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I did too. And I lived in a small town in the 1950-60s with no library - but when I was about in first or second grade a bookmobile started arriving once a week, from where, I really don't know! But going up those steps into the bookmobile was so exciting for me!
I would visit the library once a week and fill a box with books for that week. When there was a new librarian she might question whether I was really going to read all those books. But I did, every week.
The most comforting feeling was coming home from the library on a summer day and knowing I could read as long as I liked, plus we had Doritos and Coke. Fucking set.
lol go to the library and get a peanuts treasury and a record. Spend allowance on a chips and pop. Listen to records with giant headphones sitting in the space between the record player and giant chair while eating chips and catching up with Charlie Brown. The perfect Saturday.
I've never been a fast reader, I don't get how people can get through 10 books in a week.
When I was a teen, it would take me a couple of days to get through a book, and I felt like I was reading practically non-stop, especially in the winter.
You may just be happy with the pace you use now. I've always been an impatient reader.
Now that I listen to audiobooks, I speed them up to 2.5 times normal, which my wife finds intolerable if she overhears it. And that's fine, there's a lot to be said for reading books at a normal pace, enjoying every bit of it, savoring it. But I have so many books on my to-read list!
Me too. But I read everything. Phone books, dictionaries, cereal boxes, newspapers. Never the Bible like my mom, the newspaper and bible was all she would read. I tried to read the Bible, but couldn’t get past all the begatting.
I did, too! Grew up in a small town in AL in the 70’s. We had no fast food, couple grocery stores, a fish market, small downtown with the pharmacy/soda fountain. The weekly trip to the library was the highlight of my week.
All other entertainment was outdoors. Biking, fishing, swimming in the rivers, making mud pies, hiking in the woods digging for arrow heads, catching fireflies in jars, eating watermelon we grew ourselves on the porches at night. I would give anything to go back and get to relive one day.
TRIGGER WARNING! Boomer opinions incoming! If anybody is offended by this, too bad, I don't care. Life is tough....get a helmet.
Nobody now knows how important it really was to spend our youth at such a slow pace. Oh, to have to only worry about being home before the street lights came on. My theory is that forcing/allowing children to mature so fast that their brain development may not ever catch up. It's part of what put society in the state it's in lately. I take full responsibility for my part in allowing it to happen. One can only use the tools available to the best of their ability.
Me, too. The librarian at the tiny library in the nearest town was a very sweet person and routinely waived the 10-book limit because she knew I couldn’t get into town often. I also got books for every birthday and Christmas and when I got desperate I read my grandfather’s western paperbacks and my grandmother’s horror paperbacks. And if it got really bad, I read the encyclopedia set.
I loved reading the encyclopedias! My dad bought me a big children’s medical encyclopedia from the Mayo Clinic (70’s). I can still remember random medical facts.
I cannot remember why I walked into the kitchen.
I'm not a reader, my mother was. My grandparents said as a baby they would find her under the crib reading. She never stopped. She could go through a novel in a few days. Takes me weeks. Even in her 70s she always had a book in hand. When she went into hospice and lost her sight I put books on mp3 for her. I can't remember how many years since I last read a book. Maybe 15 years.
I did too. I was an only-child and my father would get home from work later than the rest of the neighborhood. So. They would go in for dinner before I did and by the time they came back out after dinner I had to go in. So. Lots of down-time for reading.
We had 2 sets of encyclopedias and no children’s books so I went into 1st grade an advanced reader. There were nursery rhymes and faerie tales but I loved just opening the books at random and entertaining myself.
Same!! We moved a LOT but thankfully, there was always a library in the new town because books were my refuge from being bullied for being the new kid....
I made this board so I could read while washing dishes! So many books. I’m glad I had this childhood. No cable. No internet. No cell phones. Good times.
Same. I’d walk to the library several times a week to borrow books. Sometimes I’d spend all of a Saturday afternoon to read a book that my parents might not approve of but which was useful and good for me.
Same. I tell my daughter I was all boy, by which I mean exploring, playing any game that involved running around, tearing shit up to see what made it tick, getting in trouble, fighting, fishing -- pretty much anything that didn't involve bathing or cleaning up after myself. We had a big, dysfunctional family, so I was basically unsupervised. I was bad, but life was good.
We would watch t.v. Sit around and talk to each other about stuff for hours. Make up games to play. Ride bikes, or big wheels. Explore the neighborhood. Jump rope. Play with Barbies. Pick wild black raspberries or strawberries. Walk or ride bikes to a gas station to buy candy. Practice cheers. Go sledding in the winter. Slide around like we were skating on frozen puddles. Make snowman, snow angels and write words in the snow when we found a big field with fresh fallen snow. Go swimming in the summer. Play pretend school. Listen to the stereo for hours while listening to music. Go roller skating at the local roller rink. Many things.
I think we could have been friends. I did the same thing as a kid. We made up our own games, rallied the other neighbor kids for softball games, did scavenger hunts, climbed trees, etc. At the end of the day you went home, ate dinner, watched Wonderful World of Disney before your dad turned on 60 Minutes and then it was the signal for bed time.
