Stuff you did as a kid that you wouldn’t let your kid do

[Old_wrestling_fan]

ALWAYS rode in the back of the pickup.

Sat on the axle of Dad's Oliver when he was listing corn, facing backward, and manipulated the row markers at the end of each round -- pulled a rope to lift one side, eased the rope to drop the other. If I'd slipped off, I'd have been killed by the shovels before Dad knew I was gone. I was 9 or 10.

Marked for the aerial crop sprayer by standing on the row he was supposed to spray next, got soaked with whatever it was he was putting down.

Ironic thing about this is that Dad was a lot more protective of me than were the fathers of my friends. I wasn't allowed to drive a tractor by myself until once or twice when I was 12, wasn't allowed to go hunting (BB gun doesn't count) without him

The practice of standing or sitting on the axle of old tractors, also listed by Art in this thread, is the real mind bender to me. That was SO common, and probably still happens, and yet so dangerous. A slip or a trip and you are getting run over by the trailing implement. Yikes!

We also rode in the back of the pickup trucks whenever we could and at least one stupid time, we let our feet drag on the gravel below us as we sat on the end of the downed tailgate. The notion that our heel could catch, etc, and we could be pulled off barely occurred to us idiots.

 

[southgateNOLE]

Farms? Pick ups? Main Street? Holy shit, Iowa blows.

 

[SoDakHawk]

Sitting on the tailgate and dragging your boots while on a gravel road is something that all farm kids did, I think. My uncle would be going at least 50 mph in his Chevy pickup and we would do this. We road from Iowa to Colorado in the bed of a pickup truck several times when I was a kid (topper was on).

We used to do some things as kids involving tractors, farm equipment, etc. I shudder thinking about it now, we should be dead or maimed.

 

[Old_wrestling_fan]

Walking around town with our BB guns. Cops would just wave back in the day. Now I can only imagine the consequences walking around shooting birds off trees and electric lines.

Something tells me that the local SWAT team might get a call. I also used to "manage" the local neighborhood squirrel and rabbit population with my pellet gun. Although we thought we were discreet, I am sure that various neighbors observed us as we culled the herd.

 

[hawkeye54545]

Something tells me that the local SWAT team might get a call. I also used to "manage" the local neighborhood squirrel and rabbit population with my pellet gun. Although we thought we were discreet, I am sure that various neighbors observed us as we culled the herd.

Grew up in a small town where we had a square where all the businesses were on. Me and my buddies shot pigeons off the buildings. The store, restaurant and the bar were grateful plus we had a guy in town that ate pigeons and gave us a quarter for each one. When we wanted to play Mario Bros. At the store we went and shot pigeons.

 

[jamesvanderwulf]

This. Most of the Little League team in the back driving 20 miles for a game with North Liberty. ( population 650, LOL ) Shit hit the fan when one of us dropped rocks out the window that had come up through a rust spot by the wheel wells. The tailgating driver took one to the windshield after it bounced up from the pavement.....

 

[SoMplsHawkI]

Drive the haymow tractor @ 6. Rotary-hoe soybeans @ age 8.

 

[Formerly Rockymtnole]

Marked for the aerial crop sprayer by standing on the row he was supposed to spray next, got soaked with whatever it was he was putting down

Nice!
We would ride our bikes over when the crop dusters were spraying and stand at the end of the rows and pretend we were anti-aircraft gunners trying to shoot them down. I don’t want to know what the stuff was that would settle over us.

 

[Lone Clone]

The practice of standing or sitting on the axle of old tractors, also listed by Art in this thread, is the real mind bender to me. That was SO common, and probably still happens, and yet so dangerous. A slip or a trip and you are getting run over by the trailing implement. Yikes!

We also rode in the back of the pickup trucks whenever we could and at least one stupid time, we let our feet drag on the gravel below us as we sat on the end of the downed tailgate. The notion that our heel could catch, etc, and we could be pulled off barely occurred to us idiots.

When Dad bought the Oliver, he paid extra for toolboxes that mounted on the axles. One major reason was to give me a place to sit.

 

[UKGrad93]

No seatbelts
Back of pickups and station wagons
Go karts, three wheelers, dirt bikes
BB guns, real guns
Wandering around hobo camps
Fireworks wars, make our own gun powder, homemade m-80s

I also remember riding our sleds in the street all day. My brother rolled off his sled just before a car drove over it and broke his sled once.

