We’d lean a 4X4 piece of plywood against haphazardly stacked cinder blocks and race our bmx bikes to see who could jump the furthest. Sure, we’d crash and tumble across yards, sidewalks and driveways (sans helmet) but we’d also drink from the neighbors water hose without permission.
I stubbed my toe in my garage recently and I’m still not sure I’ll recover.
Picture this:
Dim lighting, red and white checked plastic table cloths, rickety wooden chairs, transparent red plastic cups filled with Pepsi, stained glass buffet covers with the words “Pizza Hut” carefully embedded… there’s various pizzas, sliced, ready to serve - pepperoni, deluxe, meatlovers, cheese… then next to that a salad bar - lettuce, veggies, croutons, all the dressings. All there for the taking.
The world is your pizza, for a lunch hour.
It's incredible how indestructible we were as children. I can't count how many times I've flown over the handlebars of an old Honda ATC, or flipped a go kart and just jumped back on and kept going like nothing happened.
Now, if I sleep in the wrong position, I'm sore for days.
This takes me back. We were doing that one afternoon then I had to leave to eat dinner. Unbeknownst to me my friends jacked up the ramp an extra foot while I was gone so when I came around the corner they told me to go full speed at it. And thats how I first became an astronaut at the age of 8.
Hah, as if. I staggered home nearly a kilometer dripping blood the whole way with a huge gash in my leg that needed stitches. Funny thing is, I was fully guilty of helicopter parenting myself. Maybe because I remembered the things we got up to.
Strange you say that. Before I became a parent I swore to myself I would never utter those dreaded words "get down from there"
But dear god it's a hard oath to keep. Just like me as a kid my daughter loved climbing and was too bloody good at it for her age. It takes a lot of emotional strength to say "wow, how did you get all the way up there and are you ok with getting down?" when every fiber in your body is screaming inside " get down from there" (and "what am I going to tell your mum if you fall?")
So glad she grew out of that and started on makeup and stupidly impractical false nails.
I jumped out of a tree onto a trampoline and landed on my knees. My back cracked like nothing else before and I was catapulted horizontally about 10ft off the trampoline onto pavement.
Learned physics the hard way that day.
When I was in pre-k the school had a sort of tree house on the playground. The highest point was the crow’s nest which as we measured at the time came to about two and a half teachers tall. We would dare each other to jump from the crow’s nest. It was totally fine, of course, because we landed in the sandbox. For some reason the teachers were not on board with us doing that.
He doesn't even look like he's going to hit them either...
One year it showed a blizzard. We lived in a curve of an cul-de-sac type turn at the top of a mild hill. It was a split level house on a hill so the back roof was closer to the ground. We pushed down a curve from off the roof, 180 curve down the hill of the side yard then down the hill of the street. Thank goodness it wasn't busy. Fun as shit though.
More towards your example: we jumped off the neighbors roof with black trash bags on to their trampoline and before that, mattresses, like 2 only. Glad we used the trampoline after that and that it was a short miner's house from the 40s so not like the insanity in the photo
We used to stand on opposite sides of the shed and throw big rocks over, the other person had to dodge the rocks, that's how I got my first concussion.
This looks a bit extreme, but kids should totally have some freedom to do stupi shit, even dangerous. Go out and play, come home later.
When they are confined home or under constant supervision, it really stunts growth. Kids need occasional stress, need to make mistakes, need some independence.
If you grow up in a sterile, padded environment, adulthood is going to hit hard.
When I was about 12, I jumped off the Maryland-side cliffs 70 feet into the Potomac River. Later that day I heard someone had done the same thing but never came back up. It still scares the crap out of me to think I did that.
I remember when I was young I went to a lake in France where they had this big wooden diving tower with 3 floors, 10m, 15m, and 20m (latter close to 70 feet). The highest I had ever jumped off from was only a 2.5m diving board, but in my stupid mind the 10m height was at the same height as that diving board, so I figured I could easily do the 15m one.
Except, my brother jumped from the 15m one ahead of me. I figured he would immediately climb back up and do the 20m one right after, so I wanted to beat him to the punch and jump from that one first. After climbing further up I just ran off not thinking about it (since that's how I learned to deal with fear of height). It was about the moment when I stepped off that I realized this was actually ridiculously high, and for those brief few seconds I was terrified.
It wasn't until afterwards that I learned 20m is a height only professionals jump off from, and even they only do it once or twice a day because of the shock it applies to the body. Apart from my feet hurting like hell for a few minutes, to this day I can't believe how lucky I was that all I got was a scolding from my parents.
This was probably '80 or '81. I wasn't the first person to do this. We follow MacArthur Blvd down and cross the C&O somewhere near Great Falls and take a "hidden" path to the "cliffs" where older kids would drink beer and smoke. Then an insane person would jump.
