When We Were Young........................

[JeffB]

12/30/69

A. Hulk, Dukes, Knight rider, A-team BJ and the Bear (Was scared to watch land of the Lost with the sleestacks)

B. Country boy, Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, Louisiana Saturday night, Dirty Deeds, Paranoid,

C. Guns n Roses, Black Sabbath

D. Donkey Kong Jr., Galaga

E. Smokey and the Bandit, Hooper(I was very impressed with person jumping out of birthday cake as I had never seen anything like that)

F. Red Ryder, Atari

[Windy City Walleye Hunter]

Hey Geno and dude,

Looks like all us old farts liked the table top hockey game. I had the one with the metal players and then got the upgraded version a few years later. It had plastic players which shot the puck a little better but you could not bend your stick for those wrist shots! LOL

I will take you both on a stroll down memory lane. My game had the Blackhawks and the Bruins as the players and the upgraded plastic version had the overhead scoreboard where you would drop the puck from. It came with two pucks, a solid wood lighter puck and the heavier plastic puck with a metal roller ball in the middle of it. We liked the roller puck because it did not fly out of the rink as much.

We would watch the Blackhawks game on channel 9 WGN and our game would start when the first period ended and we would continue during the intermissions. If we had an odd number of players we would have one person be the announcer/ref and he would call the game and also dole out the penalties. We had a watch with a sweep second hand that we used to time out the 2 minutes and we would pull off the offending player off his metal spike and put him into the penalty box we made out of cardboard.

We would also freeze our driveway near the garage during the winter by pouring buckets of water on it during the winter and play hockey against the garage. My dad used to hate it because he would slip on the "ice" and he had to paint the garage door every spring to cover up the scuff marks.

Kids these days have no idea what real fun is. And we have not even started talking about the summer games. Fast pitch against the brick wall of your school with the batters box drawn in, football games in the street outside your house. Playing 500 softball where a grounder counted as 25, one hopper was 50 and a fly ball was 100. When you reached 500 you got to bat!

Enjoy the memories guys and feel free to add on!

Windy

[genegodawa]

Yep Windy, we played lots of games of "500" and "Bounce or Fly" and did you ever play "Off the steps" where you threw a rubber ball against the edge of the stairs leading up to somebody's front door and tried to make it fly across the street for a homerun? - Broke alotta screen door windows that way....and we played so many games of "Fast Pitch"/"Against the wall" with that box for a strike zone and all the other "automatics" for single, double, triple, etc. and a foul ball would end up on the roof of the school - and one day a daring kid (usually a "Greaser", not a "Climar" mind you or a "Surfer") would climb up there and end up throwing back down about 20 rubber balls all the while hoping the nighttime janitor would not come out and chase us away.

And baseball down at the corner, where each corner had a sewer which were the bases of course....and not having enough kids so right field was out....

I remember one year we ran the garden hose on the street and froze it so we could actually iceskate and play hockey....man oh man, were the parents ever upset about how stupid we could be to make it so dangerous for cars that would ocassionally drive by. In winter all the kids used to stand in the way of the plow when we saw him approaching our game and he would raise up the plow as he went past so as not to remove the snow off the street and then we could still use a regular rubber puck which we would then be able to make passes slide on the snow on the street instead of rolling along.

We also made our own hockey nets (with regular plumbing pipes out of my dad's garage, and my grannie crocheted a net) - it was so cool to hit a slapshot into real netting and the puck would just push the net back a little then drop and stay in the net --- just like Bobby Hull's slapper.

Those were the days of street hockey and street football-two hand touch, of course - when the only car in the house was at work with dad so we had the run of the streets all day and at night the car was in the garage so we still could play on the streets just that there were more stoppages of play -- "Game Off" (Time out)/"Game On" (Time In).

And then there were nighttime games of hide and seek.

You know when we played inside?

Only on days when it rained! And even then once in awhile it was time for a game of Tackle Football and sliding around in the mud.

Man, I could go on forever.