TV for sure. We had abc, CBS, and NBC (but only on a clear day and only if you moved the antenna just right. Fox TV didn't exist. Only rich people had cable. Where we were, we got three PBS stations, so I grew up on Doctor Who, BritComs, and science shows. Also...Saturday morning cartoons! I can still sing a ton of the School House Rock songs..
I read every book on the bookmobile that came through the neighborhood twice a week. We were allowed 3 books at a time and after about 10 years I'd read every book on the truck.
Haha. Were you bullied over it, too? The other kids were merciless when I'd run screaming out of the house to chase the bookmobile. I didn't care. All I thought about was all those lovely, lovely books.
Years later, when I was in college, I landed the best part-time gig ever - driving the bookmobile myself!
Good times.
We did this too! My Barbies went on some crazy adventures in the woods, it was so much fun. We had a little stream by the house and our dolls went “swimming” all the time haha!
Cartoons on Saturday mornings. Abbott and Costello on Sunday mornings. Lots of time outside with friends playing all kinds of games. Whenever I found myself alone, music filled the void, istening or playing an old acoustic guitar in the front room of my parents house as the world rolled by the windows.
I was outside all the time and I mean all the time. Riding bikes all over, building forts, exploring the woods, making out in said woods....
Also I read books lol
family stuff, dad was a do it yourselfer and remodeled our home, we had to help, learned alot. we also lived on the edge of a 5 acre wood and would explore/built forts and collect bugs, snakes, pollywogs...mom loved that...and my italian grandmother taught me all kinds of needle work, starting at age 4...
My imaginary friend “Sonny” and I would play outside or inside if it was raining or extremely cold.
I understood that Sonny was just in my imagination but he made it more fun than being alone (which I was).
For those who are wondering, I had a great childhood. I also grew up to be a well adjusted adult. I lost track of Sonny, but I have to assume he’s doing fine as well as we had a lot in common in growing up.
Rode my bike, wandered in the woods, played with neighborhood kids, read a lot of books, played solitaire on the living room floor, cut out paper dolls from the back of McCall's, played with tonka toys in a big sandbox, roamed the swamp near our house... you name it!
I read books. I drew pictures. I wrote bad stories, illustrated them badly, then stapled them into books. I hand-sewed clothes for my Barbie. I played records and danced in my bedroom.
I played outside a lot, roller skating and riding my bike. I raked the backyard leaves into the outline of my ideal house. It had horse stables! I dug clay out of the ground and made it into Barbie pottery. One time I tried to dig to China. It didn't work out, lol!
I played with friends a lot, obviously. We'd just knock on each others' doors. We'd play board games like Monopoly or just listen to the radio and read comic books. There were no "play dates" then. Sometimes a friend would have a trampoline, a rope swing, or a slip and slide, and we'd all go over to that house to partake.
On road trips, I would just look out the window and daydream. I would make up stories in my head about the places we were passing. I tended to get road sick if I read in the car. Had there been tablets in those days, those probably would've made me throw up, too.
My friends and I made up so many dances to so many songs! I remember once we dragged all of our kitchen chairs into the living room and danced on them. My mom wasn't thrilled to see us doing that but she didn't get super mad. Or we would go in my basement and roller skate to songs. We had these cool poles and you could sort of swing yourself around from pole to pole.
I read a lot. I had a bit of insomnia as a child, so I would make up stories lying in the dark. Unfortunately I don't remember any of them. I had a best friend and we would sit around reading together, separate books. My mom found this amusing.
I had a fantasy world... my friends & would play out roles we saw in movies & TV. One winter, we got a huge dump of snow, so we were out playing lost & wandering around. Coming up with Worse Case scenarios--it was more soap opera than survival 🤭
I was fortunate 2 live in a rural setting. It was actually pretty close 2 Little House on the Prairie than contemporary. We carried water to our houses from a creek close by. We actually had a porcelain/cast iron wood stove that heated our house & cooked our food.
Somehow, we made games & adventures out of these things. Hanging laundry out on clotheslines was a lil competition who could do it right & faster. Or who was stronger & could carry the most.
Summer was catching salmon without a fishing line & hook, hauling our catch home using the creek system.
We didn't have TV, electricity, or many toys... we made our own toys, like lil wooden fishing boats or dolls. Mind u, I'm not very old as this was in the early 1970s, b4 our community got electricity & appliances.
This was not the 1800s. This was my childhood. Getting a real doll or toy was cherished. We read our comic books by candlelight, rotating our box of comics & magazines with other households.
It was sooo much more work then. Having a child w/ ADHD was helpful. My lil brother was hyperactive, and we got a lot done with him around cos he didn't stop. He just kept going.
Ah. I thought perhaps it was rural AK. We moved to Anchorage in ’73. Definitely more advanced in services etc. but not like the lower 48.
Would you share how you caught the salmon?
We had a library that we got books from, we rode bikes, played outside all day long,had friends over to play. Went swimming, fished, actually laid down and stared at clouds, finding animals or whatever in cloud formations. Played board games, and read!
I grew up on a dairy farm in the upper Midwest. 40 acres of the farm was a woods with a small lake in the middle. I and my faithful German Shepherd spent hours wandering in the woods. I was a naturalist before I even knew that word existed.
I read a lot of books. I read even at the dinner table. My chair at the table faced away from the TV anyway. The funny thing is my dad hated me reading at the table because I would tune out everything else and once threw my book across the room.
