Oh the things we did way back when - Kids & Parents humor

[Mike Chance in Iowa]

Had a chat with my mother-in-law about the good old days and raising kids and we had some good laughs. My LOML grew up in a big city, while I grew up in the country. MIL was horrified, yet at the same time found it hilarious at the innocent childhood moments gone wrong.

Here are 2 moments I when brought something back for mom.

1.) Mom baked blackberry pies when they were in season. I was probably about 7 years old when I returned from a day at the "crick" with a pail size quantity of blackberries to give to mom. Only I didn't have a pail. I used my baseball jersey to carry them. I have no idea how she got that shirt so white again!

2) Yet again another day at the "crick" and I was probably about 4-5 years old, and this time I had a 5-gallon bucket with me. When I returned to the house, I recall proudly standing in front of the porch showing mom my prize possession I had lugged home. I had worked so hard to fill the bucket and yet, she didn't seem as pleased at my accomplishment as I was. She wouldn't leave the front porch and she demanded I return the contents of the bucket back to the "crick." I dejectedly returned to the crick, located about 1 mile away, and released the garter snakes. (This was probably the reason why I didn't have a bucket with me for the blackberries! LOL)

Parents goof up too.

One day, my older siblings were bickering and even though my mother asked them to stop, they continued to bicker. My mother warned that if the bickering didn't stop, she would call the orphanage to take bad children away. They didn't stop. I must have been about 3-4 years old and vividly remember mom picking up the phone, dialing, and asking if this was the "such-and-such orphanage" and then she told the person that she had some bad children she wanted picked up. I remember wrapping my arms around her knees and looking up and saying that I would be good and she patted my head. The orphanage people never came out. In my 20's, I asked my mother about the orphanage incident. She was confused. I recalled the event to her. She laughed and said she had called the neighbor and vented while the older siblings were screaming in the background. She had no idea I had believed she was really calling the orphanage and that I thought I was going along with the bad children! LOL

Share your stories. I'm sure you can top mine. What kind of innocent trouble did you get into as children that you can laugh about now?

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Looking back, I had the pleasure and good fortune to grow up in many states including Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, southern Illinois and southern Indiana as my father chased oil rigs to earn a living.

I started 3rd grade when we lived on the northern outskirts of Kemmerer, WY and I attended 3rd grade in Frontier, WY a nearby former coal mining company town. The area around Kemmerer is still a coal mining community but the old coal mines with all the wooden buildings from the late 1800's and early 1900's were still there in the mid-50's. In the heat of the summer I can remember swimming in an old wooden staved water tower at one of the abandoned mines. The water tower was moss covered from the leaks but the water was still clear and cool. This area is famous for the Tea Pot Dome scandal IIRC. We lived in some old WWI Army officers family housing called "Vetsville", heated with coal, used an ice box in the summer and a window box in the winter.

The old coal mines though abandoned, they were still open. In the winter, you could watch the steam coming out of them as some of them were still on fire decades after they were abandoned because of the gas fueled fires. One summer day 2 friends and I were playing in one of the mines. I happened to look under one of the dilapidated wooden buildings and spied a wooden crate. I crawled under the building, pulled the wooden box out and found it contained 21 sticks of cloth covered dynamite covered with white crystals. My friends and I proved our math skills by dividing 21 by 3 and each of us brought home 7 sticks of dynamite with which our parents had to contend. My Mom merely placed my share on top the window box until my Dad got home. Dad took the dynamite to the rig to be used when they blasted casing. One of the mothers took the dynamite which had sweated some of the explosive to the outer skin and she submerged it in the water tank of their toilet until her husband could take care of it.

An added note, the oil wells where my Dad was employed were finished and we moved to southern Indiana. I had always wanted to return to Kemmerer, WY to see what it was like. The town is where J.C. Penny started his business. In the spring of 2010, my wife and I planned an early fall vacation starting in Kemmerer, WY and ending in Bend, OR. We returned to Kemmerer. While visiting the former home (now a museum) of J.C. Penny, I talked with the female host there. A life long resident she informed me some of the mines though they have been safely barricaded now, are still burning and can be seen to be spewing steam in the winter. She also said she might have been a 3rd grade classmate of mine in Frontier.

[Rick Potter]

I was abut 9 living in semi rural Ohio when I was assigned the job of burning leaves in the burn barrel. It got away from me and burned a couple acres of field behind the houses. My parents found me in my attic room, packing my clothes. I was sure I would be going to 'Reform School'. That would have been about 1951 or so.

Fast Forward to 1965 when our first child was born..I drove an Austin Healey, and she had a Simca Aronde. Neither was good for carrying all the stuff we needed for the baby, so we paid $175 for a '56 Ford 4 door. I removed the back seat, put down a plywood floor and covered it with carpet.

Instant car bed/playpen. Today they would put us in jail.

[Scott Winners]

My favorite thing to do after Little League practice (1970s) was stand up in the bed of a pick up truck rolling down the freeway with my arms out in front of me to maximize the wind reaching my armpits.

