How about the wooden produce box ends that we used to put into an “L” shape and cut two edges off the right angle sides then put a nail in the front and attach a rubber band and pull it over the lip at the right agle. Then put a little square of light cardboard between the rubber band and push the rubber band off with the thumb and watch the missle go flying. It had quite a force and a bit of a sting if it hit you. A bit more creative than the guns the kids use today.
Anybody out there remember your favorite penny candy, candy bars, ice cream bars, sodas, cookies and 4″ pies? A kid with a sweet tooth and no flouride in the water, what chance did my teeth have to last me this long? Blue Bird pies – cherry – oh how it hurts to dredge up this memory. Nehi Grape soda – with a Blue Bird pie – now that is a complete food group! Moon Pies – gourmet food for a kid. Bottle Cap candy – with those little tin spoons that cut your lip. Wax coke bottles – chew the wax til the flavor is gone. Write on the store windows with the ABC wax (Aready Been Chewed wax). Any of this sound familiar? Your phone number started with a word – Juniper 5868 The smell of a rainy after noon in the 50’s The smell of Ivory soap on the nuns as the hustled you off to mass. These are a few of my favorite things, add yours.
Sliding pond was the only name we used to called them in Da Bronx. The monkey bars were made of steel and anything else we used to climb on (like the big turtles,the cheese and all the benches) was made of concreat. There was no such thing as rubber mats,wood mulch or any type of padding on the playgrounds in any of the playgrounds I grew up in. It was all concreat or black top. If you fell and got hurt you would run upstairs to your mom. She would patch you up,and you would be back downstairs playing again. Now a days when kids get hurt in the playground, from playing too hard or from there own fault for doing something stupid, like we all used to do. Do you remember hearing this saying in the playground ” Go head I dare you, Chicken” Usually means somebody was going end up getting hurt. Now the kids run inside to there parents. Then the parents take them to the Lawyers office looking to sue somebody for there kids stupidity. Do you remember Johnny Pumps (Fire hydrants)? Thats what we used to call them in my neighbor hood………..
anyone remember our dads blocking off the streets so we could play … boys and girls… high point of the after school day… unstructured and everyone’s parents were involved by sitting on the stoops and on the chairs in the street…. Knew we were part of a community… we belonged and because of that we learned to care about ourselves and other people…Lots of that is missing today for young people…. Our dads used to block off the street so we could play Stoop Ball and Ringalevio…. and yes, the lamp posts were the goals and some of the stoops were safe places… We all looked forward to coming home from school and “going out to play”…boys and girls together… first dating experiences came out of those games…. fun times
Ding a ling!!! Ding a ling!!! Ding!!!! Ding!!!!! That sound was music to our ears. Growing up in a Garden apartment complex near Queens College, that sound would cause every kid on the block to stop whatever game they were playing, and run home or call up to their window for money. I lived on the second floor and I preferred to call up for money… (no cel phones then!) “MO-OM”!!! “The icecream Man is here!!!” In gobs of white tissue, my mother would throw down the required 15 cents, and off I’d go to buy icecream from the Good Humor Man. Cola or Blue italian ices were the “hot” items of my day. Our neighborhood Good Humor man man was a tall, thin, silverhaired, mustached man named Jack, whom everyone loved. Dressed in sparkling whites, (shirt, slacks, shoes) “Jack the icecream man” would let neighborhood kids ring his bell, and ride his truck for a block or two. It was such fun, and the high point of a summer’s day! Back then, delivery men were on a first name basis with their customers …. We had Jack the icecream man, Louie the eggman, and Milt the Milkman …
I remember the game, “Mother, May I?”, except I think we called it something else..hmmm..maybe “take a giant step” or something. I grew to hate that game eventually — the person who played “Mother” invariably let all her friends take GIANT steps while the rest of us had to take baby steps. I was NOT part of that “in crowd” at that time. 🙂