# Childhood memories



## sags (May 15, 2010)

I thought I would start a thread about our childhood memories, that could provide interesting commentary on how "things used to be".

Hopefully, they will be happy recollections of parents, siblings, life adventures.........maybe up until the age of adulthood.

Where did you live, what did your parents do for a living, where did you visit, how many siblings do you have,.........those kinds of memories.

We had a wonderful friend who we met when we moved into a home and she lived across the street. She introduced herself and was really taken with our infant son.

She became his "granny" and we were close until she passed away at age 97. She had so many interesting stories that I loved hearing about her life journey.

She had 13 siblings.......unheard of today, but not so unusual back in the day. She lived in Springhill N.S. and her father worked in the mine.

He had just changed shifts and come out of the mine when the infamous Springhill collapse happened. She still had his miner hat and lunchbox.

Anyways..........enough about me. What about you !


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## peterk (May 16, 2010)

In our little town most of the neighborhoods were only ~10 years old, so there were still a number of empty lots with no houses. We spent a lot of time on those lots... One had a giant hill to climb up, one was marshy with tadpoles and frogs, one called the chalk-rock pit which had natural chalk that we dug up, one with huge poofball mushrooms growing, one with a giant boulder to jump off of. We'd often dig holes and try and tunnel to China, or dig pit traps to lure unsuspecting creatures and people. Lots of digging!

Nowadays I don't see too many empty lots, and the ones I do look pretty plain... not very fun... Guess I'm just a boring adult now!


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

Sometimes I wonder how we survived as kids.

At the end of my grandparents street there was an open field, where the McCormicks factory used to dump all their broken cookies and clumps of candies.

We always kept an eye out and when we saw the truck, we would wait until they left and go in and eat as much as we wanted.

I remember chewing fresh asphalt like chewing gum, and we used to jump out of pine trees onto the roof of buses going by, just because we could. 

We used to jump off the roof of homes just to see if we could.

Anytime a bread or milk truck came by we hitched a ride on the back by bumper jumping.

And all through these "adventures" my parents never said a word. Mom kicked us out of the house at 8 am and said don't come back until supper.

I think we parents worry far too much today, but then again it is a different world and we were much more independent as kids back then.

We also learned to defend ourselves, and didn't get into trouble for doing so.

I suppose our parents felt a little safer knowing their kids could be tough little scrappers if they had to be.

Today a kid gets bullied and can't fight back. They have to run to the teacher, there are meetings with the other parents, and a week later the bully is at it again.


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## Longtimeago (Aug 8, 2018)

I don't remember anyone ever referring to the topic of bullying. I don't remember anyone having allergies to food of any kind. I don't remember parents walking kids to school to 'keep them safe'. I don't remember anyone having a preference in clothing brands or shoe brands other than PF Flyers for gym. Even that wasn't a preference, it was pretty much the only brand available.


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## jargey3000 (Jan 25, 2011)

hahaa...I dont remember anyone having peanut allergies, or asthma or ADD.
i remember most kids having nicknames...buck, pots, doc, gink, monk , skimo etc...
I dont know HOW we managed to fill our days...WITHOUT. social media...


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## Mookie (Feb 29, 2012)

sags said:


> Sometimes I wonder how we survived as kids.


My Dad was just a kid growing up on a farm in Europe during WWII. One day he and a couple of his brothers found an unexploded bomb in a ditch, so of course that was something interesting to play with... Until their dad found out, and then playtime was over. Good thing it was a dud, or I would never have existed. LOL


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## like_to_retire (Oct 9, 2016)

sags said:


> Sometimes I wonder how we survived as kids.
> 
> At the end of my grandparents street there was an open field, where the McCormicks factory used to dump all their broken cookies and clumps of candies.
> 
> ...



Sags, oh man, I think you and I grew up at the same time.

Back then of course we had to walk, many, many miles to school, no one was ever bused to their school, so most days we'd hide in wait behind bushes and when the city bus stopped, we would bumper jump and get a free bus ride home after school - incredibly dangerous, but we all did it. In the winter, when the roads were covered with ice, we would all scramble to hold onto the bus bumper and ski home on the ice. 

