Did you ever.......

[icepac]

Our toy guns made from sticks quickly evolved into slingshots when we pilfered mom's sewing stuff for thread and needles so we could sew/wrap the cut up inner tube lengths to the stick and fashion a pocket for the shot from a shirt we no longer needed.

We learned a lot of basic physics and gained quite a few skills from that and it was super cool to shoot rocks at the road at a shallow angle to make richochet sounds and watch sparks at night.

Things finally got out of control when we got a large cup full of pachinko balls from the arcade and simply kept them instead of feeding them into the machine.

The iron golf clubs for guns quickly were put back to thier original intent.........kinda.....when we discovered the joys of soaking a fuzzy tennis ball with gasoline and tee'd off on them.

That was brought to an end when a buddy shanked one into some open jalousie windows that were caused the ball to wedge between them without breaking anything.

Our laughs were quickly replaced by action as the burning ball quickly ignited the curtains inside and we realized that the doors were locked.

We learned how to break into the house quickly that day and how to sew a new seam on the now narrower curtains and decide which curtains in the seldom used guest bedroom would not be noticed as substantially narrower.

We also learned how to clean soot off the ceiling.

Another thing we had huge amounts of fun with was making nooses out of palm tree leaves...........the kind they weave those hats out of.

You can pull the backbone off of the green parts of the leaves and end up with a delicate but pretty durable and thin stick about 2 1/2 feet long that tapers to a fine point.

You can tie a slip knot in the end with a open diameter of about 3/4 of an inch and walk right up to lizards and put it around thier necks to catch them since they just ignored the noose even as it went around thier neck................once you pull it, the action began.

What to do with a 4 or 5 inch lizard once you have it?

Easy........earrings.

Hold the lizard and make him angry by touching near his mouth and he will open it and then walk up to the girl you have a crush on and put the open mouth on her earlobe.  

The lizard will clamp down (not hard enough to even produce a scrape) and much action ensues usually ending with the girl or your dreams actually being physically stronger than you are catching you alone and vulnerable to a beating. (I loved older 6th graders when I was in 5th).

I don't think I wore a pair of long pants until high school and then it was only when we went roller skating.
 

[danny76]

I spent all my spare time building forts and dens in the woods by our house. Conducting running battles with other local kids using stick guns and shouting "bang" and out running the school caretaker on our bikes in the summer holidays.

I joined the Air Cadets at 13, we did many exercises where we would run around and shout "bang" at the enemy.

When I joined the Regular Army, one of the first exercises I went on resulted in the rapid use of our complement of blank rounds, resulting in us shouting.... you guessed it

When I did my pre deployment training 2 years ago we were about to toddle off to the hottest warzone in recent times and again there were times when ammo was expended and we were shouting bang again. Probably 30 years after firing my first imaginary bullet

[icepac]

Just watch out for the guy shouting "tank".

[Bizman]

I spent all my spare time building forts and dens in the woods by our house. Conducting running battles with other local kids using stick guns and shouting "bang" and out running the school caretaker on our bikes in the summer holidays.

I joined the Air Cadets at 13, we did many exercises where we would run around and shout "bang" at the enemy.

When I joined the Regular Army, one of the first exercises I went on resulted in the rapid use of our complement of blank rounds, resulting in us shouting.... you guessed it

When I did my pre deployment training 2 years ago we were about to toddle off to the hottest warzone in recent times and again there were times when ammo was expended and we were shouting bang again. Probably 30 years after firing my first imaginary bullet

Where I served, we weren't usually given even blanks due to saving on material costs, at least not more than about five pieces. That resulted into yelling "bang, bang", or even "Burrrrst". I don't recall shouting "tracer" during the late night practice attacks, though...

Yes
Yes
Yes.

Must be an East coast thing...

Originally a European thing going west, but novelties seem to travel slowly over there. 

[Dragon]

Yes to all 3 plus yes to the snow forts.  One of the late 70's blizzards created a huge C shaped pile at the end of our dead end street.  Tunnels, forts and ramparts were immediately constructed by all us youngsters and a week long snowball fight began.   The plows were hailed and cheers were offered as they delivered fresh supplies even at the cost of an occasional collapse.

Now I think it's a lawsuit to leave one standing unattended or even build one due to the collapse hazard.  No wonder engineers are all so stupid these days, natural selection isn't allowed.

[LCADolby]

I had a plastic Luger (cap Gun) and a tape carrying case I converted into a Luger carrying case 

Made a "base" not in a tree but a Huge bush thing, was awesome we had all sorts of things in it we scavenged, including an abandoned cooker 

Never made a paper Jupiter though 

[homersipes]

when I was a kid, I lived next to a rail yard so we would take the junk rail ties and build forts like a log cabin, then take mud and grass and fill the cracks.  The roof was cheesy though just a piece of carpet   My dad worked for a cable television company and had som coaxial cable, made nunchucks (or however its spelled) out of the short pieces.   I was always a horrible shot with a slingshot, used to shoot at prairie dogs with them, then we got older and got pellet guns and then they were in trouble .  most of my teenage days were spent in the woods stalking deer   could never get a good picture of any of the big bucks I saw but did get some cool sunsets

[Nefarious]

No.
Yes.
Yes.

[Rino]

     Man this is a great thread, brings back many many wonderful memories, oh yeah...

1)No
2)Yes
3)yes

      Snow forts, and acorn fights in the fall, you betcha.  Then we discovered the joys of bazooka warfare with bottle rockets
fired out of 1/2 inch pipe