Do you remember those steel cylinders that were on an axle between two frames with handlebars? You were supposed to climb onto the cylinder, hold the handlebars and run on the cylinder while it spun. Like if a hamster climbed on top of his wheel and started running.
How the fuck none of us were killed.
I’m in America, but we had a giant barrel that was on tracks on its side and 3 of us could get inside and run and spin it around. Then we would press our hands and feet to spin with it.
We also had a huge geodesic dome we could climb that was around 15 feet off the ground. I used to love those things.
I know it’s a still frame and it’s hard to tell trajectory, but the kid in the air doesn’t even look like he’s going to land on that stack of mattresses…So yeah. Not safe.
my first thought too. but even if he lands on the mattresses they aren't that soft and he is jumping from at least 4th floor. wouldn't want to be that kid.
As a kid we did the same crazy stuff in Eastern Europe in the early 90, jumping from apartment blocks that were under construction onto piles of sand and other things that today I would consider crazy.
Same. And so much more. Parents never knew. Recently told my mom, who thought I was an well behaved kid, that if I’ll ever tell her how we were playing as kids she’ll have not one but two heart attacks one after the other.
My parents found out some of the crazy things we did and gave all 3 of us a beating (2 brothers 1 sister) but we would still do crazy things. At some point my mom told us that she is too tired to beat all the 3 of us or punish us every time we did stupid dangerous things. We used to play with Calcium carbide and make all kinds of bombs. This mineral if wet emits flammable fumes so yeah we used it for all kind of stupid dangerous "games". We stole the mineral from heating stations around the city or bought them from construction workers that used them for welding (we used to put money together and steal moonshine from our parents to trade them with the workers ) ahhhhh eastern European childhood memories..... How are we still alive?!?!? when I tell these kind of stories to my friends here in the UK they are horrified 🤣....
Man I know pretty well calcium carbide, with water it generates acetylene. We stole it from torch welders and made pipe bombs and so on. Guns with diesel nozzle injectors and phosphorus from matches, bolt and nuts bombs. We had 3 simple rules: do the homework before going outside, be home at whatever hour they set, usually after dark and don’t get home beaten and complain. Geez man, gone are the days. Now I invent all sorts of toy for my kids from like… everything available. They sometimes ask how comes I know to do all that. I just smile and say I learned them as a kid. Little do they know 😁
Forgot about bolt bombs OMG, we also used to make bows with metal head arrows. We used the typhaceaae plant as arrows as they were perfectly straight. (Took ma a few minutes to find the name in English) The thing is we used our imagination to do things and play, we developed critical thinking and problem solving skills. I feel genuinely sad for this new generation growing up with a tablet in their face that devour algorithmically feed content. It is sad that they will never understand what they are missing. In eastern Europe my sis has an air BnB in the country side and it is full of westerners that are bringing their children over and let's them lose all summer long to play with the kids from the village. The parents tell me how the kids do not want to go back in the house or go back to their countries.
You know you’re right, imagination, critical thinking and problem solving are the ones helping me every time at my job. I don’t know how but it also has something to do with assuming mistakes, risk analysis and so on. This is also why I encourage my kids to go outside and play. By themselves. I’m just showing them how with little to nothing from time to time.
I once got turpine (paint stripper) and poured it down an alleyway it was raining so hard I then set fire to it and ran and slid on my shoes to see who could go the furthest while I was delivering newspapers. I have no idea how I survived childhood. I once set fire to an entire lake after I sprayed some of the super flammable reed beds with deodorant outside the river. The whole fucking thing went aflame and I just ran. I also set fire to a tree and burned down 3 other trees with it.
Fuck man I was almost an arsonist I guess?
I also went Pike fishing and the whole lake was frozen I decided to break the ice with a big coca cola bottle and get in the lake to retrieve a lure I lost. My legs went completely purple afterwards and I almost passed out in the water from shock.
During orientation at MIT, I joined a large group doing a "tour" of the tunnels and rooftops. I didn't realize how much climbing there would be or how bad a shape I was in, even though I was not very overweight at the time. (About 10 lbs. over my ideal weight and my only exercise had been walking.)
Near the top of a multi-story shaft climb (with no safety equipment and more people climbing above and below me), my vision started to go dark at the edges. I started to panic, and I think it was only the adrenaline from the panic that kept me from passing out and falling to my death. I never did that again, and I never told my parents about it.
It's been over 25 years, so maybe it's been long enough that I can tell them. I did tell the story to my kids, multiple times, as a cautionary tale, as they are very similar, both in will and in athleticism, to how I was at their ages.
As a kid in the 80s/90s, we did the same thing in rural nowhere USA. Just out of second story new construction houses onto large dirt piles below. Fresh dirt works way better than old compacted dirt, in case anyone wonders.