Sometimes dad would hook all our sleds together in a daisy chain (5 sleds). Then hook them to his truck and pull us up and down the street. It was really cool when we went under a large railroad trundle, there was no snow on the road at that point and sparks would fly as the sled runners drug on the pavement. Dad was usually drinking beer while he did this too.

 

[NoleFan2U]

Unprotected sex

 

[artradley]

In the summer, we used to just leave in the morning on our bikes & come home at night. One particular summer, when I was about 8 or 9, a few of us decided to build a tree house in the nearby woods. It was me, my brother (3 years older), and a buddy who was between us age-wise. We'd leave the house in the morning with a machete, a couple of hatchets, hammer & nails, and some rope. Our parents never asked us what the hell we were up to with all that stuff.
So we go about building a basic tree fort. Found a nice spot with 4 trees that were somewhat squared off with forks at a similar height, about 15 feet up. Build a simple platform, kinda like a Huck Finn raft; cut down a couple of small, sturdy trees & get them up going tree to tree, parallel with each other, sitting in the forks. Then cut down a bunch more smaller trees, and lie them on top of the cross-posts. It worked great, and we spent a lot of the summer in that thing.
One day late in the summer, we were all up in the fort together; I think the older two were smoking cigarettes that they pilfered from my dad. We were having a good time, right up until we hear a loud "crack." One of the cross posts broke, and we got a quick lesson on how gravity works. All came crashing down - and of course, the way things broke, we hit the ground, then all the damn trees that were the platform came down on top of us. Not sure how none of us got hurt badly.
Anyway, if I was to see my 8 year old gathering up a machete, a hatchet, and a bunch of other building supplies, I'd damn sure ask what he had in mind.

You're parents were lax. Had mine seen my friends and I leaving with all that stuff they would have asked what the hell we were doing. After we told them, they would have very sternly told us to be careful.

 

[artradley]

No seatbelts
Back of pickups and station wagons
Go karts, three wheelers, dirt bikes
BB guns, real guns
Wandering around hobo camps
Fireworks wars, make our own gun powder, homemade m-80s

I also remember riding our sleds in the street all day. My brother rolled off his sled just before a car drove over it and broke his sled once.

Sometimes dad would hook all our sleds together in a daisy chain (5 sleds). Then hook them to his truck and pull us up and down the street. It was really cool when we went under a large railroad trundle, there was no snow on the road at that point and sparks would fly as the sled runners drug on the pavement. Dad was usually drinking beer while he did this too.

I never did this, but our neighbors had an old car hood that they used as a giant tobogan for sledding down huge hills, and their dad would tie it to the back of his pickup and drive them up and down snow packed rural roads.

 

[pink shizzle]

I'm about the furthest thing from being a farmer, but my cousin lived on a farm. We'd jump into the pasture and shoot the bulls with pellet guns and throw mud at them.

 

[Gimmered]

The twins up the block, they're too old for him now.

 

[Lone Clone]

No seatbelts
Back of pickups and station wagons
Go karts, three wheelers, dirt bikes
BB guns, real guns
Wandering around hobo camps
Fireworks wars, make our own gun powder, homemade m-80s

I also remember riding our sleds in the street all day. My brother rolled off his sled just before a car drove over it and broke his sled once.

Sometimes dad would hook all our sleds together in a daisy chain (5 sleds). Then hook them to his truck and pull us up and down the street. It was really cool when we went under a large railroad trundle, there was no snow on the road at that point and sparks would fly as the sled runners drug on the pavement. Dad was usually drinking beer while he did this too.

No bike helmets is a given. And I never knew of anybody getting a head injury in bike wreck, which seems amazing now.

When it was snowing heavily and the streets were covered, we sometimes would grab the rear bumper of a guy's 53 Chevy and he'd pull us around, sliding on the soles of our shoes. Although actually, that probably wasn't all that dangerous.

 

[haw-key]

Pretty simple. When I was a kid, in the summer after about age 10, I would leave on my bike at about 8 am and come home about 6 pm in time for supper.

We used to go all over, to school to play baseball, to the railroad trestle bridge to drop 'bombs', to the pool that was 5 miles away, to golf that was just as far, to friends houses, to a small creek dam to fish and swim.

No way in hell I'd allow my middle school kid to be gone that long today even with a cell phone, swim in the creek dam etc..