You know you're old when...

[Artemis]

12 reasons kids from the '60s and '70s shouldn't be alive right now
Do you ever look back on your childhood and think, "how did I make it out alive?"
Mar 4, 2016, 10:39AM By MeTV Staff
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/d...b-e5ebed659a52

If you grew up in the 1960s or 1970s, then you know how relaxed everything used to be. Our parents never forced us to wear seatbelts, we pretty much ate whatever we wanted, and were given way more responsibility than we should have been given. It's a little sad kids today won't get to experience half the things we did, but looking back, there's a good reason why they won't.

Were these 12 things we did as kids kind of dangerous? Yeah, maybe some of it was.

#1 Playing with dangerous toys
Parents were a lot more liberal with what they would let us play with. Forget about choking hazards, we're talking hot plates, noxious odors and sharp metal objects. It's a wonder how we made it out of the decade intact.

#2 No seatbelts
We never had to buckle up back in the day, which meant we could sit wherever. That includes stretching out across the seats, lying against the back windshield, or, if your parents had a station wagon, rolling around in the cargo area. What was better than all of that was hitching a ride in a flatbed pickup. No cushioned seats, no roof and nothing but the wind in your hair and sun in your face.

#3 No helmets
Just like seat belts, people didn't really see the value in this piece of life saving gear. Kids popped wheelies and raced each other without helmets, let alone knee and elbow pads. Falling was an art form too because you had to land without splitting your head open or breaking any bones.

#4 Running after DDT trucks
This one is probably the biggest "what were we thinking" moments of the '60s and '70s. We would run after these suckers when they rolled into our neighborhood and sprayed the air with a chemical fog. If your street had some traffic, it was just the risk you had to take to have a little fun.

#5 Unsafe playgrounds
Anyone remember swinging so hard that one part of the swing set would come off the ground? Or what about the burns we suffered sliding down scorching metal slides during the summer? And there wasn't a cushy rubber foundation back then, just asphalt.

#6 Latchkey kids
If your mom or dad worked late, then chances are they gave you the keys to the house so you could let yourself in after school. For those couple hours, you might as well have been a full-fledged adult. Sure, your parents expected you to do homework while you were alone, but you secretly watched an episode or two of The Brady Bunch before they got home.

#7 Leaving 12-year-olds in charge
If you had a younger sibling, then you best bet you would be watching after them at some point during the day (especially if you were a latchkey kid). You didn't need any certifications to babysit either. If you were at least 12 and able to dial 9-1-1, then you got some pretty sweet babysitting gigs. It was perfectly acceptable too.

#8 Diets
There was no such thing as "health foods" like kale and quinoa back when we were kids. If it was sold at the store, then it went in our stomachs. Plus, the less preparation that went into a school lunch, the better. Shout out to the Wonder Bread sandwiches, chips and Twinkies that probably stunted our growth as kids.

#9 Sitting in the front seat
The lack of seatbelts meant you could sit wherever you wanted, and no seat was more coveted than the middle seat in the front, back when front seats were benches. If there were six people in your family, then you fought your siblings for that position. If you sat there, you got to control which radio station the family listened to, and got the extra protection of your mother's arm when your father stopped too hard.

#10 Secondhand smoke
There was no escaping the haze of cigarette smoke in the 1970s. From airplanes to automobiles, we probably inhaled more secondhand smoke as children than some people do in a lifetime today. Looking back, we're happy to leave this one in the '70s.

#11 Explosive cars
It's basically a fact that cars were death traps back in the '70s, and the Ford Pinto is the prime example. Not only did we not wear seatbelts and sit wherever we pleased, we were driving in cars that could explode because the fuel tank wasn't designed properly. Luckily, the cars were discontinued in 1980, but only after we had risked our lives riding in them.

#12 Summer
Come to think of it, the three months between the school year were the most dangerous times growing up. We would leave the house for hours at a time, run around without shoes, and come home with more scrapes and bruises than we could count. There was no structured playtime and no cell phones, just long days of sunshine and absolute fun. Yeah, being a kid in the '60s and '70s wasn't all that bad.

Someone suggested, righteously, an additional entry:
#13 We would play games and lose. And that was okay. There would be another game tomorrow.

[SpeedBuggy]

I remember my Dad buying a 1960 Oldsmobile, no seat belts, pulling the rear seat out, drilling holes in the floor boards for the straps that held a booster seat in place of my little sister. No seat belts for the booster seat either, just a set of handles on the sides.

Then we got a 1965 Mercury Station wagon, no air conditioning and rear facing rear seat with the air deflector on the roof to direct air into the back of the car. We would fight to sit back there. Dad would put the window down, and off we went with the wind in our faces while facing backwards, breathing in everything, probably including carbon monoxide.

[Artemis]

Not me, but recognizable.

[3.0L]

Actually, 120 VAC.

