The Over 40 Crowd

[Guppy35]

Johnny Quest.  GI Joe before the beards and Kung Fu grip.  "Polish Cannons" made from taped together Tennis ball containers, a hole near the bottom, lighter fluid and a tennis ball

[SPKmes]

I'm pretty sure I'm hard of hearing, I have a tough time making words out.  11 year old with a folding knife?  Recipie for disaster.

-Penguin

 

We used to make monkey apple guns (called this because of the fruit we started off using for war) a piece of PVC pipe and the finger of a rubber glove (dishwashingglove)and a bit of tape hours of fun and welts...(if you think it sounds soft..make one and give it ago..birth of paintball I reckon hahaha
Bullrush....with friends at the park and on the field at school..the game is banned at schools here...oh and another thing...just on the banning side...do you remember going to a christmas parade and waiting for santa and the lollies he threw out...well guess what...lolly scrambles are dangerous and public ones like we used to have are not allowed

I have to give my kids a slap everyday just to keep them from turning into a marshmellow   hahahah  (only joking)

[Stalwart]

Thoughts on TV and Sports from forty something.

Thirty five years ago:

If there was a kid's special on TV that you really wanted to see, like Charlie Brown, then you planned for it.  I remember running all the way home from school in third grade because King Kong was going to air at 3:30.  If I missed it, it might be another year before it came on again.

No VCR or DVR.  If you wanted to see a show on TV you better find out when it's on and get yer butt in front of a TV.  No pause.  No rewind.  No replay.  When the commercial break started you got up and ran to the bathroom, and if you were fast enough you could make it to the cookie jar too before the show started again, or else you just plain missed it. 

Your big sports league games were on TV with regularity.  But all the amazing, unusual, incredible variety of sports was showcased on Saturday afternoon in ABC's Wide World of Sports.  And the OLYMPICS.  Oh, my.  How do I say this.  The Holy Grail of Amateur Sports.  Once every four years, Summer/Winter.  It was an all consuming sports festival, and it was majestic.  I don't know if it's because of todays multiple 24/7 cable sports channels "all-sports-all-the-time" or the IOC's decision to move away from "amateur" athletes, but the magic of today's Olympics has worn thin.  Thirty years ago the broadcast of the Olympics was something really special.

my few cents 

[100Coogn]

Just sent a copy of that to my kids wayout. 
Great find there.

  Coogan

[jimson]

11 year old with a folding knife?  Recipie for disaster.
-Penguin

Are you kidding me? It was pretty much mandatory in the scouts. We also had hatchets and other useful tools for the outdoors.

Somehow we all survived.

Today's kids probably don't do much camping unless there's an "app" for that.

[phatzo]

Are you kidding me? It was pretty much mandatory in the scouts. We also had hatchets and other useful tools for the outdoors.

Somehow we all survived.

Today's kids probably don't do much camping unless there's an "app" for that.

LOL, One of my fondest childhood memories is my best mate at scouts chopping himself out of a tree with a hatchet by removing the branch he was hanging on to. The angle of his fall placed him fair and square in the middle of the campfire scattering our sausages everywhere, we managed to brush the dirt off most and they were still edible.

[rpm]

Icky Twerp and Slam Bang Theater! 

[DREDIOCK]

Thoughts on TV and Sports from forty something.

Thirty five years ago:

If there was a kid's special on TV that you really wanted to see, like Charlie Brown, then you planned for it.  I remember running all the way home from school in third grade because King Kong was going to air at 3:30.  If I missed it, it might be another year before it came on again.

No VCR or DVR.  If you wanted to see a show on TV you better find out when it's on and get yer butt in front of a TV.  No pause.  No rewind.  No replay.  When the commercial break started you got up and ran to the bathroom, and if you were fast enough you could make it to the cookie jar too before the show started again, or else you just plain missed it. 