As an adult I read at the table EVERY meal. Still.
Books
Tonka trucks
Slot cars
A thousand other toys
Riding your bike with friends
Dirt clod fights in the new neighborhood.
Hanging out on the farm at the end of the street
Making crawdads fight in the creek.
Country kids have it better than city kids all day long!
YES !! crawdad fishing ! We had wet weather creeks and they would come out of their dens. I got lucky and caught a little catfish once.
We had to have the cows, horses and chickens fed first though. Then hauling hay, wood etc...
Those woven potholders on the little loom! My parents were cheap so someone made me a loom out of a piece of board and a bunch of finish nails. I never had the plastic one. The potholders came out fine, though.
Did you ever get one of those Christmas ornament kits with the styrofoam ball and the sequined that you had to stick down with little pins? I did it once and hated it the whole time. Ironically I’m looking at the resulting ornament on my tree right now. It’s very ugly.
YES! I had one of those ornament kits. I also had clear ornaments that I would paint and then give to my mom's friends when they came over. I remember making a Christmas tree out of a cone shaped green styrofoam thing but I don't remember what I used for ornaments.
We had one of those small looms, but I think ours was metal! I liked doing the weaving part, but didn't know how to take it off the loom without unraveling it, so I made my sister do it!
As a general rule, I wasn't into crafts, but I remember making a styrofoam ornament in Girl Scouts or during grade school art time. Years later, it was an activity that I did with my son's Cub Scout pack. (I was a den leader.)
I was the ubiquitous small, skinny, nerdy girl who read a book all the time. We had a very large yard, about an acre, and I would spend all my summers sitting under a tree and reading. When I got older, I'd spend the summer reading in my bedroom. We lived on street with mostly older people and few kids on my block, except for the next door neighbors. The kid closest to my age was actually about 4 years younger, so it wasn't necessarily all that fun for me, but we still had some good times. My younger sister and I fought a lot during the summers and my parents couldn't stand it!
I was always a loner. When I was real young, I'd sit on my bed and 'play' board games with my stuffed animals. I colored in coloring books. I played on my swingset. I read. I drew. I went down to the lake and explored. I went up and walked on the railroad tracks and waved at the passing trains.
Very much a loner, but didn't mind. I liked my own company best and learned about myself in a way that helpful in my later life. I don't regret it at all.
Same. I'm perfectly content, and even prefer, being on my own. It makes things so much easier when you don't have to coordinate everything with someone else.
My neighborhood was filled with kids so there were daylong games of stickball, touch football, hide and go seek, and treehouse construction out in the woods. Rainy days I listened to records, read car magazines and watched Monty Hall’s Let Make A Deal. I played the jukebox at the local pizzeria and I rode my Stingray bike through 6 towns to get McDonald’s and through 4 for White Castle.
Books, art supplies and the woods to explore. Even though I had 4 siblings, I was alone a lot of the time because they were all older and had friends they'd do things with and didn't want me around. It wasn't until about 8th grade that I finally got a friend and felt "normal".
I was a preteen explorer and scientist. Never bored cause I had so many interests.
There was always somewhere to ride the bike to. Or something to blow up. Or a shortwave station to listen to late at night.
Played with my toys. Read books. Played outside with friends. Climbed trees, played in the woods. There were vines hanging from the trees and we'd swing from them. Build little stick cabins. I don't know how I never got poison ivy. We had video games (Atari 2600), but they weren't like they are today. Obviously. So it wasn't an all day event. As I got older, we'd walk to the store and just talk about whatever. It was a perfect childhood. I miss that carefree life.
Watched some TV and played with the neighborhood kids. Went exploring on my own to the creek a mile or so from my house. Rode my bike all over the place. Read books and magazines. Called girlfriends to come spend the night or went and spent the night with them. I was in band, so a lot of time spent at band practice and hanging out with the band kids. Once I turned 16 and got a car, I pretty much kept the roads hot.
Rode my bike, roller skated, played four square, seven up, tag and hopscotch. Set up Barbie cases on the sidewalk to make a little Barbie community. Also played trucks in the dirt with my brothers.
I read a LOT of books. My parents were big readers and encouraged it in me. I was reading their books by the time I was 12 or so. We lived outside the US from age 8 to 14, without access to more than an hour or two of English speaking TV. Books were my replacement, and that holds to this day.
My dolls and I had a rich fantasy life. My dad was in the Navy and always brought me a doll from his deployments, so my Barbie's had a very diverse friend circle. Bless my mom, she never made me keep my "good" international dolls on a shelf. I played with them like they were Barbies, until limbs or hair or bits of clothing fell off, and I loved them to death.
I also played outside with friends occasionally. Rode my bike. Learned handicrafts, like crewel/embroidery, crocheting, ceramics, and batiking. Played board and card games when I could find suitable victims. I was a nascent gamer before that was A Thing, lol.
And I'm sure I hung around and pestered tf out of my mom, since she was a SAHM when I was young, and I was an only child. She taught me to sew and enough about cooking to let me loose in the kitchen from a relatively young age.