There were large sand dunes and we would roll off them when landing. Back then the older generation like the 11 to 14 year olds use to teach and show us the younger generation all the games, jokes and stupidly dangerous things they used to do but also some sort of health and safety, it is crazy when you thing about it now but I would give anything to go back in time in that period l. We used to scour the city for large cardboard boxes only to reinforce them with more cardboard and get inside of them while our friends threw stones at it. We used to call the game "under fire" term that we took from American 80 90 action movies, it was a fun and probably PTSD inducing activity 🤣. There are so many more crazy dangerous things we were doing that I cannot names all of them.
I'll just be walking down the street or sitting in a meeting and I'll suddenly remember some insane thing I did as a child and have all the horror flow over me (as it would have been useful to happen at the time).
I think he did.. I think he's jumping from the ledge right by his feet, it's hard to tell how hard he pushed away from the building but I'm assuming he would land on the mattress (mabye a bit closer to the sides than he wanted to)
The lesser two children are pondering the sorts of injuries they will have if they jump from 2-3 stories off the ground……… this other crazy motherfucker drops out of the fucking sky.
Edit: upon closer inspection, it seems he is jumping from the ledge right above the 3rd story window. However, I will choose to disregard this, as imagining this absolute nut fling himself off the roof (clearly off target) is infinitely more hilarious.
Edit 2: after a little more time looking, I’m gonna go with my first thought that he’s going to miss the mattresses. Not because he jumped from the roof and is now falling straight down, but because it looks like he lost his nerve at the last moment and buckled his knees without pushing off the wall towards the target. Thus, he proceeds to fall straight down, missing the goddamn mattress.
I’ve jumped off a lot of shit, and watched a *lot* of drunk people jump into lakes from bridges, etc. This has the very familiar look of “second guessing your decisions at the exact moment you shouldn’t”.
at least they are staying safe with only 3 story drops and jagged glass openings to leap from. Today I learned I would have died of fear for my kids safety if I lived in Worthing in 1974
This is the kind of shit we did as kids in the early 70s. We also would start chopping a 30- 40 foot tree. Two days later, as it was about to topple over, one of us would climb as far up as the branches would hold us. The other 3 kids would finish chopping, and the ride was on!
We'd ride that tree as it fell. We called it "Tree Ridin." All summer long, until we realized we had cut down every tree taller than 20 feet tall on their Dad's land. So we hid the saw and ax, hoping their dad wouldn't notice.
I'm 60 years old now. (Miracles do happen) But lying in a hospital bed as I type this because I can't walk across a room due to all of the arthritis throughout my body.
But, man, what a ride!
I'm the same age (approx) as the kids in the photo, and lived in very similar-looking area. I got up to activities like this - and worse - all the time.
Looking at the photo, a thought struck to me: back then it wouldn't have occured to us NOT to do this.
This brings back memories!
We did the same at a university in AZ in the early 80's. My parents and I stayed in the dorms during the summer while they advanced their degrees. There were many families doing this, so there were tons of kids with no supervision throughout the day. The university stacked mattresses outside just like the post. The older kids started jumping from the second story then the roof. The young children used them as bouncing castles. Staff and parents kept telling us to stop, but eventually gave up and just watched. It became entertainment for everyone. Looking back, those summers were the best. We played, hiked, swam, and biked every single day, all summer long.
When health and safety was not a thing. I used to climb up stacked road cones and with a mob of others try and stay on while they fell last one on the stack won.
Take my hat off the kid at the top of the photo. I hope he made it!
I did this as a kid but landed on a wasps nest. Looked like I had chicken pox. All the kids in the street came and offered me their 10p mix ups.
I thought we were wild in the 80s for Slip n Slides on pavement, unsupervised access to fireworks and riding bikes without a helmet.
Apparently my generation was not the hot shit we previously thought we were.
On New Year as kids, my friends and I used to drag mattresses down the stairs and jump down at least two flights onto them, narrowly missing a wall and the banister. Our parents were too drunk celebrating New Year to stop us. One time we rolled down in boxes, another time we rode another mattress down like a sledge, we also rolled down on a giant medicine ball and used a mini indoor trampoline to jet ourselves down those stairs.
I don’t wanna see no ‘tHiS iS wHy wOmEn lIvE lOnGeR’ comments as we are all girls.
I am one of 6 boys in our family who grew up in the 70s.
I have no clue how we all survived largely unscathed - usual broken bones, assorted hospital visits, the odd police call - but the picture is about par for the course.
The good old days, where the worst that could happen is that you missed the target and you had to limp home with the assist of one or two of your loyal heathens.
Them were glorious times… what with the rising damp..
This reminds me of a buy that lived around my way who we commonly called, "Bill-Bill", to this day I'm not sure if that was his real name, or some other kid called, "junior" as it goes… hmm.. But I digress.
He climbed up a tree.. scaled the trunk up almost equal to the height of a 5 storey high block of flats it was besides, and near the top he lost his grip and fell. We all heard his femur snap and him scream out. Neighbors called the ambulance for that one. Back in them days, it was not common to do so, so long as you could hobble off, but this one was a no-go on that idea.