And you're right, my Mom would kick my brother and I out of the house on weekends with just 5 words. _"Go Play - Dinners at Five"_. I compare that to my 4 grandchildren today and their protected lives with constant monitoring and iPads for entertainment. It's so different.

As kids, every weekend we would all go down to the swamp that was at the end of our block where there were no houses and we'd play war. We all had BB-guns. Consider today, 10 kids walking down the street with guns - how would that go down? We would divide up in the swamp and play a war game and shoot at each other with the accepted proviso of "no shooting at anyone's face" - (because yeah, that would be bad). Nothing was better than corralling a guy up a tree and shooting BB's into his butt until he gave up. OMG, I think I still have BB welts on my behind.

Yeah, lots of nicknames for all my friends (do kids still do that?), incredible autonomy (that kids have lost today), bullies taken care of either through avoidance or pack justice, no allergies, no ADD, no asthma, no concern for clothing - I accepted whatever shoes or shirts my Mom gave me.

ltr


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## AltaRed (Jun 8, 2009)

Y'all so far had urban experiences. Mine was a cattle ranch in a mountain valley in the remoteness of the Rockies. No refrigeration nor electricity until age 7, no OTA TV until age 14 and first 6 years of schooling in a one room country schoolhouse of local ranch kids. Walked to school all those years regardless of weather, grew up milking cows, repairing fences and then the excitement of operating tractors and machinery by age 12. Hard work but learned how to do almost everything. 

Best memories were listening to and watching nature on quiet summer evenings, watching deer, elk, moose, coyote, bear and cougar walk by, hiking and horseback riding in the mountains, rounding up cattle from the open range in the fall, board games with the family, and getting together for periodic community functions of 6-8 families from the valley in the local country school. Some of the best fun was messing with 2-3 of the neighbouring ranch girls during most of our teen years... If parents had only known!


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## ian (Jun 18, 2016)

I can remember my father taking me down to CN Turcot Yard in Montreal. Put me on an engine and the engineer let me push the throttle and move the engine. At that time the roundhouse was still there, with a few steam engines stored at the side. Can also remember going on the CP communter train from the West Island to Montreal. In the winter there was a wood stove in the waiting room that passengers would light up in the AM. Can just remember steam engines on those trains. Then diesel.


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## kcowan (Jul 1, 2010)

We lived in a place called North York which bordered Toronto. The roads were McAdam and there were no sidewalks. We walked 5 miles to the nearest school and there was a pathway worn in the wild grasses as everyone headed for that trail that was the most direct route.

There were open creeks and lots of chances to catch frogs, toads and snakes, many of which found their way into classes. During harsh winters (that was before the greenhouse dome covered all that area), we would brown bag it. We had outdoor skating rinks. There was a large one in the Don Valley behind The Jolly Miller.

Avenue Road was called Highway 11A and crossed the Don Valley to join Yonge Street. It was a 2-lane bridge.

The phone had a black metal dial and was wall-mounted. It was a party line (3 ways) because there weren't enough to give everyone their own line. Picking up the phone was like picking up an extension today. You would wait and try again later. You had to make sure you did not answer the other parties rings (long and short or 2 longs like Morse Code). Many homes had no phone.

There are several more paragraphs and chapters but I will spare you!


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## Mukhang pera (Feb 26, 2016)

Like kc, although born in Vancouver, I grew up in North York (Lawrence Park). Less rural than where he was. But Glenallan and Stratheden Roads east of Mildenhall did not then exist, nor did Daneswood. That acreage was all bush and swamp and was a great local attraction for us kids, with the usual field and marsh critters of which kc speaks. That untamed zone extended to Bayview Ave, where a large Salvation Army outpost now sits (or did, last time I was there). 