[Brian Deakin]

I was about 5 years old and my sister was a baby
I went into the house and proudly told my mom I had fed the baby

My mom went to the pram and was horrified to see to my sisters mouth full of chocolate buttons which I had pushed in

[Bruce King]

When I was five they found me in the neighbors garden eating onions and cherry tomatoes. We had a garden too but the neighbors was closer to the side door.

[Dave Anderson NH]

We lived in the city of Rochester NY when I was 3 1/2 years old. I was playing in the back yard and escaped. My mother was frantic when she found I had disappeared and she couldn't find me. The police were called and the search began. I was found an hour later 1 mile from home walking around the edge of a pond in city park having a wonderful time. For the next couple of years I was watched like a hawk and for part of that time I was literally on a long harness and leash/runner arrangement in the back yard just like a dog.

[Mel Fulks]

My Grama lived in a fine 3 story brownstone. She was not rich,rented out most of it. But she had some other property too
Back then they were all heated with coal,so she had a "fireman" - handyman. Appropriately named "Mr. Coleman". We
would go up to 3rd floor and drop wet balls of toilet paper onto his head.....but it's not like you think ....he always wore
a hat.

[Andrew Pitonyak]

I was about 5 years old and my sister was a baby
I went into the house and proudly told my mom I had fed the baby

My mom went to the pram and was horrified to see to my sisters mouth full of chocolate buttons which I had pushed in

And that is why to this day he is her favorite favorite sibling.

[Todd Trebuna]

My first experience with a tablesaw occurred when I was about 10. My Dad had a home made table saw with a light switch for power. I decided for father's day, I was going to make him something special, so I rolled the Tablesaw into the middle of the garage and started cutting scraps of wood to uniform length. Because I should have never been using a homemade tablesaw with no safety features, I ran my index finger into the blade. It was simply providence that something happened(something caught, divine intervention etc), the blade nicked my finger cutting my just enough to open a small would and split my nail. I hid in my room the rest of the day, came to dinner with a bandaid, scared to death that my mother would ask me what happened. But , when she did, I told her I cut my finger slicing hot dogs and that was it, she moved on.
I did not have another injury until a little less than a year ago, when a piece of oak kicked back and ripped my thumb open costing me 7 stitches. All and all, a pretty good run.

[Kev Williams]

I was an 'only child' in the middle of 2 brothers 6 & 7 years older than me, and 2 sisters 5 & 6 years younger than me. I pretty much did what I wanted because I learned the boundaries pretty early on, and I never liked consequences. My biggest life-changing moment came at around 7 years old; I'd gotten a bottle of mom's red fingernail polish, with the intent to paint something with it (forget what), I was sitting on the living room floor and when I pulled the brush out, the bottle tipped over onto the light brown carpet. I panicked and ran outside. Mom was in the basement doing laundry and came upstairs to see what the running was about, and found the mess I made. I hid out of sight in grandpa's pasture for about an hour, mom finally got tired of waiting for me and hollered my name. After being confronted, and not doing a very good job of acting like I didn't know what happened, I got the 'truth speech', and a guarantee that no matter what I ever did, no matter how dumb or bad it was, as long as I fessed up and never lied about it, my honesty would be always be taken into high consideration. And it always was. The worst grounding I ever got was having to spend the evening in the basement watching TV instead of playing outside. I've found in my life that while the truth won't always set you free, it WILL keep you from getting your stories mixed up ;) ... the truth is much easier to remember than the lie...

[Mike Soaper]

My mom heard me yelling " I can't see, I can't see" and came running up the steps then asked me what was the matter.

I said I had my eyes closed.

I was not allowed to watch the three stooges again for a looooooooong time

[Lisa Starr]

Not so much an incident but "the way it was, back then". I'm the oldest of 3 closely spaced children and we grew up on a mini-farm on the outskirts of a tiny village in the 60's and early 70's. Things we regularly did were swim in the pond (without an adult present), make trails in the woods (with a hatchet), run around on mini-bikes (without a helment, long pants or shoes) or ride our bikes to my cousin's home (about 11 miles away). Somehow, we're all a alive, have all our fingers and only have a couple of scars to show for our adventures.

[John K Jordan]

When I was about 3 my parents rented some farm land with a house and barn. My mother hatched a goose from an egg put under a chicken and the goose grew up and had the run of the place. The problem was it started to get aggressive and chase some of the smaller kids, especially me, and from what I remember it was as tall as me. One day it was chasing me across the yard and I must have finally had enough. I turned around and grabbed that goose by the neck with two hands and started shaking it as hard as I could. My mother saw me out the kitchen window and came running out yelling "DON'T KILL THE GOOSE!!". Guess what, that goose never chased me again. :)

Another time, probably about 4-5 years old, I was in the barn loft high on the top of the hay looking out a little vent window with broken slats. I remember leaning out to get a better look at some snakes sunning themselves on the irregular stones that made up the foundation and "basement" wall of the hillside barn. The next thing I remember was lying on the ground on my back looking up at the sky. I had fallen out of the window, probably 20' from the ground. When I looked over at the rock wall all I could think of was "the snakes, the snakes are gonna get me" and obviously not hurt, got up and ran to the house yelling "SNAKES, SNAKES!!". My mother walked with me to behind the barn to see these snakes I was so upset about. When she finally understood I was first looking at them from the loft window then fell to the ground to land on my back she almost fainted! Little kids mist be tougher than they look. Or maybe just lucky sometimes.