Your big sports league games were on TV with regularity.  But all the amazing, unusual, incredible variety of sports was showcased on Saturday afternoon in ABC's Wide World of Sports.  And the OLYMPICS.  Oh, my.  How do I say this.  The Holy Grail of Amateur Sports.  Once every four years, Summer/Winter.  It was an all consuming sports festival, and it was majestic.  I don't know if it's because of todays multiple 24/7 cable sports channels "all-sports-all-the-time" or the IOC's decision to move away from "amateur" athletes, but the magic of today's Olympics has worn thin.  Thirty years ago the broadcast of the Olympics was something really special.

my few cents 

Yup yup yup

ahh wide world of sports
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2AZH4FeGsc

Sat mornings were dominated by cartoons

And the evening news just was interested in reporting the news...period. Very little spin and almost no entertainment value. The most entertaining part of the news was the weather guy. I remmeber ABC out of NY had this guy that looked exactly like Frank Perdue

[Rash]

Johnny Quest.  GI Joe before the beards and Kung Fu grip.  "Polish Cannons" made from taped together Tennis ball containers, a hole near the bottom, lighter fluid and a tennis ball

Tennis ball cannon was great fun!

[ink]

creature double feature......and the Chinese movies...cant remember what they were called?

oh just remembered "Thundar the Barbarian"...and ohkla the monk.

[Babalonian]

Johnny Quest.  GI Joe before the beards and Kung Fu grip.  "Polish Cannons" made from taped together Tennis ball containers, a hole near the bottom, lighter fluid and a tennis ball

Too bad the youth of your generation came 10-years before the invention of commercial-grade hair spray. 

[ROX]

We were lucky after the new house.  We got color tv in 1969.

I loved listening to the radio...hence my future career.

Every kid had a flat-top haircut and a short sleved shirt and pair of slacks were 3x a week church wear.

Saturday morning cartoons went quickly into playing with the neighborhood kids, cap guns, firecrackers, dirt clod fights in the farm fields.  Snow forts and snowball fights that went on all day.  Mom made popcorn in an old covered stock pot and we had popcorn with Lowrey's Seasoned Salt on "Bewitched" TV show night.  Snow-cream was big in NE Illinois in the winter.  There was no need for "keeping up with the Jonse's on clothes.  A pair of shorts, t-shirt, socks and sneakers was all the "fashion" you needed.  Little League baseball rocked and there was no prize for 2nd or third place.  If you were rotten you got the belt or the cherry tree switch and that was that.

[skorpion]

Saturday morning cartoons went quickly into playing with the neighborhood kids, cap guns, firecrackers, dirt clod fights in the farm fields.  Snow forts and snowball fights that went on all day.  Mom made popcorn in an old covered stock pot and we had popcorn with Lowrey's Seasoned Salt. Snow-cream was big in NE Illinois in the winter.

all of that, with the exeption of cartoons are still stuck with me today...my mom never let go of those times because well id admit it too-its fun. why not be stupid with your friends and go throw firecrackers at the birds in your neighbors birdbath or shoot bottle rockets at birds passing by. sometimes (and i still do this today with my friends) we go out with our airsoft/paintball rifles and have a little fun-aka 4 on 4 war!

yeah only half of the stuff is still here today but i see why. people need their Xbox 360's and PS3's and whatnot...seriously i dont care for video games. dont see why people do anyways, it just sucks the life out of you.

[ROX]

On ch 9 WGN-TV Chicago when I was a kid Ray Rayner (Raynor?) did a kids/parents show in the mornings with cartoons and then again a low key cartoon show after school with Gigantor & Clutch Cargo.

Not many people knew that Ray was a former B-17 gunner.  Got shot down over Germany and sent to a Luftstalag in Silesia...the exact same Luftstalag where the tunnels and escape plans were the basis of "The Great Escape" movie.  He even helped dig the tunnels, but was transfered to a different camp only weeks before the original "Great Escape" happened.

[DREDIOCK]

creature double feature