The Don Valley and Don River were readily accessible by bicycle and on foot. Lawrence Ave. ended at what we used to call the "Woods' Estate" that was a great place to wander about, and later became the 84-acre campus of Glendon College of York University (a.k.a. the "Country Club" of York U.). We also frequented the abandoned "Proctor Estate" at the intersection of Blythwood and Bayview. There was a well-preserved mansion on the premises, with a ballroom with marble floors I can recall. It was slowly reverting to nature, a process interrupted by the estate acreage being turned into an upscale subdivision. I still have a hollow-stem crystal champagne glass I pulled out of a tree, reached through the leaded glass windows of the ballroom. 

Kc mentions party line telephones. In BC we had a party line on Pender Island. You could elect private, or a 2-party or 4-party line, with costs in descending order. As weekenders who were not there to talk on the phone, we opted for 4-party, which cost about $6/mo. in the 80s. There were usually only 2 of us on it - us and neighbours a quarter mile up the road, also weekenders. You had to recognize your own ring. By about 1990 we had to go private. No more party lines. I recall my father and I used to hunt ducks and geese at a friend's farm on the Rideau River near Kingston. I think they had about 7 parties on their line. You really had to pay attention to complex ring patterns to recognize and answer your own. Their phone # was "Inverary five two, ring four". We used to visit family in Madison Indiana, on the Ohio River. There, to make a call, you would simply pick up any handset and wait for the operator to come online. To call my relatives, you would tell the operator "five eight O please" and you would be connected.

My reminiscence would not be complete without a salute to those perverts and pedophiles at the local high school who called themselves teachers and who forced us to parade naked before them for swim class. The Indian residential schools had nothing on those creeps. I am waiting my apology (and compensation, of course), from J. Trudeau, Esq. To top it off, those dolts thought it to be a good form of pedagogy to administer swimming "tests" for marks that would be used to determine one's overall average. Now the kids came from a variety of backgrounds, starting in grade 9. Some had never learned to swim and some (like me) grew up with being on lakes and rivers in summer and could swim quite well. None of us were ever given the least bit of instruction. But all were "tested". The usual test, administered each term, was being required to swim 10 lengths of the pool in 10 minutes. For each minute over 10 minutes, one mark was deducted. Needless to say, a fair number of zeros were handed out. Very fair and reasonable. For me, I usually came in around 7 or 8. I was a strong swimmer. I could swim, literally, miles. But not fast. A few in the class participated on weekends in "competitive swim". Those guys always got 10/10.


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## m3s (Apr 3, 2010)

AltaRed said:


> Y'all so far had urban experiences. Mine was a cattle ranch in a mountain valley in the remoteness of the Rockies. No refrigeration nor electricity until age 7, no OTA TV until age 14 and first 6 years of schooling in a one room country schoolhouse of local ranch kids. Walked to school all those years regardless of weather, grew up milking cows, repairing fences and then the excitement of operating tractors and machinery by age 12. Hard work but learned how to do almost everything.
> 
> Best memories were listening to and watching nature on quiet summer evenings, watching deer, elk, moose, coyote, bear and cougar walk by, hiking and horseback riding in the mountains, rounding up cattle from the open range in the fall, board games with the family, and getting together for periodic community functions of 6-8 families from the valley in the local country school. Some of the best fun was messing with 2-3 of the neighbouring ranch girls during most of our teen years... If parents had only known!


This is the closest to mine except a different era and location. Collect eggs, pick apples, dig potatoes, milk cows, pile hay, split wood, rinse, repeat etc. We were self sufficient before it was cool including unpasteurized dairy and root cellars. 3 TV channels OTA but that was mostly for the evening news. Small regional school of rural kids but we could usually destroy the big city schools in contact sports (they'd usually beat us in volleyball, track etc)

Dial up internet and cell phones eventually made it easier to chat up the neighbour's daughters. We were pretty much free range compared to urban kids today. Off roading to secluded beaches, caves, waterfalls and islands that only us locals knew are UNESCO protected off limits now (so they can flatten out wide highways for the class a rvs and chinese tour buses) Family recently sold the herd but not the farm. Many are splitting up or selling into larger farms.


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## MrMatt (Dec 21, 2011)

Well regards to safety, we have a more publicized media on the negatives and people are psychologically more sensitive to negative stimulus.

