# "Dangerous" Things We Did As Kids



## SifuPhil (Apr 6, 2018)

Whether perceived or reality, today's parents see the world as a dangerous place. As a result, they "helicopter" their children, never letting them out of their site, structuring play dates, sports practices, etc.

But when I was a kid, no such restrictions were present.

I would spend my weekdays walking to and from school. Now, school wasn't just down the block - my elementary classes were housed in an old fortress-like building a good 2-mile walk away from my house. The walk consisted of several obstacles to be overcome: 2 major roads to be crossed, a rickety wooden bridge over a scum-filled creek (where the local homeless contingent camped out), and several other various and sundry hazards along the way.

My weekends consisted of getting up early and disappearing for the whole day, until dinner time (or a quick home-visit for lunch if I were starving). All of that time was spent doing what today would be seen as "dangerous things": climbing trees, riding my bike too fast, playing with fire, throwing rocks at my friends, jumping off rocky ledges, making friends with stray dogs ... you name it, if it would make today's parent faint I would do it.

We've lost something by structuring our kids' play too tightly. We've killed the initiative, the imagination, the risk-taking so necessary in life, all in order to keep the kids "safe". 

What was your childhood like in terms of "dangerous" play?


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## Shalimar (Apr 6, 2018)

I liked to blow stuff up, had quite the stash of fireworks. Used to design realistic battles, blow things to smithereens. Sometimes we would set them off in the culverts, not necessarily a great distance from our position. Medic! Accidently set some woods on fire while boiling eggs which we had liberated from a child hating farmer’s chicken coop. No one ever found out who the culprits were. It really helped that I resembled Shirley Temple. Lulz.


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## SifuPhil (Apr 6, 2018)

Shirley Temple blowing things up ... what a visual!


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## Pappy (Apr 6, 2018)

Living next to the rr tracks was a great adventure for us kids. Climbing in and out of boxcars, tankers and coal cars would keep us busy most of the day. Other days we would climb up on the roof of the Bennett Ireland co. and watch the big presses shaping sheets of metal like it was putty. We never got into much trouble, but anything needed exploring,we were your guys.


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## Shalimar (Apr 6, 2018)

SifuPhil said:


> Shirley Temple blowing things up ... what a visual!


Yep! Sociopathic child in the making. Bwahahahaha.


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## Capt Lightning (Apr 6, 2018)

In my early teens I used to sail in a small dingy with a friend.  This was where the ferry sailed from Scotland to Ireland, and my friend had a theory that holiday makers returning home would always have a few frames left in their cameras (1960's - pre-digital days).  

So, as the ferry was about to depart and some passengers were looking over the rail, we would sail past, wave, and then deliberately capsize!  This is quite easy to do, and also easy to right the boat if you know how.  With luck, people would rush to the rail, shouting and pointing and hopefully take a few photos.  We would right the boat, get moving and open the self-balers to drain the water,  wave to say we were OK, and sail off.   Totally mad and stupid,  but we never came to any harm.


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## fmdog44 (Apr 6, 2018)

Ate some of my dad's pain pills and nearly died when I was 3 or 4. They had to walk me and force coffee in me to keep me from falling asleep.
Encountered a maniac when I was 10 or 11. He came out from the woods on the other side of the river I was fishing in and he had branch trimmers in his hand and screamed at me, "I'm going to cut your **** off"! I dropped everything and ran home. 
Swam out too far from shore in Florida and started to drown but the lifeguard saw me and got me back to shallow water.


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## Aunt Bea (Apr 6, 2018)

My childhood experiences were similar to what others have mentioned.

One thing that was very different in my childhood was the fact that every adult had dominion over us and we knew it.  The constant surveillance helped us to keep our guard up and plan our adventures very carefully.

I suppose the most dangerous thing that I did, with a group of friends, was to take apart some ancient paper shotgun shells to get the gunpowder.  We used the loose gunpowder to power some paper rockets and airplanes.

Looking back I don't think that we were ever in real danger because we had been raised to know the difference between right and wrong, how to evaluate risks and understand the consequences of our actions.  I like to think that we made informed decisions and took calculated risks.


