I loved spinning around. Great if you just wanted to be out in the backyard for awhile and happened to be alone, there was still the solitary amusement of spinning! A plus was having a tree or trees, so you could look up into the branches while spinning. That produced a nifty buzz!

TV was good for outdoor use, too. Crime dramas gave us plots, "Our Gang" comedies gave us impetus.
My neighborhood had concrete sidewalks on each side of the street. These became our "highways" when we played our versions of "Highway Patrol," or "Dragnet" with bikes and trikes doubling as squad cars and getaway cars. (Our curbside performances were legendary.) One girl, Gail, was enamored with the role of "the drunken gun moll." She would wear her rummage-sale "dress-up" clothes and a smear of purloined lipstick. She would spin behind a nearby bush until "quite drunken." At some point, she would stumble toward a parked "squad car" toting an old discarded black patent leather purse, and start an argument with the "men," wildly weaving, bellowing and flailing her arms. Eventually, she'd reach in that purse and pull out a cap pistol! Then the heat was really on!!! I was usually the coroner.

Nowadays, Gail is a fine and respected third-generation pharmacist at the helm of the local still-family-owned drug store.

So much for childhood gun play-- Local Gun Moll Makes Good!

I still spin around....

Ah, the memories. What I think of most in our youth and playing, stimulated by NCeddie was our “violent” play such as pretend war (my glorious Johnny Seven Gun – One Man Army), cops and robbers, cowboys, or whatever. Amazingly, it did not damage our heads or make us killers, or anything like that. In fact, I became a peace freak . . . or at least a freak ;-)

It was a carefree time, where no one paid any attention to silly ideas of little things having such serious overblown exaggerated dangers.

Sprinklers were replaced after age 12 with squirt guns. Back yards had tents, forts. We had a nice sized willow tree in front which we would climb. We would take cement for chalk and draw railroad tracks on the road that we would ride over with our bikes. We had some nice woods very near to our house and loved playing out in those. Small streams ran through the wood and froze in winter so you could skate on them or travel with boots.

I really feel bad for anyone who did not have some good woods to play in. Playing “Search” or the like was a blast. We had a huge field available when we moved to Portland. Again, great for hiding spying, etc. Of course, riding bikes in it and minibikes, too, was great. That’s all gone now.

I recall playing many games such as Giant Step, Rev Rover, Ghost Down Cellar, Red Light Green Light, and probably others, too. Hide and seek was always great. Four square in the road was excellent!

When I think of my toys, my favorites had to be the Johnny Seven Gun and my ThingMaker stuff, found elsewhere on this site. Catching frogs and polly wogs was always an annual event. They were actually toads in S.P. but there were frogs in Portland and great ponds till house building destroyed them all by mid 70s. We were certainly a lucky bunch.

But if kids are not playing outside as much or having as much fun, part of it is that parents are far more messed up today (my opinion only), being so fooled by that PC crap. Most good places we played are gone or ruined. Can’t ride a bike without a helmet now. Kids live in such a dangerous world, you know ;-) Schools fill them full of crap, too. So its tough being a kid today. My heart goes out to them.

Scott Irv:
You mentioned many great playtime activities and places. Here in NC, we played those also, and there was the elementary schoolyard, the 20 acre turn-of-the-century city park. a small neighborhood shopping center, a wooded creek-- all a few blocks away. Seems kids all over the US developed similar play, and found interesting playspaces! Neighborhood parents were caring, but NOT stifling (or PC). Most moms were stay-at-homes and were available to us indiscriminately --if-- we needed aid, comfort or supervision. In that lull between housework and time to start supper, moms could often be spotted in little clusters, visiting on front doorsteps or backyard lawn chairs. Adult or child, everybody was familiar to one another in the neighborhoods. Sadly, Liberation aside, I think the absence of moms has proven detrimental to the safety and cohesiveness of good ol' middle-class neighborhoods-- and of children's freedom to play outdoors. I do not envy the 21st century child or his environment. No thanks!

Dave:
Where would you and your friends be scrapping together those summertime lunches nowadays? Us Boomers have such great memories-- and we owe those sacrificing moms of the era a big Thanks for unwittingly providing the underpinning!