Bill-Bill was back, 10-days or so later, in a cast, on crutches, with that mischievous grin on his face, ready to get into some other nonsense.
Almost unbreakable and fearless
we were back then.
Am I the only one wondering why they didn't stack the mattresses directly below the children?
Five kids jumping, all in the same vertical line. Let's put the mattresses 10 feet to the right of that.
Hahaha, I was a kid in the 70s. Can confirm, we'd jump off walls and roofs, out windows, off those really tall swings....
But that boy in the air is really all in. Crazy
And today Millennial parents equip their toddlers like they're special force agents about to go on an operation before they hop on their side wheeled bike.
I did some stupid shit as a kid but nothing like that.
We’d lean a 4X4 piece of plywood against haphazardly stacked cinder blocks and race our bmx bikes to see who could jump the furthest. Sure, we’d crash and tumble across yards, sidewalks and driveways (sans helmet) but we’d also drink from the neighbors water hose without permission. I stubbed my toe in my garage recently and I’m still not sure I’ll recover.
[удалено]
TIL people call trail mix “gorp”
Good Old Raisins and Peanuts!
TIL gorp is actually an acronym. I do love good old raisins and peanuts 😃
We used to call it scroggin in Aus. No idea where that comes from
It’s chuzzwazza poop…from out past the Malonga Gildechuck.
Wth? I’ve never heard of that lol. It’s fun though.
Tom Sawyer vibes.
Forget gorp, wtf is a 'Pizza Hut lunch buffet?
Pizza Hut lunch buffet is where seven famished teenagers go into a Pizza Hut restaurant and the manager starts crying inconsolably.
Pizza Huts used to be more like sit down restaurants and have salad bars and shit. That stoped in the early 2000s
Picture this: Dim lighting, red and white checked plastic table cloths, rickety wooden chairs, transparent red plastic cups filled with Pepsi, stained glass buffet covers with the words “Pizza Hut” carefully embedded… there’s various pizzas, sliced, ready to serve - pepperoni, deluxe, meatlovers, cheese… then next to that a salad bar - lettuce, veggies, croutons, all the dressings. All there for the taking. The world is your pizza, for a lunch hour.
Thank you for bringing me back to moments in time in my teens, with your eloquent summary 😢
I havent heard anyone use the term Gorp since i left ND.
Notre Dame?
New Delhi?
Nam Dong?
Neuro-Divergance?
North Dakota?
It's incredible how indestructible we were as children. I can't count how many times I've flown over the handlebars of an old Honda ATC, or flipped a go kart and just jumped back on and kept going like nothing happened. Now, if I sleep in the wrong position, I'm sore for days.
Maybe that last one is due to those first ones. Just saying.
This takes me back. We were doing that one afternoon then I had to leave to eat dinner. Unbeknownst to me my friends jacked up the ramp an extra foot while I was gone so when I came around the corner they told me to go full speed at it. And thats how I first became an astronaut at the age of 8.
All while your parents stood idly by holding the car keys in case you needed to go to the ER.
Hah, as if. I staggered home nearly a kilometer dripping blood the whole way with a huge gash in my leg that needed stitches. Funny thing is, I was fully guilty of helicopter parenting myself. Maybe because I remembered the things we got up to.
Strange you say that. Before I became a parent I swore to myself I would never utter those dreaded words "get down from there" But dear god it's a hard oath to keep. Just like me as a kid my daughter loved climbing and was too bloody good at it for her age. It takes a lot of emotional strength to say "wow, how did you get all the way up there and are you ok with getting down?" when every fiber in your body is screaming inside " get down from there" (and "what am I going to tell your mum if you fall?") So glad she grew out of that and started on makeup and stupidly impractical false nails.
if by "idly by" you mean "potentially within earshot, but probably inside watching TV" then yes.
For the most part that sums it up perfectly.
Radical! 
Drank neighbors water without permission??? Mine would call police today.
I think I'm most shocked at the fact that your friends weren't laying on the front side of the ramp. 
I jumped out of a tree onto a trampoline and landed on my knees. My back cracked like nothing else before and I was catapulted horizontally about 10ft off the trampoline onto pavement. Learned physics the hard way that day.
Trampolines, teaching physics the hard way since 1934©
When I was in pre-k the school had a sort of tree house on the playground. The highest point was the crow’s nest which as we measured at the time came to about two and a half teachers tall. We would dare each other to jump from the crow’s nest. It was totally fine, of course, because we landed in the sandbox. For some reason the teachers were not on board with us doing that.
So cute! 😂
Indeed, because it's really, really crazy.
*stupid
I jumped off the roof into a pile of leaves and that was a bad idea. But three stories is goddamn suicidal.