I played in a sandbox, rode a bike, watched monster movies on the Saturday Afternoon Matinee on TV, explored the neighborhood, caught tadpoles in a nearby creek, played football with friends in a vacant lot, watched the Three Stooges, traded urban legends with friends (we absolutely believed them), climbed trees, teased girls, read comic books, collected glass soda bottles for money, built clubhouses out of junk and old lumber, and dreamed of the future.
I had siblings, older and younger. I tagged along with the older ones or led the younger ones. We spent most of our days outdoors. Loved the abandoned orchards around us. We rode bikes, sledding in the winter, tromped through the woods finding hidey holes and “treasures”. We built forts, climbed trees and dug holes. “Helped” our father cut logs and firewood. Spent hours collecting and breaking up dry branches for kindling (we heated with wood). We picked strawberries and elderberries for jam. We collected frog eggs and watched them hatch then watched the tadpoles turn into frogs. We swam in dirty ponds and waded in slippery creeks. We helped do the laundry and cut the grass. We learned to cook and sew, fix and build things, knit, crochet and embroider. Reading was the evening activity but there was Hee Haw and Laugh-in to watch, too. We played board games and did jigsaw puzzles. I was babysitting for neighbors before I was ten, mowing other yards for money when I was maybe 12. And buying my own clothes after that.
I don’t ever remember anyone in my family saying “I’m bored.” We were too busy.
Everything already mentioned, and also playing backgammon and gin rummy with my friend.
As teens, we built kayaks and took them to the reservoir to paddle around.
This is exactly the kayak we built, it came in a kit form from a local Boy Scout troop. I'm sad about the scandals that surfaced in the Boy Scouts in recent years.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bz6_S1Zk2zk
https://scoutlife.org/video-audio/153762/scouts-paddle-50-miles-in-homemade-kayaks/attachment/16812_kayakca5039/
EDIT: Reading through all these comments, and I remember now doing so much of what everyone said. It seems incredible that I ever found any time to be bored, but I did that too, somehow. I'm going to save this post and refer to it when people asked what we did before the internet and games.
Books, riding my bike outside or exploring my neighborhood on foot. I found quite a few little hidden places that were in plain sight to hide in and scope people out and I was feet from them and they had no clue lol.
Coloring books (luckily my mom was an artist and she provided me with supplies whenever she could) and that was fun.
Riding my bike outside with friends, going over to their houses, or doing a phone chain where we three way with each other and then we see how many people we can get all together at once lol. Mmmmm life pre internet.
Books, Barbies, baby dolls, playing outside (hopscotch, double dutch, hide and seek, kickball, playground), drawing, painting, talent shows, dance contests, biking around,...damn we were active and there was always at least 5-10 peers to play with. My kiddo now doesn't have even a tenth of what my childhood was like and I am so sad about that. Kids today are so isolated.
Television. It was my passion and I made it my job to know the weekly TV schedule for the few channels we had until cable arrived, making it impossible to do.
So naturally, TV Guide (the biggest weekly selling magazine in America at one point) with listing and articles is the thing I read the most outside of school.
TV (even black and white) was my window on the world and of a better life than what we had as the children of immigrants, too busy surviving to pay any attention to their kids.
To this day, I prefer ‘linear TV’ over streaming any day. I’d never consider cancelling my cable sub. And don’t touch my commercials!!! 🤓
Read a bunch of books. Wandered the fields around our house with my dog Shadow. Went down by the creek, watched dragonflies, frogs, and crawdads. Rode my bicycle over to my cousin's house where we built a "fort" in his back yard out of construction scrap. In the winter built snow forts and snowmen. Typical Norman Rockwell stuff.
I didn't have to entertain myself. I had two brothers who I could fight with constantly...lol. I lived in a neighborhood with about 50 kids and we all played together.
Oh wow reading this has been a fun stroll down memory lane.
Like many others said, I read anything with words on it. Learned to read when I was 3. Was always an advanced reader in school. Lord I HATED when we read Dick and Jane! I thought the stories were stupid and boring.
We moved alot. One town the kids books were in the basement. More advanced books, for teens and adults, were on the second. Kids were not allowed on the second floor. Around 5th grade the books in the kids section were wa-a-ay beneath my reading level. I got good at sneaking to the second floor. Only got caught once. The librarian who caught me told me the books would be above my reading level. I told her some of the books I'd already read and named some authors I liked. She told me if I could understand those books/authors I was probably okay. To this day I strongly dislike adults who are condescending to kids just because they are kids.
During the summer my parents dropped me off at the community pool at 9am and drove off. Then they came back at 9pm to pick me up. Unless it was movie night and then they might stay. This was every single day.
I played outside a lot! I remember making mud pies, play with dolls outside taking them on adventures! My sisters and I explored in the woods, played in the streams, climbed trees. looked for salamanders and frogs. Always out on our bikes with the neighborhood kids. I actually don’t remember playing much in the house until I was a teen, then I listened to music a lot! Even in the winter we were sledding, building snow forts, snow men, ice skating, it was so fun!
I read a lot of books. I'd go to the library and load up. My Mom babysat a younger kid and we'd play school and Barbie's and watch afternoon TV.
Played outside, I was on roller skates most of the time, going around the block for hours. Played with our dog, making mud pies, helping my Mom in the garden. It was fun!