[Windy City Walleye Hunter]

Geno,

Talk about night time hide and seek, how about playing SPUD and Smear the Queer and Red Rover and losing all of those games meant going thru the spanking machine where everybody would line up all facing the same way and spread their legs and you had to crawl thru all of them while they tried to wail on your keester! Then there was mumbly peg with a knife and black ash snakes and punks on 4th of July.....I could go on forever.

I remember my mom had a doctor who's office was across the street from a playground and next door to a corner store that sold penny candy. When my mom had an appointment she would give us each enough money for a bottle of pop and about 10 cents worth of penny candy. We would eat the candy, drink the pop and then take the bottle back for the deposit and get a few more pieces of candy and we would play at the playground, unsupervised! The thought of adult supervision never even entered people's minds back then. Those were the days my friend, I wish they'd never end! I hope we get a few more old timers chiming in and sharing their memories from across this great nation.

Windy

[UdeLakeTom]

Mumbly peg...How about kick the can???

We had telephone poles and played over the wire...the ball had to be thrown over the wire to someone on the other side. If the other guy caught it, it was his turn, if it wasn't caught, the thrower scored. Home-run derby with wiffle balls, and it ruined many a swing.

Only old guys would remember that stuff.

[Windy City Walleye Hunter]

dude,

How about finger football during class with the paper triangle? LOL

Windy

[snoozebutton]

Yeah, back in the old days when you could play baseball in the middle of the street and cars would stop and wait for the play to get over before going by and they didn't mind.

[kr8r.tom]

musical spoons

[genegodawa]

Red Rover, Red Rover let Windy come over!

Yep, Finger football in the cafe at lunchtime in Jr High.

Or that goofy paper thing shaped like a cube or somesort where there were numbers on the outside and you moved it back and forth with your fingers and one kid would pick a number and inside it would read something like "you will grow up and marry Jill or Diane or one of the pretty girls and another number might have one of the less than pretty girls and then everyone would say "yuck".

And in grade school at recess, "Johnny Tag" - where all the kids were on one side of the playground and one kid started out "It" in the middle and everyone would run to the other side to try not getting tagged and whoever got tagged started out in the middle on the trip back and the last kid tagged was the winner....lots of the fast kids, or the kids like me who could juke like Gale Sayers, were usually the last ones being tagged.

[UdeLakeTom]

Windy and Geno...is it Duck Duck Gray Duck or Duck Duck Goose????

[Windy City]

Good stuff Guys! Also, dude, nice avitar, I just noticed it, too funny! OK now dude and Geno....red light, red light, red light...GREEN LIGHT!

Windy

[genegodawa]

Oh yeah, Duck Duck Goose.

How about a game of Buck,Buck (courtesy of Bill Cosby) with ol' Fat Arnold?

And what about when we did stay inside - board games that are still around like Operation, Chutes and Ladders, Candyland...Stadium Checkers!

Or just hitting the town swimming pool and using the High Dive to actually dive instead of the low dive where you could do cannonballs or being able to really do a handstand which you could never do on dry land or games of WaterTag....we used to get a bunch of neighborhood kids to play a game of slow-pitch leagueball in the am (with first base out, not pitcher's hands), then go to the pool after lunch, come home for dinner, and go back to the pool again at night...and it was usually several of us all riding our bikes about a 2 mile ride one-way and not worrying a lick about how long it took us....but we really hated when it was time for "adult swim".

[zamboni]

Windy and Geno...is it Duck Duck Gray Duck or Duck Duck Goose????

That seems to be a Minnesota thing. Kind of like people here calling lunch dinner. I did that in the Navy once and I thought I was gonna get beat up.

[Windy City]

Not at all, we used to play Duck Duck Goose back in the day!

Windy

[Jim Almquist]

It must be a MN. thing cause we called it duck duck grey duck. Did you ever play 4 square or tether ball or at least that is what we called it when the ball was attached to a pole and you had to wind it one direction and the other person had to go in the opposite direction. We also had a game that was called box hockey that was play with a puck and hockey sticks that had the blade cut off and there was 6 boxs that you had maneuver through to score a goal. Thanks for the memories guys

[genegodawa]

Going to the Boys Club in winter to play floor hockey....or basketball.