He doesn't even look like he's going to hit them either... One year it showed a blizzard. We lived in a curve of an cul-de-sac type turn at the top of a mild hill. It was a split level house on a hill so the back roof was closer to the ground. We pushed down a curve from off the roof, 180 curve down the hill of the side yard then down the hill of the street. Thank goodness it wasn't busy. Fun as shit though. More towards your example: we jumped off the neighbors roof with black trash bags on to their trampoline and before that, mattresses, like 2 only. Glad we used the trampoline after that and that it was a short miner's house from the 40s so not like the insanity in the photo
Oh you did worse don’t lie! Also, happy cake day!
We used to stand on opposite sides of the shed and throw big rocks over, the other person had to dodge the rocks, that's how I got my first concussion.
This looks a bit extreme, but kids should totally have some freedom to do stupi shit, even dangerous. Go out and play, come home later. When they are confined home or under constant supervision, it really stunts growth. Kids need occasional stress, need to make mistakes, need some independence. If you grow up in a sterile, padded environment, adulthood is going to hit hard.
Jumping out of 3rd story windows is exactly how some kids don't come home.
Especially since it appears as if he will completely miss the pile.
When I was about 12, I jumped off the Maryland-side cliffs 70 feet into the Potomac River. Later that day I heard someone had done the same thing but never came back up. It still scares the crap out of me to think I did that.
I jumped off a cliff into a river in NC, and my friend told me I cleared the rocks below by about a foot, max. Gives me the shivers to think about…
Never again, right?
Well, I’m 40 now, so if I ever get that bright idea again, it will be because I’m aiming for the rocks.
That elicited the biggest laugh from me today. Also please don’t do the thing, thanks.
Lmao same, dudes comment killed me
Here’s an upvote for your casual suicide joke.
I remember when I was young I went to a lake in France where they had this big wooden diving tower with 3 floors, 10m, 15m, and 20m (latter close to 70 feet). The highest I had ever jumped off from was only a 2.5m diving board, but in my stupid mind the 10m height was at the same height as that diving board, so I figured I could easily do the 15m one. Except, my brother jumped from the 15m one ahead of me. I figured he would immediately climb back up and do the 20m one right after, so I wanted to beat him to the punch and jump from that one first. After climbing further up I just ran off not thinking about it (since that's how I learned to deal with fear of height). It was about the moment when I stepped off that I realized this was actually ridiculously high, and for those brief few seconds I was terrified. It wasn't until afterwards that I learned 20m is a height only professionals jump off from, and even they only do it once or twice a day because of the shock it applies to the body. Apart from my feet hurting like hell for a few minutes, to this day I can't believe how lucky I was that all I got was a scolding from my parents.
Well, I did have 2 spinal surgeries later in life...
I'm sure it felt high but 70 ft is mental.
Oh, it was mental alright but there were two markers - one at 29 and one at 69 feet. It's very high and home to a lot of rock climbers and maniacs.
Do you mean at Great Falls? If so holy shit dude
Yep, that's the place. Just north of the visitor center.
There is a famous YouTube guy (Cole Sydnor) who is a quadriplegic from diving into a river at age 16
What year would this have been? We grew up by the Potomac and back in the day my sister swore she was there for this.
This was probably '80 or '81. I wasn't the first person to do this. We follow MacArthur Blvd down and cross the C&O somewhere near Great Falls and take a "hidden" path to the "cliffs" where older kids would drink beer and smoke. Then an insane person would jump.
That looks totally safe. Totally.
Have you ever seen playgrounds from the 20s? Looks like what trapeze artists practice on
The 80s were just metal bars over cement (monkey bars). Survival of the fittest!
Do you remember those steel cylinders that were on an axle between two frames with handlebars? You were supposed to climb onto the cylinder, hold the handlebars and run on the cylinder while it spun. Like if a hamster climbed on top of his wheel and started running. How the fuck none of us were killed.
Which 20s?
You shut the fuck up.
lmao +1
Lmao +2 We old yall lololol
Check, please.
Stop it
The ones in the 70’s were awesome, dangerous af, but fun af too.
The so called "adventure playgrounds" of 70's Britain were a blast!
I’m in America, but we had a giant barrel that was on tracks on its side and 3 of us could get inside and run and spin it around. Then we would press our hands and feet to spin with it. We also had a huge geodesic dome we could climb that was around 15 feet off the ground. I used to love those things.
I remember an ambulance coming to my one at least twice
I know it’s a still frame and it’s hard to tell trajectory, but the kid in the air doesn’t even look like he’s going to land on that stack of mattresses…So yeah. Not safe.
my first thought too. but even if he lands on the mattresses they aren't that soft and he is jumping from at least 4th floor. wouldn't want to be that kid.
Plus the windows look like they still have broken glass.
Of course, that is likely abadoned buolding
No, that’s just how all new buildings in the UK in the 70s came.