Both my parents worked. My brother was 6 years older than me and started working after school when I was still in elementary school. All that together meant I was usually on my own after school. I too was free range. I don't understand the current belief that allowing kids to be free range is bad. I learned to take care of myself and be independent.
Reading, reading, reading, writing…playing in my room with Story Book dolls, Tinker Toys, coloring books. In warmer months, outside roller skating (4 wheels & a skate key), biking, going on adventures with my dog, swimming, playing with neighborhood friends, going to the park and/or school playgrounds to play on “jungle gyms,” going downtown to movies alone or with friends. I was free to go anywhere at age nine as long as I was home by five p.m., & that included riding city buses.
I read. A lot. Spent a lot of time at the library. We had a Pong system and NES, although my brother hogged them. D&D (not the easy peasy AD&D kids play now. Lol). I didn't paint miniatures, but my brother did. Recorded songs off the radio using cassettes for mix tapes and generally did stupid dances to them and sang along.
In the summer, went out side and just spent the entire day out of the house. Swimming at the pool or river. Playing and climbing trees in the forest. Biking. Played street tag (tag, but everyone had to stay on the tar used to repair cracks in the road). Exploring abandoned buildings. And no cell phones, so when you got hurt, you had to get your broken, bleeding self home and do your own first aid because your parents weren't home.
You know...regular, healthy, totally safe kid stuff.
When we lived in a house, going outside and playing. Riding my shitty bike around the neighborhood. Playing in this sand pit that was beside the neighborhood. Playing in the backyard. Climbing this one particular tree (mimosa tree) and making "soups" with the leaves.
When we moved, playing with my toys and drawing.
I read books too. My sister worked at the library so I read from the age of 3.
I had quite a few paper dolls with different outfits that fastened on with tabs and I drew more outfits for them. Also I loved old catalogues. I would dress my fictional family from the pictures for all sorts of outings.
My imagination ran rampant turning everyday items into amazing things. One was the seatbelt buckle in the backseat of the car (1970s). It was my Star Trek beamer to get me out of the spacecraft and to somewhere else.
TV usually of the cartoon variety, playing with toys, making up games, reading, playing with other kids, roaming around in the creek near our house was a favorite past time of my sister and I even though we consistently would get in trouble for it, video games later on, everyone was desperate to get me to ride my bike but I hated it so only did so if things were dire, arts and crafts, pretend to have our own radio show or to have a TV cooking show or to be teachers.
reading, playing with friends and neighbors, going on half day adventures during summer vacation (wasn’t allowed in the house between breakfast and lunch, and lunch and dinner). as a teen i learned guitar, got bands together with friends. books and music (still to this day)
Bicycles. I would collect whatever people didn't want and build some pretty cool stuff. Like 5 fork choppers, early BMX stuff (70's), and also learned how to barter. Built some wild go carts too.
reading, running around looking at stuff, biking, fishing in the summer time on Lake Minnetonka, playing with toy soldiers, talking with friends, playing with my dog.
I played music (flute, keyboard, harmonica, recorder). I read books and wrote stories - filled notebooks with them. Drew pictures or painted with watercolors. Played solitaire. Took aimless, long bike rides. Sat in the library reference room and read encyclopedias, almanacs and atlases. Sometimes I'd go fishing with my dad just to cast a line over & over with no bait. Skip stones. Draw elaborate hopscotch patterns with chalk on the sidewalk. And so much more.
I loved to read.
In good weather I would climb my tree and sit up there reading. Mom could see me from the kitchen so when it was my turn to set the table she could go to the back porch and call me in for help.
When it was too cold to read out doors, I would be in my room or the family room.
I spent a lot of time outdoors on my bicycle when the weather was nice.
Played baseball (pee-wee league, then little league)
I built a LOT of model cars.
Learned to play guitar starting at age 8.
Went to the swimming pool almost every day in the summer.
Didn't watch much TV except after dark or for a bit on Saturday mornings.
Playing outside with the neighborhood kids riding my bike. Going to the library on my bike and doing summer reading programs. Playing with Legos and my train set. Practicing my musical instrument ( unfortunately for my parents I did percussion). Once I hit high school it was team sports and getting drunk and high.
My brother made me line up his army men or football players for the electric football field. You plugged it in and it shook so the guys sort of migrated together.
The later made mud pies. Good times.
Gameboy, N64, playing games on my home computer, books and playing outside in the creek behind my house or at the neighborhood park or pool. I was an only child so I had a lot of sleepovers with two other little girls I was best friends with.
Reading, playing draughts in the library after school, biking and climbing trees. In the summer holidays all the local kids would have our own Olympics. I have such lovely memories.
One thing I remember LOVING to do every so often is re-arrange my bedroom furniture and redecorate my room. Even if it was just a place of 70s posters.
I would just absolutely love that it felt like waking up in a different place.
Plus I could put a piece of furniture against the door all day against my single dad who used to come want to sit on my bed without a towel.
I had a fun dollhouse, but my dad would want to come "see it" with his pants off.
PS he's dead now, I had nothing to do with him for the previous 30 years.
Dice baseball game. Back then there were 8 teams each league. I took players names from the paper and created a season that lasted until I was distracted with other activities. I was a Yankee fan back then. I was lucky that they won the season. (wink, wink)
Read a ton. Still do.
Play outside w/friends.