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## C'est Moi (Apr 6, 2018)

OMG, I rode my bike to elementary school about 3 miles away from home, rain or shine, with NO helmet!!!   :gasp:    And I'm here to talk about it.


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## Lon (Apr 6, 2018)

Going two blocks to the train tracks and putting a copper penny on the track for the train to flatten out was great fun.


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## Ruth n Jersey (Apr 6, 2018)

I use to try different tricks with my bicycle. I tried to ride down a steep set of steps and flew over the handle bars and I thought riding my bike on ice might be fun. I was upright for about 30 seconds. 

Way before my time our area had many brick yards. The holes they dug to get the clay were never filled in and were very deep and after awhile they actually created lakes. One of which I loved to play around. My Mom forbid me to go to the lake because the clay on the banks was so slippery and dangerous. Of course my girlfriend and I wasted no time going. I slipped and fell in and It was quite a struggle to get out. I was quite young and barely could swim. My Mom knew exactly where I had been because I was stained red from the red clay. I wasn't allowed out to play all the next week. 

 We also had a ditch with some pretty disgusting water. Not sure where the water came from. My girlfriend and I spent many happy hours catching leeches that we washed nice and clean and put in a jar. We liked to watch them stretch inside the jar of water. I can only imagine the germs those things had on them.


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## Olivia (Apr 6, 2018)

Bicycling down steep hills, climbing up roofs to pick mangoes, going to the girls restroom on the school's grounds by myself even though warned about the "red hand" haunting it, playing hide and seek in the neighborhood in the dark, was almost trapped by a weird man against a wall but jumped behind some bushes and ran away, asked by someone in a stopped car if I wanted a ride (ran instead).  I'm sure there's more but I've probably blotted it out of my mind.


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## IKE (Apr 6, 2018)

With me I think dangerous and stupid went hand in hand.

1. I've climbed to the top of more than one water tower.

2. Snuck in a stadium and climbed up to the top of the tall stadium lights a few times at night went there wasn't a game going on.

3. I was walking the tracks out in the boonies and I wanted to know what it would be like being under a moving train as it went over the trestle so hearing a train coming I slipped over the side of the trestle from the tracks and got in the wooden supports as the train went over.


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## wvnewbie (Apr 6, 2018)

Not too dangerous; but, probably the most stupid thing I did was getting old.


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## Gary O' (Apr 6, 2018)

Too many to list
But
These two are most prominent in memory;

10 yrs old
Hiking_ ‘20 miles beyond all known civilization...Living off the land’_
With my buddy
We actually hiked a couple miles, camped, froze, shot a robin, managed to start a fire with most of a box of matches, ate the tiny red breast, got sick, went home

_BB gun wars_
Mrs Witt freaked out after seeing Eddie’s wound
Called us all in
Recited the shoot yer eye out story
I mentioned we were crack shots and just aimed at each other’s testicles, thus not much danger in the eye area…and Eddie’s wound, well, he mistakenly took a time out, during war, and without telling anyone decided to take a crap in the Hanson’s yard, thus his wound, while squatting

We didn’t see Eddie for quite awhile after that, and when we finally did, his visits were timed in half hour blocks, unarmed.

A few years back, I was repairing the edge of a roof
My lady, holding the ladder
Poking me in the hind end at optimal moments
said, ‘hold still’.
And commenced digging on my calf with a tile knife
Revealing a BB that she had been rolling around under my skin
Good times

Oh, we climbed doug fir trees to the tip
Clinging, waving around in the breeze
Quite the view

There’s other things/events, on a daily basis, but those two memories remain foremost


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## IKE (Apr 6, 2018)

Again dangerous / stupid.

A friend of mine stole a few .22 shells from his dad and brought them to school and during lunch we went out to the far corner of the playground, built a small fire and tossed the shells in and waited for the fireworks.....a few went off and then we went back to class.

Some kid ratted us out and we got called to the principals office where after listening to our story he got a big paddle with holes in it and tore our butts up with it while having us bend over and grab our ankles.......I got expelled for a week and when my stepdad got home from work and found out what had happened he wore my butt out again with a leather razor strap.


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## Giantsfan1954 (Apr 6, 2018)

That was going to be my addition to,Lon.