JKJ

[Mel Fulks]

John: won
Goose: goose egg

[Ronald Blue]

So many stories.... I grew up a farm kid in Illinois. Probably the first of numerous stories was hay baling time. I couldn't be more than 3 because we never lived at this farm after that. Before tractors hay was put in the hay mow(loft) via a track than ran the length of the peak. Originally they used horses attached to a rope that went through a pulley at ground level up the side of the barn through another pulley and across to the hay fork which raised and lowered on the other end. Originally designed for loose hay. They were lifting bales with it and my brother was running the tractor attached to the rope. In my infinite 2-3 year old wisdom I got the idea I could stop the tractor if I grabbed the rope. And I did but not in a good way. My hand was pulled into the pulley. My brother stopped when I began screaming. Fortunately my hand was skinned/bloodied pretty good but not crushed. There wasn't any hay on the fork at the time.

Dave I was "tied" out too. I don't really recall it but was told about it many times. That might have been after I followed the dog and ended up a mile away on another road. Actually a strager brought me home. And I survived. Maybe I should write a book of my adventures of unwise decisions and I'm still here not much worse for the wear.

[Brian Deakin]

My dad gave me this advice about being a father
He said about my children " You are not their friend you are their dad
Growing up you learnt from a very young age how to act and always to do exactly what he asked ,not because of the fear of being hit but simply because he would be disappointed in your behavior and throughout my entire life I could never handle my father being disappointed with me
Three examples of interactions with my father
(1) As children we played football in the street .When it was time to go in dad would stand on the doorstep and whistle. Without any hesitation I would stop playing football and go into the house .Later in life a friend asked what happened if you did not go in I said I have no idea know you simply went in
(2) I was playing a radio in my bedroom and dad came in and told me to turn the sound down About 5 minutes later my radio stopped working After spending about 30 minutes trying to establish what was the problem I went down stairs to find my father sitting in the dark laughing ,he had turned the electricity off at the mains Dad did use this method on other occasions so you always thought carefully about how loud the radio was playing
(3) My dad gave me this advise
The thing with children is you have got to be firm with them they need to understand the boundaries Their is no point being firm with them when they are tired because all that happens is everyone becomes upset
A friend who has teenagers takes the following action if they do not keep their bedrooms tidy He simply removes their bedroom door

[Frederick Skelly]

Another time, probably about 4-5 years old, I was in the barn loft high on the top of the hay looking out a little vent window with broken slats. I remember leaning out to get a better look at some snakes sunning themselves on the irregular stones that made up the foundation and "basement" wall of the hillside barn. The next thing I remember was lying on the ground on my back looking up at the sky. I had fallen out of the window, probably 20' from the ground. When I looked over at the rock wall all I could think of was "the snakes, the snakes are gonna get me" and obviously not hurt, got up and ran to the house yelling "SNAKES, SNAKES!!". My mother walked with me to behind the barn to see these snakes I was so upset about. When she finally understood I was first looking at them from the loft window then fell to the ground to land on my back she almost fainted! Little kids mist be tougher than they look. Or maybe just lucky sometimes.

JKJ

"Heaven protects children, sailors and drunken men."

Great stories John!

[Bruce King]

When I was twelve I decided to build a small car. I had limited resources but managed to produce one in the basement. My parents never thought about the steep and long hill on the next road over. It had bicycle wheels on the rear and solid rubber tires from a toy tractor on the front. It had hand brake levers that rubbed on the rear tires. The steering was two ropes tied to the front wooden flat axle. I was safety conscious so I enclosed the cockpit and stapled foam all over the inside. It had shoulder strap safety belts too. I did a test crash on the small hill next to the house. Hit a tree head on at about 5 mph. It hurt like hell but I figured that it didn’t matter because I wasn’t going to hit anything. A friend helped me push it to the hill on the other road. I told him not to push me but he pushed real hard. It got going to about 30 and started fish tailing badly. The rear tires were skidding on the asphalt. I was having to pull with all my strength on the steering ropes to keep it from flipping. If I would have let go and went for the brakes it would have flipped. A car came up and ran off in a ditch. I ended up crossing a ditch but still upright. Heart was pounding out of my chest. I was so tired I couldn’t get out, when my friend got there he turned the whole car over on its side. I’m cussing like a sailor because I knew it would kill the weak axle holders on the rear. The next day we took it to a big cliff and pushed it off. It was really cool watching it rip through small trees, flip and fall apart. I went back to my usual occupation of getting wood from construction sites and building tree houses.

[Jerry Bruette]

"Heaven protects children, sailors and drunken men."

Great stories John!

I've known my share of drunken sailors that were divinely protected.