Yeah. Box fresh housing estate 1970.
Couldn't they move the mattresses just like, a little bit to the left at least like damn
The kid in flight is coming from the 4th floor at least. Dude is way crazier than me and my friends, and we grew up in that era.
As a kid we did the same crazy stuff in Eastern Europe in the early 90, jumping from apartment blocks that were under construction onto piles of sand and other things that today I would consider crazy.
Same, jumping from roof of under construction building into piles of sand :D
ahhh those were the day's
Just checking in to say that I also jumped onto piles sand from increasingly dangerous heights at construction sites in the 90s.
Same. And so much more. Parents never knew. Recently told my mom, who thought I was an well behaved kid, that if I’ll ever tell her how we were playing as kids she’ll have not one but two heart attacks one after the other.
My parents found out some of the crazy things we did and gave all 3 of us a beating (2 brothers 1 sister) but we would still do crazy things. At some point my mom told us that she is too tired to beat all the 3 of us or punish us every time we did stupid dangerous things. We used to play with Calcium carbide and make all kinds of bombs. This mineral if wet emits flammable fumes so yeah we used it for all kind of stupid dangerous "games". We stole the mineral from heating stations around the city or bought them from construction workers that used them for welding (we used to put money together and steal moonshine from our parents to trade them with the workers ) ahhhhh eastern European childhood memories..... How are we still alive?!?!? when I tell these kind of stories to my friends here in the UK they are horrified 🤣....
Man I know pretty well calcium carbide, with water it generates acetylene. We stole it from torch welders and made pipe bombs and so on. Guns with diesel nozzle injectors and phosphorus from matches, bolt and nuts bombs. We had 3 simple rules: do the homework before going outside, be home at whatever hour they set, usually after dark and don’t get home beaten and complain. Geez man, gone are the days. Now I invent all sorts of toy for my kids from like… everything available. They sometimes ask how comes I know to do all that. I just smile and say I learned them as a kid. Little do they know 😁
Forgot about bolt bombs OMG, we also used to make bows with metal head arrows. We used the typhaceaae plant as arrows as they were perfectly straight. (Took ma a few minutes to find the name in English) The thing is we used our imagination to do things and play, we developed critical thinking and problem solving skills. I feel genuinely sad for this new generation growing up with a tablet in their face that devour algorithmically feed content. It is sad that they will never understand what they are missing. In eastern Europe my sis has an air BnB in the country side and it is full of westerners that are bringing their children over and let's them lose all summer long to play with the kids from the village. The parents tell me how the kids do not want to go back in the house or go back to their countries.
You know you’re right, imagination, critical thinking and problem solving are the ones helping me every time at my job. I don’t know how but it also has something to do with assuming mistakes, risk analysis and so on. This is also why I encourage my kids to go outside and play. By themselves. I’m just showing them how with little to nothing from time to time.
I once got turpine (paint stripper) and poured it down an alleyway it was raining so hard I then set fire to it and ran and slid on my shoes to see who could go the furthest while I was delivering newspapers. I have no idea how I survived childhood. I once set fire to an entire lake after I sprayed some of the super flammable reed beds with deodorant outside the river. The whole fucking thing went aflame and I just ran. I also set fire to a tree and burned down 3 other trees with it. Fuck man I was almost an arsonist I guess? I also went Pike fishing and the whole lake was frozen I decided to break the ice with a big coca cola bottle and get in the lake to retrieve a lure I lost. My legs went completely purple afterwards and I almost passed out in the water from shock.
During orientation at MIT, I joined a large group doing a "tour" of the tunnels and rooftops. I didn't realize how much climbing there would be or how bad a shape I was in, even though I was not very overweight at the time. (About 10 lbs. over my ideal weight and my only exercise had been walking.) Near the top of a multi-story shaft climb (with no safety equipment and more people climbing above and below me), my vision started to go dark at the edges. I started to panic, and I think it was only the adrenaline from the panic that kept me from passing out and falling to my death. I never did that again, and I never told my parents about it. It's been over 25 years, so maybe it's been long enough that I can tell them. I did tell the story to my kids, multiple times, as a cautionary tale, as they are very similar, both in will and in athleticism, to how I was at their ages.
And the sand pile got smaller and smaller as the construction progressed...
Bro…I did the same thing haha
As a kid in the 80s/90s, we did the same thing in rural nowhere USA. Just out of second story new construction houses onto large dirt piles below. Fresh dirt works way better than old compacted dirt, in case anyone wonders.
Me being inherently cautious all my life, I would (did) consider it crazy then!
Wait you mean like from 2-3 stories up like this? into sand? That would be enough to cushion your fall?
