I used to write humor

[BrokenolMarine]

for the local throw away paper. The owner/editor passed away from cancer. I didn't look for another outlet. All in all, I wrote about fifty articles, and she told me they were well received.
She gave me a pretty free hand, although now and then she would email me and ask for a seasonal or subject related piece. I was watching a "Dry Bar Humor" piece today from comedian Jeff Allen, and it reminded me of an article I wrote several years ago from that same throw away paper... regarding the toys WE had as kids....

Lawyers would have a stroke today, if they had looked in our closets, on the front porches, or at US playing in our yards.... or at some of the things we did, HUH? Of course, I had a file at the local ER... so maybe they had a right to be concerned, but "I" played outside and most of my toys didn't NEED batteries. Many of them WERE dangerous...

Remember JARTS, the giant lawn darts you stood at either end of the yard and hurled AT each other?
How about Those bugs and Edibles we baked on the hot plates? I still have scars on my hands and wrists from the burns.
Woodburning kits?
Anyone in OUR generations EVER wear a bike helmet? I wore a football helmet once, and a chest protector... but I was riding my stingray bike down a hill and up a shaky ramp to JUMP a creek. I made it over the creek but blew the landing. Luckily, chicks dig scars.

We had commercial wrist rocket slingshots that came with ball bearings for ammo. My friends and I MADE rubber band guns... they didn't shoot rubber bands they were powered by them and shot paperwads. Folded tightly, they would leave a welt when they hit and we played war, or Cowboys and Indians with them. Hard to scream YOU Missed me... if you were sporting a welt the size of a quarter. Later we modified the rubber band guns with a pocket and shot mulberries. Then they left a purple stain, and a welt.

Input?

[TMB]

My childhood was also quite dangerous. We started with spring loaded pop guns that we "modified" to shoot mud clods. Moved to BB guns and pellet guns. All these guns were used to play cowboys and indians. We also used rubber bands cut from an old inner tube to launch all kinds of projectiles at each other. Everyone I knew as a kid had a pocket knife. We all managed to grow up complete with two eyes, 10 fingers and toes, arms and legs in tact.
Mom was a nurse before she met dad. She knew all the doctors in town. When we got hurt she'd call one and he'd meet us at the ER.

[clovishound]

" Later we modified the rubber band guns with a pocket and shot mulberries. Then they left a purple stain, and a welt"

And so paintball was born.

[fortyshooter]

Oh boy what fun back then.... Made our own black powder/fire cracker powder...would paste on as many "greenie stickum" caps as possible on the cap guns till the hammer blew off....made our own hydrogen from tin foil and lye solution in those old heavy glass Pepsi bottles from which you filled a balloon along with a tissue tail fuse which you light.....and on and on!

[BrokenolMarine]

" Later we modified the rubber band guns with a pocket and shot mulberries. Then they left a purple stain, and a welt"

And so paintball was born.

Back in the late 60s....
You could scream you missed me all you wanted...
... Laying on the ground with that blooming purple stain and rising red welt screamed "liar liar," right back.

Man... Those were the days....

Double Dog Dare...
The dreaded words....


Our lot was huge, so our yard was a favorite. We didn't have, couldn't keep, grass.
My step dad had two dump loads of top soil dropped in the yard, which WE were going to rake out by hand. It was a mountain of dirt. He was going to HAVE grass. (Never did... But we always had a yard filled with kids.)

As kids do, we started talking about jumping it. I told them all my stingray could do it.
Doubledogdareyou.

I zoomed up the block in the street. I torqued the bike from side to side, leaning out over my handlebars, straining for speed. At the last second, I cut in the drive, across the yard, and hit the pile still pedaling. About halfway up my chain came off. The pedals freewheeled, and my feet came off. I was a projectile. I went over the top... but I was half off my bike, the crash was talked about for the rest of the summer. No chain, exposed front sprocket... Peeled away the skin on the side of my knee, to the bone. Didn't really hurt... ... Then

Everyone crowded in to see, ragged white skin, and pink. No blood. Then. Then the blood flowed...and the pain flowed with it. Thirty plus stitches. Half sub-dural. Chicks dig scars.

[Mags]

.
Played with matches. Wrap the head in aluminum foil. Using a partially unfolded paper clip as a rocket launch pad. Heated the aluminum foil wrapped match head with a birthday candle until it launched across the yard.

Used to walk down the street open carry with our BB guns to a vacant field on the edge of the subdivision to shoot cans and jugs.

Riding the Radio Flyer down hill on the sidewalk and not crashing as we made the corner at the bottom of the hill. Its long hill and we would get going really fast.

Burning bugs with a magnifying glass.

[CT_Shooter]

I was the oldest of four boys. One Saturday, when I was about 9 or 10 years old and mom and dad were downtown at work in their own business, I led my two next youngest brothers (the fourth was a toddler) to join in some pretty dangerous fun in the snow. We lived in a large colonial house with an attached breezeway that was attached to a garage.

