Like, what the heck was going on when we were kids?
Afterward, we received over 400 more submissions from readers sharing their own wild childhood stories.
Here are the most memorable ones:
1.
It was pretty cool to see that flaming ball go back and forth on the court!
Looking back, I am surprised none of us ever caught on fire!"
Parents would be arrested today for letting young kids do this."
anonymous
3.
“Back in the ’60s, my brother and I would go into these giant sewer tunnels in Philly.
We would walk for a long time, not knowing where we were going and/or where we were.
We made out in the trunk, totally unaware that wed be dead if someone rear-ended us.
I must have known it was unsafe because I never mentioned it to my parents.”
I’m amazed that none of us ever fell."
It was my Dads way of keeping us entertained."
I was not caught.
Can you imagine a teacher now having a student take their car on a personal errand during school hours?
I never told my parents about the trip."
“We used to play humanFrogger.
We lived on a six-lane street (three each way), and the speed limit was 35.
You had to run all the way across without stopping; if you stopped, you lost.
“We used to cross a thousand-foot railroad bridge on an active railroad without an emergency walkway.
If a train came, our only escape was a hundred-foot jump into a three-foot-deep river.
I still don’t understand how I survived childhood 40 years later.”
Here’s to not being dead!
apathyadvanced
13.
“My dad had a baby seat on the back of his motorcycle.
I literally grew up on the back of a bike.
This was even frowned upon when he dropped me off at preschool in 1990.”
aerylbailey
15.
They were spraying DDT.
Some of us are actually still alive and cancer-free!”
“My friends and I would drive down a winding mountain road in the back of the pickup truck.
We did this at speeds up to 50 MPH!
It’s a miracle nobody ever died or got seriously hurt.”
“We would have rock wars.
We’d then stack up piles of rocks and commence unloading on one another.
Much blood was spilled and I just might have the world record for most concussions.”
Stupid and dangerous…but funny as kids!"
I would hang at least half my body out the window while she kept the car steady with theirs.
What a smack!"
“At 9 years old, my older brother and I would go exploring old gold mining caves.
If we got lost, no one would have ever found us.
This was in the early ’60s.”
It never occurred to us that copperheads which are very poisonous lived under the same conditions!"
“In the early 00’s, I was 14 or 15 years old.
There were no cellphones, no Life360, and no way to check.
Looking back on some of the situations we put ourselves in is HORRIFYING.”
Absolutely nuts, I know."
“As kids, we built a go-kart with a lawnmower engine.
I drove up onto a lawn and through some hedges to stop it.”
The train would cough and choke, then stall out.
He said it was great fun."
“We liked to break thermometers and play with the (highly toxic) mercury.
When we got caught, my mom just tossed the mercury in the trash.”
“Class of ‘82 here.
You’d win if you didn’t flinch or jump out of the way.
We played this game while river tubing (no lifejackets, natch).”
“As an early teenager, my friend and I ‘hopped’ cars in the wintertime.
We’d take turns all night.
It worked, and it was quite the wind tunnel between the trains!
We hung on to one another to prevent us from being knocked over.
Both trains screeched to a halt, and men from both trains pursued us.
Being kids and knowing the neighborhood, we avoided capture.
It doesn’t get much stupider, I suppose.”
They were about the size of a Roman gladiator sword and pointed.
Then we would have a gladiator fight!"
I’d then shoot the dart like a slingshot.
Most times, it launched the dart with deadly precision.
But sometimes, they would get caught in the rubber band and shoot back at my face.
I never shot the deadly darts at anyone.
But, thank God, I never lost an eye!"
It was so much fun but so dangerous."
“We were into archery.
It was just stupid.”
It was not extremely dangerous, but we had a lot of fun.
If you were hit by a BB, it would sting.
I always won, as my BB gun had a scope."
Then my dad would nudge me while he drove it was the signal to pass him a beer.
He’d show me how to open a beer bottle with the seat belt buckle.
All this while driving on the highway in the ’80s."
“When we were teenagers, there were train tracks beyond the woods behind our house.
We always looked for trains carrying new cars from Detroit to the East Coast.
We had to hurry off fast when you felt that first lurch from the train starting off again!”
Once I accidentally threw one at a trooper writing somebody a ticket.
Luckily, his car was facing the other way, so we won the chase that followed.
Even today, the memories of speeding away from the explosions and chaos make me laugh out loud."
The thought of a fatal accident never crossed our minds."
Mom gave me a 3x5 index card with directions on one side and a hand-drawn map on the other.
She also gave me some change if we needed to make a phone call.
Happy ending…we made it."
Sometimes it bent, sometimes it broke."
“My best friend lived on a hill in town.
We would get in shopping carts at the top of the hill and race.
Whoever made it the farthest won.
You were guaranteed to crash into a fence, wall, or trash can every time.
Im sure my friends mom patched us up more than once, but I only remember the races.”
“So many examples of stupidity in my childhood.
I could have literally died.
I never told my mom what really happened until a few years ago.
I think I even stayed in school that day.”
bestunicorn88
47.
I’m lucky I didn’t break any bones!"
“At age 15 in 1979, we used to ride modified off-road motorcycles in the desert.
The dirt berm near the two-lane highway made a perfect ramp.
The key was to get up enough speed to clear both lanes of pavement.
Of course, doing it when cars were going by was the goal.
While we were in midair, the cars would momentarily be below us a la Evel Knievel!
How did we not die?”
We’d even go on the interstate!
One time, a kid’s cap blew off.
Traffic was often light then.
That would be surefire death on that same highway now."
It was good times, but it’s definitely a no-no today."
