1. Stopping off at the Mom and Pop candy store right next to the school to buy penny candy.There are no more stores like this, our town had 3 or four.
2. Walking to elementary school at 6 or 7. lol...right, parents are way over protective and even if they did they would probably get arrested for neglect. Wouldn't be possible in most places anyway because Instead of the local elementary schools most have been consolidated into much larger schools very far away and kids now have to be bussed.
3. Walk home from elementary school for lunch, see #2
4. Walk to any school, see last part of #2
5. Going to the small grocery to pick up a pound of ground beef for my mother and watching the butcher grind it, then leaving with out paying, they just put it on the tab. Like the really small Mom and Pop stores these medium sized grocery stores have all disappeared. Both replaced by convenient stores, whats so convenient if you can't get a pound of fresh ground beef?
6. Knowing where your teachers lived.
7. No sense running from the cops when you know each other by name.
8. Fireflies and frogs, don't know where the hell they went. A few now and then but the skies would be full of fireflies most nights in the summer and frogs were all over the place.
9. Going to the store to buy cigarettes for my Grandfather and thinking nothing of it. Having them sold to me and the store owner thinking nothing of it because he knew they were for my Grandfather.
10. Standing outside your friends house and yelling "A call for " Cell phone? Internet IM? wtf is that....
11. Sitting in the front seat of the car with no seat belt. Who knew better then.
12. Walking across the bridge to the "city" to see a flick at the American Theatre which has since been torn down. One Screen, the same one or two movies all week. Saw my first movie there just me and my best friend by ourselves at age 5 or 6, a flick called Rocky... maybe some of you heard of it?
Then having nightmares for weeks after because of the preview they had for "Don't answer the phone" before it.13. Riding my bike everywhere at very young age with no helmet. They didn't have any helmets then and traffic wasn't anything like it is now.
14. Going door to door by yourself to your neighbors house selling candy for the Boy Scouts. Giving that order slip to your parents to take to work? Good luck with that...
14. Hanging out on a corner at night in my teens and watching the cops go by and wave. See #7
15. Going to Grablick's to get a ice cream sundae any time of the year, it's now a bank.
16. Trick or treating at night with friends by yourself.
17. The high dive at the local public pool, the pool is still there. These of course have been removed, someone might get hurt then sue. Removed from the high Schools too. I can still remember standing on the edge of that thing looking down thinking how far it was. The rule there was you had to dive, couldn't go feet first so it was that much scarier.
18. The big stainless steel sliding board at the park, the jungle gym and other "dangerous" obstacles. Replaced by a bunch of plastic *censored* that isn't anything more than a maze.
19. Going to the big hill at Fox Hill country club in the winter to go sleigh riding which was used for generations for this purpose. If you were really brave you could try "suicide hill". The golf Course has been fenced off and they don't allow it anymore for insurance reasons.
20. Walking down the street in my early teens with my BB gun to the river bank, if a kid did this now someone would probably call the swat team and he'd be sent to a mental hospital for evaluation. BB gun fights...
ouch that hurt. 21. Playing football, baseball or whatever at the closest unoccupied field whether it was a real field or not, they are all fenced in now and if they aren't you'll get chased from the property.
22. Getting in trouble at you friends house and getting whacked by HIS Mom..... going home and getting whacked again.
23. Tag at recess... can't do that now.. WTF.
I'm sure there is a lot I missed here, feel free to add your own.