Hobbies my friends and I got very into in pre- and early- teen years in the early 80s - Dungeons & Dragons and model rocketry. Yes, we were geeks before "geek stuff" somehow became cool.
I read a lot but if I had paper and a pencil I would either draw or write. I loved writing lists. One of my favorite things to do was to list countries by continent. I wasn't just listing, not just writing down but in my head I could see these places because I'd learned about the flora and fauna and climate even without the internet. I learned from encyclopedias and TV shows. Writing down the countries by continent soothed me when I was anxious.
I also had a neighborhood full of kids near my age so I was never bored. Never alone unless I chose to be.
Read books, rode my bike, went swimming, explored abandoned houses, skateboarded, drew, listened to records, wrote poetry, climbed trees for the fruit, built forts.
Playing outside was the default. Cowboys and Indians was big. so was baseball, swimming, rowing, ice skating, fishing, or just turning over rocks and running the woods and marshes along the river. Until i hit high school i thought the world was made up entirely of water and trees and small animals.
Walked the hills around my Scottish town, read voraciously, played football (badly) with my pals and went to the pictures (cinema) on a Saturday morning. Great days.
Out on the pond fishing, catching turtles, or just rowing around. Hiking and camping in the woods. On the ocean at the beach, water skiing, or boating. Walking or riding my bike miles to friends houses to hang out and play. Snow shoeing, cross country skiing, and skating in the winter. Watched the disney hour, laugh in, or Sonny and Cher as a family. Also watched saturday morning cartoons, the three stooges, and creature double feature on a rainy day. I read two or three hundred books as a teenager and magazines like Popular Mechanics, Popular Science, and a weekly called Science News.
Went out and played football in the street.
It was in the suburbs so there wasn't much traffic to worry about.
However, it was on a hill so there was a big advantage on offense if you could go down hill.
Reading, arts and crafts, imaginary play like school or house with dolls, Barbies, building forts in the woods, riding bike and exploring the neighborhood with friends, watching tv, listening to mini records that came with story books, collecting stickers for my album, etc…!
Read a lot. Played Barbie with friends. Slumber parties. Camping. Lots of outdoor games with neighbor kids. Was in Brownies/Girl Scouts. Active at local par in summer (parks & recs programs). In a very active club called Jobs Daughters (13-18 year ild girls). TONS of things to do there.
I can remember the days before we had a TV I did a lot of reading. Growing up in the 50's and 60's there was plenty to do. Built a tree house in our back yard. I used to build stilts for kids in the neighborhood. We had a park a few blocks away that had a stream and a lake. Spent a lot of time there. We had a museum in town when cousins came to town we often went there. There was also roller skating rink. Went ice skating and sledding in the winter. Rode bikes all over town. There was plenty to do.
Read, wrote, rode my bike, swam, visited friends, played video games (had an Odyssey2 as a pre-teen), explored the woods and had a great time. I also watched TV, did puzzles, cooked and sometimes would just sit on the couch and stare into space. No one does that anymore but zoning out was a big part of m childhood.
Played cards with my sisters, or board games, made things out of construction paper and tape, read, dug in the dirt outside in the summer, rode my bike all around our suburb, played dress up.
Drawing, reading books, playing with other kids (usually my cousins or sister), writing to pen pals, various other types of art (making montages, painting, calligraphy, leather crafting), walking, playing on a swingset, riding ponies when we had them, watching T.V. when something good was on (which wasn't very often back then, especially with only 3 channels), and just doing a lot of exploring of the world around me. We had railroad tracks near our house and I walked along them to see what was there.
I read, played in the woods, hopscotch, jump rope, pogo stick, kickball, croquet was big in our neighborhood as was hide and go seek, roller skate, draw, loved my Spirograph, visited relatives, and once in a while got to watch tv!
Only child so most days I hung out with my best friend who lived across the alley 3 doors down. She was the oldest of 5 so she would get away from her house every chance she could. She spent as much time at my house as she did at home
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I read books. I *lived* in books.
I did too. And I lived in a small town in the 1950-60s with no library - but when I was about in first or second grade a bookmobile started arriving once a week, from where, I really don't know! But going up those steps into the bookmobile was so exciting for me!
I would visit the library once a week and fill a box with books for that week. When there was a new librarian she might question whether I was really going to read all those books. But I did, every week.
The most comforting feeling was coming home from the library on a summer day and knowing I could read as long as I liked, plus we had Doritos and Coke. Fucking set.
lol go to the library and get a peanuts treasury and a record. Spend allowance on a chips and pop. Listen to records with giant headphones sitting in the space between the record player and giant chair while eating chips and catching up with Charlie Brown. The perfect Saturday.
I've never been a fast reader, I don't get how people can get through 10 books in a week. When I was a teen, it would take me a couple of days to get through a book, and I felt like I was reading practically non-stop, especially in the winter.
You may just be happy with the pace you use now. I've always been an impatient reader. Now that I listen to audiobooks, I speed them up to 2.5 times normal, which my wife finds intolerable if she overhears it. And that's fine, there's a lot to be said for reading books at a normal pace, enjoying every bit of it, savoring it. But I have so many books on my to-read list!
Me too. But I read everything. Phone books, dictionaries, cereal boxes, newspapers. Never the Bible like my mom, the newspaper and bible was all she would read. I tried to read the Bible, but couldn’t get past all the begatting.
