Children of the 70s and 80s

Get_Right

We know what mimiograph means.
We played pinball.
Simon was the cool electronic toy.
We road the green machine.
We played tackle football without helmets (1 mississippi.....)
We road these and thought we were bad asses:

Get_Right

and they served this at school-for breakfast!

Empty Glass

backyard football has been mentioned a few times and what did you do when you couldn't get enough kids or had an odd number, you played (don't get offended, I didn't name the game and it was 1982) Smear the Queer.

The rules, toss the ball up. A kid grabs it and runs until everyone else crushes him. Then he'd toss it up.

PureandEasy

chiquimonkey wrote:

A friend of mine shared this, it is sadly so true!

that's awesome chiqui, so true

The Juggler

Empty Glass wrote:

backyard football has been mentioned a few times and what did you do when you couldn't get enough kids or had an odd number, you played (don't get offended, I didn't name the game and it was 1982) Smear the Queer.

The rules, toss the ball up. A kid grabs it and runs until everyone else crushes him. Then he'd toss it up.

i see kids playing football in my neighborhood all the time (it's part of the reason i had a fence put up to keep them off my yard and away from my dog )

Empty Glass

The Juggler wrote:

Empty Glass wrote:

backyard football has been mentioned a few times and what did you do when you couldn't get enough kids or had an odd number, you played (don't get offended, I didn't name the game and it was 1982) Smear the Queer.

The rules, toss the ball up. A kid grabs it and runs until everyone else crushes him. Then he'd toss it up.

i see kids playing football in my neighborhood all the time (it's part of the reason i had a fence put up to keep them off my yard and away from my dog )

Our township started a huge flag football league over the summer which is a ton of fun and good for the kids. But I haven't seen a backyard game of tackle in years.

rick1zoo2

it was the best of times, it was the worst of times.....

and somehow we survived

Jason P

I'm sure the name of this game has gone the way of the dodo, but did anyone play Smear the Queer as a kid? (forgive thy, P.C. gods, for thou dost not suggest what ye thinks.)

Anyway, it was a game that consisted of someone running around the playground with a ball with everyone else chasing him in hopes of catching and beating the crap out of him until he dropped the ball. Then whoever picked up the ball got chased, beaten, and so on. There wasn't a scoring system that I was aware of and the game went on until the recess bell rang.

There's no way this game still exists, right?

MayDay10

did anyone ever get hit in the head with a Teddy Ruxpin? Holy fuck that was painful.

pjhawks

some more i've thought of:

we didn't have our own water bottles, we all drank from the same jug or even the hose on the side of a house

we didn't get rides to and from school, practice, friends houses, etc.

we collected and traded baseball cards

we ate mcdonald's and didn't get fat

we had energy because we were kids, not because we drank soda and ate chocolate...ok maybe that was the real reason but no one ever scolded it for us...

the weird kids were weird, not ADHD, ADD, bipolar, etc.

as we got a bit older we got high by smoking pot

The Juggler

Empty Glass wrote:

The Juggler wrote:

Empty Glass wrote:

backyard football has been mentioned a few times and what did you do when you couldn't get enough kids or had an odd number, you played (don't get offended, I didn't name the game and it was 1982) Smear the Queer.

The rules, toss the ball up. A kid grabs it and runs until everyone else crushes him. Then he'd toss it up.

i see kids playing football in my neighborhood all the time (it's part of the reason i had a fence put up to keep them off my yard and away from my dog )

Our township started a huge flag football league over the summer which is a ton of fun and good for the kids. But I haven't seen a backyard game of tackle in years.

ah you're right...these kids don't play tackle. it's like rough touch. and my next door neighbors (the parents of some of them) always are outside on their back deck watching/supervising. i remember a few months ago making fun of them to my wife because they were arguing about a pass interference call. 11 year olds arguing about pass interference--haha

back in the day we had a game across the street from my house pretty much every saturday in the fall. it was pretty violent. and it was like 8 on 8 with each team having an o-line and everything. those games were so much fun. we continued playing even through college during thanksgiving weekend...but it died out after a few years. those were fun times.

The Juggler

A-BALL....this was a staple for years. the field across the street from my parents house had little league diamonds on it. and there were always beer league softball games at night in the summer. during the day we'd ride our bikes all day long....then go home and have dinner....then it was off to the softball games to play a-ball off the wall of the field house.

god forbid if you dropped the ball...you were risking your life running to the wall while a whole shit load of kids were gunning at you. we'd play with multiple tennis balls so you had pretty much no chance of making it to the wall unscathed.


---edit: now there is a new field house with trees planted behind it. kids can't play a-ball there if they wanted to

Empty Glass

one from my youth in school. Practice evacuating in case of another Three Mile Island meltdown. I can still hear my grandmother calling the towers "The Monsters"

Leyna Minai

chadwick

afroannnie wrote:

When I was a kid...this was my "computer"

holy shit. a speak & spell

you are awesome
i just felt my chest cave in
i loved my speak & spell

mine was tweaked out with all the tago switches tho

he.who.forgets

The Juggler wrote:

A-BALL....this was a staple for years. the field across the street from my parents house had little league diamonds on it. and there were always beer league softball games at night in the summer. during the day we'd ride our bikes all day long....then go home and have dinner....then it was off to the softball games to play a-ball off the wall of the field house.

god forbid if you dropped the ball...you were risking your life running to the wall while a whole shit load of kids were gunning at you. we'd play with multiple tennis balls so you had pretty much no chance of making it to the wall unscathed.


---edit: now there is a new field house with trees planted behind it. kids can't play a-ball there if they wanted to

I grew up playing this but we called it "Butt's up"

chadwick

hide & seek was the greatest stuff in the world.
as was catch 'em kiss 'em :twisted:
and pom pom pull away
and dirt clod war

if you were a kid that did not have stitches, black eyes, cuts and bruises, and a busted up body
you did not last long
at the chadwick & brothers' house

we fought and fought well and a lot
playing hard was inside or outside
the entire yard and countryside was a boxing ring and ramps for bicycles jumps
and hills were for sledding and stunts

we kissed girls in the alfalfa fields with honeybees
and the frogs in the ponds
often were in our pockets

and in 1979 both my grandmothers died
six month apart :shock:

Heisenberg

we used to have like 25 kids playing flashlight tag throughout our entire neighborhood for hours. It might take you a half hour to actually find someone. We'd be out there all night. We also had a game we created called "Wall Ball" that I am still amazed never ended up with someone in the hospital. Nowadays, kids wouldn't be interested in either because it doesn't involve a headset, a joystick, and killing zombies/monsters/terrorists and would require leaving the house and actually interacting with others. Speaking of that...as kids we also used to play instruments, not pretend that we could in front of a video game.

Horos

When we got in trouble we got our asses whooped.

You could smoke anywhere like in the supermarket.

conman

in the summer we would be in the pool all day and make up our own games like "the movie game"

one person at one end would think of a movie, give a few clues and everyone else at the other end would guess what it is. whoever got it right would race the one person to the other side and back. the winner got to pick the next movie... good times