Every block had plenty of kids..and we all knew (of) each other and our block was nicknamed the "Granville Grasshoppers" and we would challenge other blocks to games (street hockey, basketball, slow pitch 12-inch, and football - but tackle football was rough 'cause everyone was afraid of the older/bigger kids - but that was a challenge to take your game to the next level- and they respected us for trying.

And speaking of hockey: plastic blades - and we would use Mom's stove to heat 'em up to curve 'em like Mikita and Hull...wrist shots with those were deadly!

Gotta a coupla new thread idea for memory-lane:

Early jobs! And another one: Early "crushes"

I'll start 'em.

[UdeLakeTom]

Stretch...feet together and spike a pocket knife, it had to stick and the other person reach and spike it the other way. You had to put it where the other person couldn't reach it in order to win. Baseball in the field, not the playground, early game in the am....time out for lunch and then an afternoon game, and a nite game after supper until dark.

[genegodawa]

We were not allowed to play with knives....or pea shooters....or slingshots for that matter.

I remember my first switchblade and I still have it...cool!

[echo2010]

I was born in 75

A. TV Shows_ Chips,Dukes

B. Song- I love a Rainy Night by Eddie Rabbit

C. Musician- Men at Work

D. Video Game. - Pitt Fall on Atari

E. Movie- Puff the Magic Dragon

F. Toy(s)- My Snoopy Snow cone Machine

[Raider4ever]

DOB Dec. 1961

Favorites:

A. TV Shows: Rat Patrol and Green Hornet

B. Song: Tokens-Lion Sleeps Tonight

C. Musician: Many. Beethoven, Tom-Tom Club, Journey, Talking Heads, Marvin

D. Video Game. There can be only one: SPACE INVADERS

E. Movie: Where to Start? Highlander (one), Star Wars (first one), Kelly's Heros

F. Toy(s): Baseballs, footballs, basketballs, Volleyballs (for "Trench"/Dodgeball)

Man, this thread takes you back to the day doesn't it?

Oops, forgot one of my all-time favorite movies: Rollerball (the one with James Caan, not that P.O.S. remake). Sheesh, how could I forget the movie that brought us "The Corporate Anthem"

My bad.

[lovebigbluegills]

I'm glad I read this thread...I almost forgot about my hockey game in the back of the closet. I'll put a picture of it on here tomorrow if I remember to take one tonight. My two teams are the Canadians and I think the second team is the Seals.

The same exact thing Windy described, still have the original puck, and I have to stick a hard-cover book under one corner because the leg broke off.

Brought back some great memories, thanks guys.

[Marbleye'd]

Born in 72

A:Barney Miller

B:"In 1814 we took a little trip..." (I wore out the 8-track trying to hear "when we took the powder off the gator lost his mind")

C:Jonny Horton, Kenny Rogers, Elvis My mom is a big country music fan

D:telestar pong or tennis or handball all the same just different size paddles.

E:Convoy, anywhich way but loose,Close encounters ot the third kind,Gremlins

F:My bike with yellow mag wheels, canoe, those hand held video games (Donkey kong). Those dollar grab bags at Pinky's Bait. My first openface reel.

[Marbleye'd]

I just have a quik lil' story. My Brother in-law had to punish my nephew so he took his cell phone and ps3 and internet away from him and said he could still call his friends but had to use the land line. He then thought about it and said "hey this what the eightys were like" I'm still laughing about that! lol

[zamboni]

Marbleye'd- I got my PS3, and chose Close Encounters as the first Blu-Ray to buy. I think it was a great choice. Of course, it did almost blow the speakers on my new tv before I hooked up a surround system.

[zamboni]

I was born in 75

A. TV Shows_ Chips,Dukes

B. Song- I love a Rainy Night by Eddie Rabbit

C. Musician- Men at Work

D. Video Game. - Pitt Fall on Atari

E. Movie- Puff the Magic Dragon

F. Toy(s)- My Snoopy Snow cone Machine

You and I should hang out sometime, love everything on your list, but have to admit I have yet to see Puff, the magic dragon movie though