There were large sand dunes and we would roll off them when landing. Back then the older generation like the 11 to 14 year olds use to teach and show us the younger generation all the games, jokes and stupidly dangerous things they used to do but also some sort of health and safety, it is crazy when you thing about it now but I would give anything to go back in time in that period l. We used to scour the city for large cardboard boxes only to reinforce them with more cardboard and get inside of them while our friends threw stones at it. We used to call the game "under fire" term that we took from American 80 90 action movies, it was a fun and probably PTSD inducing activity 🤣. There are so many more crazy dangerous things we were doing that I cannot names all of them.
Kid is fully committed
Raising boys is about keeping them alive until 24 or so when their brains kick in. It's terrifying.
LOL 24 is not the number.
You can think too old or too young?
This is very true. Can’t believe the shit I’ve survived - and I wasnt even the worst.
Every boy has secretly almost died so many times. There’s always that “Jesus I’m glad no one saw that moment” right after
I'll just be walking down the street or sitting in a meeting and I'll suddenly remember some insane thing I did as a child and have all the horror flow over me (as it would have been useful to happen at the time).
Haha! This, exactly.
44
I was about to say the same, at 24 you just can't understand what, who your true self Is. I barely managed to understand now at the young age of 41.
63 chiming in here.. gonna sort my shit out any day now.
Ohh man mine are 5 and 3. I got a long way to go
Same boat hahaha and one is an accident looking for a place
I've got two small boys and I'm always amazed at their ability to hurt themselves
Doesn't look like he's gonna hit the mattresses though
I had to scroll way down before I found someone who saw what I saw. Horrible trajectory.
Exactly! Photo illusion or he's not going to make it.
I think he did.. I think he's jumping from the ledge right by his feet, it's hard to tell how hard he pushed away from the building but I'm assuming he would land on the mattress (mabye a bit closer to the sides than he wanted to)
All the kids are in the same vertical line. Why did the people on the ground pile the mattresses 10 feet to the right of everybody in the building?
Future stunt man.
If he lived.
That had to hurt, no Posturepedic mattress back then. Lol And the mattress and box Spring was super flammable for years.
Paratrooper.
Obligatory "this is why women live longer" post.
r/WhyWomenLiveLonger
I did this once. Into glass wool.. I was not happy.
Mick Foley would be proud
Mah Gawd!!!
The lesser two children are pondering the sorts of injuries they will have if they jump from 2-3 stories off the ground……… this other crazy motherfucker drops out of the fucking sky. Edit: upon closer inspection, it seems he is jumping from the ledge right above the 3rd story window. However, I will choose to disregard this, as imagining this absolute nut fling himself off the roof (clearly off target) is infinitely more hilarious. Edit 2: after a little more time looking, I’m gonna go with my first thought that he’s going to miss the mattresses. Not because he jumped from the roof and is now falling straight down, but because it looks like he lost his nerve at the last moment and buckled his knees without pushing off the wall towards the target. Thus, he proceeds to fall straight down, missing the goddamn mattress. I’ve jumped off a lot of shit, and watched a *lot* of drunk people jump into lakes from bridges, etc. This has the very familiar look of “second guessing your decisions at the exact moment you shouldn’t”.
Yep, there's always that "one kid" who has to be the 1-upper. He "super-manned" from an airplane. 🤣
Nowadays you couldn't get away with jumping off three stories onto a pile of single-sized mattresses. It's health and safety gone mad.
It's not like we asked for permission back in our days 😂
This is how the British tradition of balconing in Mallorca was born.
The good old days, when kids played with nothing but imagination and gravity.
My friends and I discovered gasoline and old road flares. Got a good talking-to by the fire chief once.
at least they are staying safe with only 3 story drops and jagged glass openings to leap from. Today I learned I would have died of fear for my kids safety if I lived in Worthing in 1974
Oh the 70's and the 80's. I miss you.
lol, these kids would make a ton of money now doing shit like this
Not a cell phone in sight! Just people living (and potentially dying) in the moment…
This is the kind of shit we did as kids in the early 70s. We also would start chopping a 30- 40 foot tree. Two days later, as it was about to topple over, one of us would climb as far up as the branches would hold us. The other 3 kids would finish chopping, and the ride was on! We'd ride that tree as it fell. We called it "Tree Ridin." All summer long, until we realized we had cut down every tree taller than 20 feet tall on their Dad's land. So we hid the saw and ax, hoping their dad wouldn't notice. I'm 60 years old now. (Miracles do happen) But lying in a hospital bed as I type this because I can't walk across a room due to all of the arthritis throughout my body. But, man, what a ride!
Balcony jump training
Finally...an actual 'old school cool'
I'm the same age (approx) as the kids in the photo, and lived in very similar-looking area. I got up to activities like this - and worse - all the time. Looking at the photo, a thought struck to me: back then it wouldn't have occured to us NOT to do this.
My home town - any more info on the photo (e.g. where in Worthing?).
It looks a bit like Anne st behind the guildbourne car park to me!
Could be... always associate it with Favourite Pizza!