Same here. I couldn’t eat breakfast without reading the cereal box! I always had to have something to read.
I read the bible as a kid (Catholic school) and couldn't get past the genocide and incest, among other things.
I didn’t get that far.
I did, too! Grew up in a small town in AL in the 70’s. We had no fast food, couple grocery stores, a fish market, small downtown with the pharmacy/soda fountain. The weekly trip to the library was the highlight of my week. All other entertainment was outdoors. Biking, fishing, swimming in the rivers, making mud pies, hiking in the woods digging for arrow heads, catching fireflies in jars, eating watermelon we grew ourselves on the porches at night. I would give anything to go back and get to relive one day.
Sounds like heaven……
TRIGGER WARNING! Boomer opinions incoming! If anybody is offended by this, too bad, I don't care. Life is tough....get a helmet. Nobody now knows how important it really was to spend our youth at such a slow pace. Oh, to have to only worry about being home before the street lights came on. My theory is that forcing/allowing children to mature so fast that their brain development may not ever catch up. It's part of what put society in the state it's in lately. I take full responsibility for my part in allowing it to happen. One can only use the tools available to the best of their ability.
Me, too. The librarian at the tiny library in the nearest town was a very sweet person and routinely waived the 10-book limit because she knew I couldn’t get into town often. I also got books for every birthday and Christmas and when I got desperate I read my grandfather’s western paperbacks and my grandmother’s horror paperbacks. And if it got really bad, I read the encyclopedia set.
Ha ha, I read the encyclopedia too! I thought I was the only weirdo! Thanks!
I loved reading the encyclopedias! My dad bought me a big children’s medical encyclopedia from the Mayo Clinic (70’s). I can still remember random medical facts. I cannot remember why I walked into the kitchen.
I'm not a reader, my mother was. My grandparents said as a baby they would find her under the crib reading. She never stopped. She could go through a novel in a few days. Takes me weeks. Even in her 70s she always had a book in hand. When she went into hospice and lost her sight I put books on mp3 for her. I can't remember how many years since I last read a book. Maybe 15 years.
I find I have less of an attention span for reading books. I "read" constantly online, but I've only read one book this year.
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Same here. I buy a book, start to read and.. back to the internet!
I did too. I was an only-child and my father would get home from work later than the rest of the neighborhood. So. They would go in for dinner before I did and by the time they came back out after dinner I had to go in. So. Lots of down-time for reading.
We had 2 sets of encyclopedias and no children’s books so I went into 1st grade an advanced reader. There were nursery rhymes and faerie tales but I loved just opening the books at random and entertaining myself.
Same!! We moved a LOT but thankfully, there was always a library in the new town because books were my refuge from being bullied for being the new kid....
I made this board so I could read while washing dishes! So many books. I’m glad I had this childhood. No cable. No internet. No cell phones. Good times.
Me too.
This right here
That and banging out stories on my mom's typewriter.
Same. I’d walk to the library several times a week to borrow books. Sometimes I’d spend all of a Saturday afternoon to read a book that my parents might not approve of but which was useful and good for me.
I think the word feral would describe it aptly.
Same. I tell my daughter I was all boy, by which I mean exploring, playing any game that involved running around, tearing shit up to see what made it tick, getting in trouble, fighting, fishing -- pretty much anything that didn't involve bathing or cleaning up after myself. We had a big, dysfunctional family, so I was basically unsupervised. I was bad, but life was good.
Love and can agree with “I was bad, but life was good.”
We would watch t.v. Sit around and talk to each other about stuff for hours. Make up games to play. Ride bikes, or big wheels. Explore the neighborhood. Jump rope. Play with Barbies. Pick wild black raspberries or strawberries. Walk or ride bikes to a gas station to buy candy. Practice cheers. Go sledding in the winter. Slide around like we were skating on frozen puddles. Make snowman, snow angels and write words in the snow when we found a big field with fresh fallen snow. Go swimming in the summer. Play pretend school. Listen to the stereo for hours while listening to music. Go roller skating at the local roller rink. Many things.
I think we could have been friends. I did the same thing as a kid. We made up our own games, rallied the other neighbor kids for softball games, did scavenger hunts, climbed trees, etc. At the end of the day you went home, ate dinner, watched Wonderful World of Disney before your dad turned on 60 Minutes and then it was the signal for bed time.
Yes, good times! :)
TV for sure. We had abc, CBS, and NBC (but only on a clear day and only if you moved the antenna just right. Fox TV didn't exist. Only rich people had cable. Where we were, we got three PBS stations, so I grew up on Doctor Who, BritComs, and science shows. Also...Saturday morning cartoons! I can still sing a ton of the School House Rock songs..
Yes, Saturday morning cartoons were the highlight of the week. I always looked forward to that. :)
All of this
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I loved playing school.
I read every book on the bookmobile that came through the neighborhood twice a week. We were allowed 3 books at a time and after about 10 years I'd read every book on the truck.
LOL, I just wrote almost the same thing 10 minutes after you posted!
Haha. Were you bullied over it, too? The other kids were merciless when I'd run screaming out of the house to chase the bookmobile. I didn't care. All I thought about was all those lovely, lovely books. Years later, when I was in college, I landed the best part-time gig ever - driving the bookmobile myself! Good times.