We too did all those things growing up in the summer, and not just in our back yards. any back yard was fair game in the neighborhood even if they didn't have kids. Nobody minded everybody knew everybody.
And everybody had bikes, we roamed up 10 miles to the state parks in the days before we got our first "junkers".
My first grade was in a 2 room school house called McGuffy Hall that sat along side the main school building and was closed when I hit 2nd grade.
We had a dirt (dust) play ground with slides and swings surounded by huge old oak trees that stood at least 100 years until the local Lions club wanted a pavilion there.
and in their great wisdom
cut them all down and black topped over everthing along with tearing down the 100 year old school house !
The little Mom&Pop store that we all bought wax lips and Tootsie Rolls in at recess is now a Jiffy Lube and Tanning salon.
In the winter we had a place called the Tri State Casting Club.
It was about a 2 1/2 acre lake that had a clubhouse that they opened up for ice skating. NO CHARGE, or 50 cents at most. I know the old guy didn't charge us neighborhood kids, but people would come in from miles away.
You could buy hot chocalate or pop (soda) or your skates sharpened.
Lights at night and music on the loudspeakers when they worked.
Then the Shriners bought the place and kicked everybody off and put up their NO TRESPASSING signs.
I'm sure both groups do a lot of good but the boomers around here that remember what they destoyed aren't very happy with them.

I had a huge treehouse in the backyard where I played the whole day. In my village there is exactly 1 with a treehouse. Kids don't play outside anymore. When my daughter was little we always let her play outside. And for the army-stuff, I played with it a lot. I had action-man and I 'never had the feeling to harm somebody.

*** Bob in Ohio ***

Kids don't bother with imaginative outdoor play any longer, so all of our kid-friendly fun spaces have become mini-ghost towns. Inevitably, people come along and render them permanently UN-kid-friendly!

To NCeddie,
yes I remember all the moms and today’s kids absolutely suffer in many ways for the absence of them. While I think it could be said that moms did not do as much as they could, what they did do was much better than not having them at all. Everyone was looked after by everyone else, as you point out.
And with mom at home, the husband could come home and not face pressure to do more and might have some time for the kids. Mom did not have a boss over her head, though I would not say she had it easy raising kids but I think many women today would like to have it like 60s moms.

To Bob,
I remember the year well. It was 1967, and most of our favorite places like Bear Pond and Old Orchard beach all began to charge for parking and most lakes you had to pay for admission. Just one year earlier, we had neither. It was the year greed began in earnest. Parking spaces downtown all got meters that did not have them before. This in southern Maine. Bob, where did you live as a kid?

Ronald,
I never had a tree house but I played in a few and loved them. They were so exciting. I did not venture far from home till beginning 3rd grade. But I was one of the few. Odd, because I could be quote in the shy side. But bikes give freedom to wander. Long live bikes.

NCeddie,
I think many kid friendly places in my neck of the woods just disappeared. Housing went nut in the 80s in southern Maine. And Housing went insane in the 90s. Portland area became like 12th most expensive in the USA, cause we did not have the traffic (till 1999) or the minorities and Mass. People just loved those cheap prices on our houses, so they ain't cheap no more. They built on anything and everything. Kids got nothing now. No ghost towns here. That would be nice. We used to have lots of wide open spaces. Those were the days.

This ended up being a really good subject. Touched some nerves. Cool! Good job, Ron!

Ahhhh! The memories..We lived in a simple suburban neighborhood with a mid size backyard. We had a large pine tree in the back that we would climb and make tree forts. Younger days, the sandbox with multiple tonka toy trucks. We did the sprinkler occassionally, but we had the blow up plastic swimming pool. We had a one person swing which was made by a family member. Yes, the lunchs were great! Wonder bread, peanut butter and jelly, tuna or oscar myer products! Freetos and Kool Aid. Maybe a fizzie? Making club houses out of large cardboard boxes. Running around the backyard wearing a mom's bathroom towel playing Batman or Superman. Nextdoor neighbor had a bigger backyard and we played whiffle ball and kickball! Out front on the sidewalk, Red Light, Green Light game, hopscotch and other games. Sleding in the winder as our house was on a big hill! How many times did you get stung by a bee running barefoot! Catching bees, fireflies at night and grasshoppers. I was terrified of those Praying mantis but was told that if you destroyed one, it was against the law. Remember taking the buttercups in your yard and seeing if you had butter by putting under your friends chin. Sipping the nectar from a honey suckle bush. Blowing on a blade of grass to make screeching noises! Classic stuff! Fun stuff! Oh the memories!