowed.

DarqueKnight

I don't know if today's kids really have it that easy. Sure, they may not get to enjoy the amount of outdoors physical activity and revelry that I enjoyed as a child, but I think they have other equal or greater challenges. Consider that I (and most other "baby boomers") did not have to deal with:

1. The possibility of being shot at school (or anywhere else).

2. The possibility of being stabbed at school (or anywhere else).

3. The possibility of being sexually assaulted at school (or anywhere else).

4. The possibility of being kidnapped by a near neighbor and one or more of numbers 1 - 3 above being done to us.

...and so on and so forth. The world is a lot different now.

MSALLA

We had rock wars and threw rocks at each other. We had BB gun wars and shot each other.And like someone else on here we threw darts at each other (and we were like 16 not 10) We got cut from the rocks, holes from the BB's (digging those out was fun) and had darts sticking out all over the place.
We also healed just fine and all act like civil adults today with family.
What happend to the saying "boys will be boys"

bobman1235

DarqueKnight wrote:

I don't know if today's kids really have it that easy. Sure, they may not get to enjoy the amount of outdoors physical activity and revelry that I enjoyed as a child, but I think they have other equal or greater challenges. Consider that I (and most other "baby boomers") did not have to deal with:

1. The possibility of being shot at school (or anywhere else).

2. The possibility of being stabbed at school (or anywhere else).

3. The possibility of being sexually assaulted at school (or anywhere else).

4. The possibility of being kidnapped by a near neighbor and one or more of numbers 1 - 3 above being done to us.

...and so on and so forth. The world is a lot different now.

Sure you did. YOu just never heard about it when it happened. Maybe not school shootings, I"m not sure about that one, but kids stabbed each other in schools all the time 30 years ago. There were gangs just like there are today, and where there's gangs there's gang fights. And sexually assaulted? Are you kidding? All of these "priest" scandals started when folks in their 30s, 40s and 50s started coming forward saying they were assuaulted 30 years ago because they didn't want the same thing happening to their kids.

Don't buy into the culture of fear, guys. The media would love for yout ot believe that the world is spiralling out of control because it makes you tune in every night. The only difference between now and then is that we get to hear about everything that happens as SOON as it happens.

MSALLA

I do think shootings are more common. The rest of the list has been on going for years. It sounds funny, but with computer use today we are just keeping better track of these things. PA has a bicycle helmet law because of all the accidents. We always had the accidents we just weren't keeping track the way we are now. If we had a way to go back in time a research the numbers, I bet some of the stuff on the list has become LESS common.