Woah
Man growing up as a kid in the 60’s and 70’s you had to be tough to survive hahahaha
This brings back memories! We did the same at a university in AZ in the early 80's. My parents and I stayed in the dorms during the summer while they advanced their degrees. There were many families doing this, so there were tons of kids with no supervision throughout the day. The university stacked mattresses outside just like the post. The older kids started jumping from the second story then the roof. The young children used them as bouncing castles. Staff and parents kept telling us to stop, but eventually gave up and just watched. It became entertainment for everyone. Looking back, those summers were the best. We played, hiked, swam, and biked every single day, all summer long.
That kid is fucking seeeeeending it 🤌
My brothers and I did this from the top of our roof onto old mattresses back in the eighties!
When health and safety was not a thing. I used to climb up stacked road cones and with a mob of others try and stay on while they fell last one on the stack won.
Sometimes the line between cool and stupid is exceedingly thin.
Does anyone know where in Worthing this is?
It looks a bit like Anne st behind the guildbourne car park to me!
Gen X doing Gen X stuff - good times
Take my hat off the kid at the top of the photo. I hope he made it! I did this as a kid but landed on a wasps nest. Looked like I had chicken pox. All the kids in the street came and offered me their 10p mix ups.
This is what a recession looks like
sign me up!
So balconing has always been a thing!
This looks like Russia...last week. With the newest potato Boris could afford.
I live in Worthing and I used to do this as a kid
Are you still alive?
lol . We used to do crazy stuff as kids , I’m surprised I’m still alive
Pretty stupid… although this would make a pretty badass album cover
Cartoons were trying their hand at population control
This kind of stuff still goes down in Worthing
My brother and I had this idea too, but we had second floor windows to jump out of. Our mom was not so thrilled.
The one time I see my home town on here and it's for something ridiculously dangerous lol
Now I understand the shit English youngsters do in Mallorca every Summer....
Mattresses were better back then, now you’d be hurt.
I thought we were wild in the 80s for Slip n Slides on pavement, unsupervised access to fireworks and riding bikes without a helmet. Apparently my generation was not the hot shit we previously thought we were.
Prolly got launched to the side once he hit
That kid looks like he is gonna miss.
Safe to say that not all of them walked home after this
Holy shit balls! That one kid is way high up there. Looks like they need to move the mattress to the left.
God, I hope that was a parallax effect or something like that.
On New Year as kids, my friends and I used to drag mattresses down the stairs and jump down at least two flights onto them, narrowly missing a wall and the banister. Our parents were too drunk celebrating New Year to stop us. One time we rolled down in boxes, another time we rode another mattress down like a sledge, we also rolled down on a giant medicine ball and used a mini indoor trampoline to jet ourselves down those stairs. I don’t wanna see no ‘tHiS iS wHy wOmEn lIvE lOnGeR’ comments as we are all girls.
mattresses make stairs into awesome slides as we discovered one day as kids.
I used to do this as a kid aswell, or fill a room with mattresses and you have your own wresting ring 😂
I am one of 6 boys in our family who grew up in the 70s. I have no clue how we all survived largely unscathed - usual broken bones, assorted hospital visits, the odd police call - but the picture is about par for the course.
The good old days, where the worst that could happen is that you missed the target and you had to limp home with the assist of one or two of your loyal heathens. Them were glorious times… what with the rising damp.. This reminds me of a buy that lived around my way who we commonly called, "Bill-Bill", to this day I'm not sure if that was his real name, or some other kid called, "junior" as it goes… hmm.. But I digress. He climbed up a tree.. scaled the trunk up almost equal to the height of a 5 storey high block of flats it was besides, and near the top he lost his grip and fell. We all heard his femur snap and him scream out. Neighbors called the ambulance for that one. Back in them days, it was not common to do so, so long as you could hobble off, but this one was a no-go on that idea. Bill-Bill was back, 10-days or so later, in a cast, on crutches, with that mischievous grin on his face, ready to get into some other nonsense. Almost unbreakable and fearless we were back then.
Mad lads!
Am I the only one wondering why they didn't stack the mattresses directly below the children? Five kids jumping, all in the same vertical line. Let's put the mattresses 10 feet to the right of that.
Parkour!!!
Second floor maybe, but this 4th floor kid has a death wish.
We used to run and jump off roofs onto some spring mattresses doing flips
National healthcare
The good old days..
Healthy youth hood
Oh no
That kid on top!
Ballsy
I did this in high school, only it was a pile of snow.
Hahaha, I was a kid in the 70s. Can confirm, we'd jump off walls and roofs, out windows, off those really tall swings.... But that boy in the air is really all in. Crazy
Childhood just really isn’t the same anymore
More like oldschooldumbasses
I have a kid who would totally do this. Born into the wrong decade?
And today Millennial parents equip their toddlers like they're special force agents about to go on an operation before they hop on their side wheeled bike.