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## treeguy64 (Apr 6, 2018)

At six years old, walked a mile to school, walked back home for lunch, walked back for afternoon session, walked back home.  Went back, a few years ago, to see my old routes.  Nobody was on the street, on a beautiful Saturday afternoon, 1 PM.  Of course, this was on Chicago's South Side, one of our country's murder capitals, now.  Back then, we climbed fences, walked ledges, jumped off of landings, played with fire, swam way out in Lake Michigan, went to the movies, without our parents, at six years old. I hitchhiked all over the country, as a teen, with no major problems, whatsoever.  Yeah, it doesn't matter if this is "old man's talk."  Things were definitely better, back then.  I blame the internet for exposing to everyone just how dangerous and horrible our species can be, at times.  That makes everyone scared, makes parents needlessly shelter their kids from being kids, when, by the odds, kids will probably be just fine being kids, and doing what we did.


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## ProsperosDaughter (Apr 6, 2018)

When I was a kid one of my chores was burning our rubbish. Happy to say only once did I get too close and singe my arm hair. 

As a young teen I hitchhiked. I was too impatient to wait for the bus.


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## Timetrvlr (Apr 7, 2018)

One day I found a burlap sack (gunny sack we called it) hanging on a strand of wire between two willow trees. It had some brown, greasy sticks in it and I removed the sack from the wire and carried it to the house to ask Dad what it was. He said; “It looks like dynamite, must be pretty old and leaking. Take it back to where you found it and hang it up. I’ll get rid of it soon.”

Well, summer went by and the sack was still there, Dad hadn’t gotten rid of it. That fretted me a lot so I decided to get behind a huge cottonwood log about 50 feet away and shoot the bag with my 22 rifle. I shot it once, nothing happened, I shot it again, nothing happened, I shot it again and it blew! Boy did it blow! The two trees that it was hanging between disappeared leaving only shattered stumps. The debris cloud went pretty much straight up, arched over and fell well behind me. Fortunately, the dog and I were behind this old cottonwood log, so we were relatively safe but it took awhile for the dust to clear, and when it did I saw a wide-eyed Mom looking for my remains. She was pretty upset and didn’t remember how she got over a 5-foot high fence with no gate in it while wearing a dress. Fortunately, she was so upset that she didn’t punish me for fear of killing me. She did report it to my Dad when he got home. “Well, I did say I was going to get rid of it and I reckon he was just helping me out. You know, I think there must have been about a half–case in that sack” he replied, and that was the end of that.


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## squatting dog (Apr 7, 2018)

When it comes to trains, I hear you IKE. when I was young and (not to bright) we had a test of courage. down by the tracks, there was a spot where rain had washed out between the ties. Just enough room to lay under it and let a train run over the top.  Only a few of us ever did it, and looking back, I'm glad I was skinny because at the time, I had no idea how much tracks flexed when a train went over them. I swear I felt it touch my chest. After that, all the other stuff seemed kind of tame. homemade pipe bombs in the drainage sumps, cherry bombs tossed into the bar, bike riding for miles to get to the dump and pick over all the cool (and usually sharp edged) stuff. driving my sisters boyfriends chopped 49 merc so they could have "alone time". never saw the need for a pesky drivers licence. 
you know, stuff like that.


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## moviequeen1 (Apr 10, 2018)

I spent 2 yrs at a girl's boarding school in Toronto in the mid 60's,was 16 at the time. I joined a group who were known as the'troublemakers thought that would be fun. I was rebelling against my parents,trying to get their attention.
The only 'dangerous/stupid' stunt we did was against one of our teachers who we all hated..The leader of our group somehow got the key to her room.Once in there,we made a big mess of it,short seated the bed,put Vaseline jelly on the toilet,sprayed her perfume in every room. Of course somebody ratted on us.I remember our group stood in front of the headmistress as she was saying'I know you were responsible for this'. I said to her 'if you think  we did this, prove it'.My parents weren't pleased by what I had done,the headmistress told them I wasn't welcomed back for my sophomore yr.When I learned I wasn't going back there,I was so happy Sue


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## SifuPhil (Apr 10, 2018)

moviequeen1 said:


> I spent 2 yrs at a girl's boarding school in Toronto in the mid 60's,was 16 at the time. I joined a group who were known as the'troublemakers thought that would be fun. I was rebelling against my parents,trying to get their attention.
> The only 'dangerous/stupid' stunt we did was against one of our teachers who we all hated..The leader of our group somehow got the key to her room.Once in there,we made a big mess of it,short seated the bed,put Vaseline jelly on the toilet,sprayed her perfume in every room. Of course somebody ratted on us.I remember our group stood in front of the headmistress as she was saying'I know you were responsible for this'. I said to her 'if you think  we did this, prove it'.My parents weren't pleased by what I had done,the headmistress told them I wasn't welcomed back for my sophomore yr.When I learned I wasn't going back there,I was so happy Sue



Sometimes bad actions have good consequences.


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## jujube (Apr 10, 2018)

I walked to elementary school about a mile away.  We had to cross a busy highway, so we had to wait for the "crossing boys" to come and get us.  There was an old cast iron lamp post that had a short in it and we would all hold hands and the last one in line would touch the pole.  We could feel the tingling as the electricity passed through us.  It was only through the grace of God we didn't get electrocuted.  

My other really, really stupid thing was that my senior year in high school, I used to drive my car very fast over a very steep very narrow bridge over the railroad tracks and get airborne on the other side.  The problem was that I couldn't see if anyone was coming in the other direction and there were a lot of produce trucks that used that road.  I guess it never occurred to me that I could not only kill myself but my friends in the car and the truck driver too.  My dad was always complaining about the alignment and shocks in the car (which was a '55 Dodge station wagon with a Police Interceptor engine in it, so I could get going very, very fast in it) and he couldn't figure out what was causing the problem.


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## Pinky (Jan 30, 2019)

My best friend Jimmy and I used to climb onto the roofs of the back-lane garages and
woodsheds. We'd jump from roof to roof all the way down the block. We would also ride
our bicycles to the flats where there were coal/coke mountains. We'd climb them, and the
watchman would always chase us away. I think we could have been in danger of getting
buried. There were junkyards and culverts to explore. If our parents knew, they would
have been quite concerned. My sisters and I walked to and from school, and I often was
on my own, from Grade 1, when I was 5 yrs. old.


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## Timetrvlr (Jan 31, 2019)

*Me and the dynamite*

My dad decided to retire and sold the farm the spring that I turned 11. Then we had to have a place to live, not in the city, as my mother had dreamed of, but in the country. He finally chose a 21-acre place with an old house on it as our new place. I’m pretty sure he chose that particular place because of the abundance​of shallow well water and a few acres of good bottomland that had never been cultivated.

He was only 62 at the time, so he managed to get a job with the local highways maintenance yard. So, that summer, he went to work five days a week, mom set up housekeeping, and I set out to explore every square inch of the new place as little boys do. One day I found a burlap sack (gunny sack we called it) hanging on a strand of wire between two willow trees. It had some brown, greasy sticks in it and I removed the sack from the wire and carried it to the house to ask Dad what it was. He said; “It looks like dynamite, must be pretty old and leaking. Take it back to where you found it and hang it up. I’ll get rid of it soon.”

Well, summer went by and the sack was still there, Dad hadn’t gotten rid of it. That fretted me a lot so I decided to get behind a huge cottonwood log about 50 feet away and shoot the bag with my 22 rifle. I shot it once, nothing happened, I shot it again, nothing happened, I shot it again and it blew! Boy did it blow! The two trees that it was hanging between disappeared leaving only shattered stumps. The debris cloud went pretty much straight up, arched over and fell well behind me. Fortunately, the dog and I were behind this old cottonwood log, so we were relatively safe but it took awhile for the dust to clear, and when it did I saw a wide-eyed Mom looking for my remains. She was pretty upset and didn’t remember how she got over a 5-foot high fence with no gate in it while wearing a dress. Fortunately, she was so upset that she didn’t punish me for fear of killing me. She did report it to my Dad when he got home. “Well, I did say I was going to get rid of it and I reckon he was just helping me out. You know, I think there must have been about a half–case in that sack” he replied, and that was the end of that.


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