I remember being in the First Grade in 1969 and I was expected to walk to school by myself to my school which was almost a mile away from my house! Nowadays, you cannot ride the bus until you are in second grade and when the bus comes around to drop off your kids, you had better be outside at the bus stop to have them handed off to you! I believe you pretty much have to be in High School before you can let your kids walk around on the streets by themselves and even then, someone may call the cops thinking they are "hoodlums" or something!
I was outside getting into all sorts of trouble when I was growing up including hiking several miles into a canyon area behind my house and playing with matches! We did all sorts of stuff like playing "Evel Knevil" on our Stingray bikes and going "Moto-crossing" on our bikes in said canyon behind my house. There were times I would play in a waterbog cutting off cat tails and collecting tadpoles. I came home muddy from head to toe and my mother "hosed me off" in the front yard and grounded me for the rest of the day. We would play in a creek down the road from our house making rafts out of styrofoam packing material from a motorcycle dealership close to our house. We'd float as far down as we could until someone would say we were on their "Private Property" and kick us out and then we had to figure out where we were in order to walk back home!
Yep, and we of course drank from the water hose, played with lawn darts and real bow and arrow sets which we would shoot the arrows straight up and see how high they would go! Everyone had a pocket knife and at least one of the kids we hung out with had a BB Gun which we would use to pretty much shoot anything that moved! My parents had no idea where we were until the street lights came on and if they needed us earlier, they would just look around the neighborhood and find out where all the bikes were.
We also came up with ingenious ways of making money like collecting pop bottles and redeeming them at the 7-11 or grocery store, mow lawns, or do chores for a neighbor.
If my parents raised me up in this day and age, they would likely still be in jail for all their "neglect!"
I went to one of those "Trampoline Parks" for my grandson's 7th birthday and they had all sorts of cool stuff and I first thought "Boy am I missing out" until I remembered the parks I used to go to when I was his age then I started feeling sorry for the kid!