That winter we had some really deep snow that drifted about four feet deep all the way out to about ten feet away from the back of the garage. I was first to climb out of the second story bathroom window of the house and onto the single story breezeway roof and then onto the garage roof and did a somersault into the snow drift as my brothers watched from the ground.

Well, that was huge fun... and it led to an excited three-kid parade that ran into the house, up the stairs, out the window, onto the breezeway and garage roofs, and off into the snowdrift one after the other, over and over again. Sadly, our next door neighbor who was watching in horror called mom at work, who rushed home as quickly as she could get there.

The beating we got when dad got home would actually be considered a felony today. He was so pissed, he drew blood. But, it was worth it. We had a blast.

[RanchRoper]

Haha...creepy crawlers. Let's make a toy for little kids that has an electrical hotplate, and Plastigoop in bottles they can bake rubber things to eat. HAHAHA, try that nowadays.

We played a lot of road hockey with no pads or gloves, lots of hacking with sticks and the inevitable road rash from a fall, not to mention a 40mph tennis ball in the groin....

[Ernie]

Bows, BB guns, pellet guns.......everyone had a pocket knife. Had a carbide cannon from a magazine ad until the neighbor complained too much. Stitches in my head, on my nose, leg, and broke my collar bone twice but somehow survived all the accidents and incidents and remember my free roaming childhood with pleasure and humor. Had great friends and excellent adventures.

[BrokenolMarine]

At twelve, I wandered the woods with a single shot 22, and a pocket full of ammo, plinking cans, pinecones, (on the ground, or in the ditches,) and other targets of opportunity. If the deputy spotted me, he would always stop to chat, ask how the day was going, maybe take a shot or three. His son was in my scout troop, and he was one of our leaders. He would hand back the little Winchester, touch the brim of his cap, and drive away. He knew I was safe. My dad and grandfather had seen to that. These days...

[BrokenolMarine]

I was the oldest of four boys. One Saturday, when I was about 9 or 10 years old and mom and dad were downtown at work in their own business, I led my two next youngest brothers (the fourth was a toddler) to join in some pretty dangerous fun in the snow. We lived in a large colonial house with an attached breezeway that was attached to a garage.

That winter we had some really deep snow that drifted about four feet deep all the way out to about ten feet away from the back of the garage. I was first to climb out of the second story bathroom window of the house and onto the single story breezeway roof and then onto the garage roof and did a somersault into the snow drift as my brothers watched from the ground.

Well, that was huge fun... and it led to an excited three-kid parade that ran into the house, up the stairs, out the window, onto the breezeway and garage roofs, and off into the snowdrift one after the other, over and over again. Sadly, our next door neighbor who was watching in horror called mom at work, who rushed home as quickly as she could get there.

The beating we got when dad got home would actually be considered a felony today. He was so pissed, he drew blood. But, it was worth it. We had a blast.

Yup, the beat'ns. They made us go find our own switches, or my mom used her flip flop. I hated the flip flop, it was quick. 120 whacks per minute.

Those whippins got your attention. You didn't do that again, whatever it was, for at least a week. Or... If you were have supposed to have done it, you remembered to for a while. Yeah, they didn't spare the rod, but they did something right.

I was at a friend's recently, his kid was being a giant brat. Dad told him he could, "Just take a time out." Kid stomped up the stairs to his room. The man said the kid needed some alone time to consider his actions.

I walked by the kid's room about ten minutes later, he was wearing a headset, talking to a friend, immersed in a video game on a huge flat panel screen mounted on the wall of his room. I'm sure he had given serious thought to his actions.

Might explain why the kid is a giant brat.

[markiver54]

Ain`t that the truth!!

[Ojaileveraction]

.
Played with matches. Wrap the head in aluminum foil. Using a partially unfolded paper clip as a rocket launch pad. Heated the aluminum foil wrapped match head with a birthday candle until it launched across the yard.

I'm going to have to try that.

[Mags]

.
Paper matches and not too much foil, but tight. Like real rockets need to minimize the weight.

.
Played with matches. Wrap the head in aluminum foil. Using a partially unfolded paper clip as a rocket launch pad. Heated the aluminum foil wrapped match head with a birthday candle until it launched across the yard.

I'm going to have to try that.

[BrokenolMarine]

We made beer can tennis ball bazookas. My girlfriend's dad was an NCO and Aircrew on a bomber at McDill. They lived catycorner across the ally from us for years. He was a neighborhood hero. Tall, studly, flew, and taught us cool stuff. (Beer can bazookas)

He was the subject of one of my humor articles... Manipulated all the kids in the neighborhood into prepping his house to sell when he got overseas orders. Lol. (Tom Sawyer style)

[BrokenolMarine]

You could knock a bully off his bike with a tennis ball fired from one of those bazookas.
DAMHIKT. The whumpins we took were worth the fact that the bully never came back in the neighborhood. That whoppin insured we didn't (get caught) making more bazookas.

[BrokenolMarine]

The movie "Stand By Me" touched a nerve for me. Same time period, same deal. We were the age of those boys, and did okay in OUR peer group, but there were the bullies in the older groups... You had to be careful of.

The movie, of course being King... New England.
Us... Tampa.