My dad used to cook hot dogs on an electric device he made in high school. The attached image will give you an idea how it worked, although his was simply 2 vertical spikes and a switch. He'd slide on 4 hot dogs, then hit the switch, sending 120 volts through the meat. Really fun to watch. And dad said, "Don't touch the spikes while it's on." And we didn't. So simple.

[M_Six]

Waaaay back in the 70's my brother made a hotdog cooker that was early solar. Had a big arched reflector and a center spit. The reflected and concentrated sunlight cooked the hotdog. The thing stood about 5ft tall and would only do one dog at a time, so not very practical, but it was a proof of concept thing.

[M_Six]

When you need less sleep?

No sure what changed, but at some point this month I suddenly started waking up feeling fine at 6 or 6:30. My usual bedtime is still 11-11:30PM, but I'm wide awake 7 hours later. I used to need 8 hours or so to feel rested. Now it's 7. I'm not complaining, mind you. I love having more time in the morning. I've always wanted to be a morning person, but for ages my natural wake up time was always 7:30 or 8. No more morning groggies where I feel like crap until I have a couple cups of coffee in me. I like it.

[Buug959]

Originally Posted by wdb

Just for a little added fun (danger???) we used to strap model rocket engines to them and place the rings about a hundred yards apart. Never came close to a bullseye but no-one died.

[vreihen16]

Originally Posted by M_Six

When you need less sleep?

No sure what changed, but at some point this month I suddenly started waking up feeling fine at 6 or 6:30. My usual bedtime is still 11-11:30PM, but I'm wide awake 7 hours later. I used to need 8 hours or so to feel rested. Now it's 7. I'm not complaining, mind you. I love having more time in the morning. I've always wanted to be a morning person, but for ages my natural wake up time was always 7:30 or 8. No more morning groggies where I feel like crap until I have a couple cups of coffee in me. I like it.

That will all change tomorrow morning, when we spring forward.

Happy shortest weekend of the year.....

[Esteban]

Originally Posted by M_Six

When you need less sleep?

No sure what changed, but at some point this month I suddenly started waking up feeling fine at 6 or 6:30. My usual bedtime is still 11-11:30PM, but I'm wide awake 7 hours later. I used to need 8 hours or so to feel rested. Now it's 7. I'm not complaining, mind you. I love having more time in the morning. I've always wanted to be a morning person, but for ages my natural wake up time was always 7:30 or 8. No more morning groggies where I feel like crap until I have a couple cups of coffee in me. I like it.

As I've gotten older I need less sleep, and less coffee. These days I'm up for 2 or 3 hours before I have my one and only cup of coffee for the day. Go to sleep at about 1am and get up about 7:45am. No alarm.

[cmyx6go]

Originally Posted by vreihen16

That will all change tomorrow morning, when we spring forward.

Happy shortest weekend of the year.....

But the sun won’t set till 7:00 pm. Yay! Say goodbye to my evil twin and hello to my sunny disposition!

[Artemis]

Originally Posted by cmyx6go

But the sun won’t set till 7:00 pm. Yay! Say goodbye to my evil twin and hello to my sunny disposition!

Dracula better minds that...

[Kowalski2011]

In these current times where everything seems to want to divide us, it's refreshing to remember that we have more in common than not.

Who here remembers control line model airplanes with that .049 engine? Loud as hell, and that fuel...

[M_Six]

^^^Never could get mine to fly right. Crashed more often than not. But yeah, those tiny engines were seriously loud.

[vreihen16]

I remember some owners putting a stake in the ground, attaching the control lines to a swivel on the stake, and watching the plane fly from outside the circle until it ran out of fuel.

Speaking of .049 engines, did anyone else have a GALAX IV hovercraft (Internet picture)?????




.

[sygazelle]

...when you used to race slot cars as a kid.

[sygazelle]

....when you don't give a FF what Pete messages to Ye or how Ye responds to Pete or who is Kim or why they are famous or blah blah fkin blah.

[sygazelle]

...while I'm being old and cranky....when you don't give a $hit anymore about the NFL or whether Tom Brady is retired or coming back. Don't care.

[Esteban]

Originally Posted by sygazelle

...while I'm being old and cranky....when you don't give a $hit anymore about the NFL or whether Tom Brady is retired or coming back. Don't care.

Yep, don't care.

[M_Six]

Originally Posted by sygazelle

...when you used to race slot cars as a kid.

Erasers were an essential tool.

[sygazelle]

Originally Posted by M_Six

Erasers were an essential tool.

I'd forgotten about that. They were an essential tool.

I had a 40 Ford body with an amazing Kemtron motor. I wish I'd kept it. What great times we had.

[shoei]

FYI, I decided this will be my metric to determine when I'm old. When I can come in here and understand what everyone's talking about and be able to recognize toys in the pictures. I'll check back again in 2023.

That is all. Carry on, gentlemen.

[JJ 911SC]

Originally Posted by sygazelle

...when you used to race slot cars as a kid.

and eat end of the day donuts (next door) for a nickel...