Considering the massive increase in crime rates from the 60's-80's, yeah people became more sensitive.
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/11-630-x/11-630-x2015001-eng.htm

As for allergies, some likely didn't exist, other times kids just died.
Asthma and some allergies were definately there, I know people who didn't get diagnosed until their 50's and 60's. Then they finally understood why they were so sickly as a child, while they got beatings for "being lazy". FYI it's hard to do much when you can breath.

As far as bullying, I know people who were injured to the point of hospitalization, and the response was "boys will be boys", yes there has been some coddling, but I don't think we want kids to be inflicting serious injuries to "sort things out"

Right now I think we're on the backswing of the pendulum, the over coddled zero tolerance kids are working their way through the end of school and entering the real world, so we have a bunch of overly sensitive millenials out there who want the authorities to do everything for them. They don't think you take responsibility, and there will always be someone to tattle to to make things better. It's not their fault, society failed them.

But the next generation is getting better, the zero tolerance policies and no late marks are sliding, kids are taking more responsibility and being replaced with much more nuanced policies. I just hope they get out there quick enough to undo the damage the millenials are doing.


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## AltaRed (Jun 8, 2009)

m3s said:


> This is the closest to mine except a different era and location. Collect eggs, pick apples, dig potatoes, milk cows, pile hay, split wood, rinse, repeat etc. We were self sufficient before it was cool including unpasteurized dairy and root cellars.


Did all that too except no apples one mile above sea level in the Rockies. Loved school days because I didn't have to milk cows in the morning nor feed the pigs. The toughest 2 jobs on the ranch were packing and installing replacement fence posts up big hills and into forests where machinery couldn't go (before the days of ATVs), and needing to pull calves in difficult births at any hour of the day in Feb-May. The 2 best jobs I liked on the ranch was cutting and baling hay (loved machinery) in July-August, and taking cattle out to summer pasture and rounding up in the fall on horseback.

All said though, family farm ranching was difficult and I was highly motivated to get out of there and get an engineering degree. "Hands on" ranching though gave me the work ethic and accountability that served me very well in my career. Farm kids were the first ones construction contractors hired when we were young during our summer months. Just had to show up at the construction office and say I was a ranch kid.


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## m3s (Apr 3, 2010)

There's studies on the link between the rise of allergies and the increased use of antibiotics. Not sure if it has been confirmed but it makes sense that antibiotics would affect the immune systems.

More kids are diagnosed with autism who would have not been diagnosed with anything before, or misdiagnosed with something else like ADD. The subjective definitions of these disorders change and I would argue disorder is the wrong term.

Millennials have been out of school for awhile now.. some are even approaching early retirements with the growing FIRE movement. The oldest Gen Z are entering the work force already..


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## m3s (Apr 3, 2010)

AltaRed said:


> The toughest 2 jobs on the ranch were packing and installing replacement fence posts up big hills and into forests where machinery couldn't go (before the days of ATVs), and needing to pull calves in difficult births at any hour of the day in Feb-May. The 2 best jobs I liked on the ranch was cutting and baling hay (loved machinery) in July-August, and taking cattle out to summer pasture and rounding up in the fall on horseback.
> 
> All said though, family farm ranching was difficult and I was highly motivated to get out of there and get an engineering degree. "Hands on" ranching though gave me the work ethic and accountability that served me very well in my career. Farm kids were the first ones construction contractors hired when we were young during our summer months. Just had to show up at the construction office and say I was a ranch kid.


Yea we did have the ATVs but my cousin broke his back guiding in a fence post under a tractor's loader. My grandfather rolled a tractor (no cab) when I was young and lost an eye felling trees before my time. We didn't have any modern tech to pull difficult calves.. just a rope. Hay was nice once I was old enough to drive a tractor instead of pile it in the mow

When I interviewed for one of the more coveted selections in my career I was asked to describe the hardest thing I ever did in my life. He probably expected to hear another war story but instead I described a summer on the farm. He said it was possibly the best one he'd ever heard. I think maybe that's the only way I got it hah


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