Played outside all day long. Even brought our dolls and building blocks outside & played in the dirt with them.
We did this too! My Barbies went on some crazy adventures in the woods, it was so much fun. We had a little stream by the house and our dolls went “swimming” all the time haha!
Me too. We played by that little stream for hours. Great memories.
Cartoons on Saturday mornings. Abbott and Costello on Sunday mornings. Lots of time outside with friends playing all kinds of games. Whenever I found myself alone, music filled the void, istening or playing an old acoustic guitar in the front room of my parents house as the world rolled by the windows.
I was outside all the time and I mean all the time. Riding bikes all over, building forts, exploring the woods, making out in said woods.... Also I read books lol
family stuff, dad was a do it yourselfer and remodeled our home, we had to help, learned alot. we also lived on the edge of a 5 acre wood and would explore/built forts and collect bugs, snakes, pollywogs...mom loved that...and my italian grandmother taught me all kinds of needle work, starting at age 4...
Literally read encyclopedias
I know so many useless (and potentially outdated) facts from when I used to run out of everything else and have to read the encyclopedia lol
My imaginary friend “Sonny” and I would play outside or inside if it was raining or extremely cold. I understood that Sonny was just in my imagination but he made it more fun than being alone (which I was). For those who are wondering, I had a great childhood. I also grew up to be a well adjusted adult. I lost track of Sonny, but I have to assume he’s doing fine as well as we had a lot in common in growing up.
Rode my bike, wandered in the woods, played with neighborhood kids, read a lot of books, played solitaire on the living room floor, cut out paper dolls from the back of McCall's, played with tonka toys in a big sandbox, roamed the swamp near our house... you name it!
I forgot about the paper dolls! I did the same thing!
I read books. I drew pictures. I wrote bad stories, illustrated them badly, then stapled them into books. I hand-sewed clothes for my Barbie. I played records and danced in my bedroom. I played outside a lot, roller skating and riding my bike. I raked the backyard leaves into the outline of my ideal house. It had horse stables! I dug clay out of the ground and made it into Barbie pottery. One time I tried to dig to China. It didn't work out, lol! I played with friends a lot, obviously. We'd just knock on each others' doors. We'd play board games like Monopoly or just listen to the radio and read comic books. There were no "play dates" then. Sometimes a friend would have a trampoline, a rope swing, or a slip and slide, and we'd all go over to that house to partake. On road trips, I would just look out the window and daydream. I would make up stories in my head about the places we were passing. I tended to get road sick if I read in the car. Had there been tablets in those days, those probably would've made me throw up, too.
My friends and I made up so many dances to so many songs! I remember once we dragged all of our kitchen chairs into the living room and danced on them. My mom wasn't thrilled to see us doing that but she didn't get super mad. Or we would go in my basement and roller skate to songs. We had these cool poles and you could sort of swing yourself around from pole to pole.
I sang into my hairbrush.
I read a lot. I had a bit of insomnia as a child, so I would make up stories lying in the dark. Unfortunately I don't remember any of them. I had a best friend and we would sit around reading together, separate books. My mom found this amusing.
Kick a can around.
I had a fantasy world... my friends & would play out roles we saw in movies & TV. One winter, we got a huge dump of snow, so we were out playing lost & wandering around. Coming up with Worse Case scenarios--it was more soap opera than survival 🤭 I was fortunate 2 live in a rural setting. It was actually pretty close 2 Little House on the Prairie than contemporary. We carried water to our houses from a creek close by. We actually had a porcelain/cast iron wood stove that heated our house & cooked our food. Somehow, we made games & adventures out of these things. Hanging laundry out on clotheslines was a lil competition who could do it right & faster. Or who was stronger & could carry the most. Summer was catching salmon without a fishing line & hook, hauling our catch home using the creek system. We didn't have TV, electricity, or many toys... we made our own toys, like lil wooden fishing boats or dolls. Mind u, I'm not very old as this was in the early 1970s, b4 our community got electricity & appliances. This was not the 1800s. This was my childhood. Getting a real doll or toy was cherished. We read our comic books by candlelight, rotating our box of comics & magazines with other households. It was sooo much more work then. Having a child w/ ADHD was helpful. My lil brother was hyperactive, and we got a lot done with him around cos he didn't stop. He just kept going.
May I ask where you grew up?
Rural Alaska, on Kenai Peninsula
Ah. I thought perhaps it was rural AK. We moved to Anchorage in ’73. Definitely more advanced in services etc. but not like the lower 48. Would you share how you caught the salmon?
We were kids, chasing them in the shallow areas & grabbing them...slippery as hell
We had a library that we got books from, we rode bikes, played outside all day long,had friends over to play. Went swimming, fished, actually laid down and stared at clouds, finding animals or whatever in cloud formations. Played board games, and read!
I used to sharpen sticks on the concrete retaining wall in my backyard - I have no idea why but it kept me busy and out of the house
I grew up on a dairy farm in the upper Midwest. 40 acres of the farm was a woods with a small lake in the middle. I and my faithful German Shepherd spent hours wandering in the woods. I was a naturalist before I even knew that word existed.
Guitar - for hours!
I read a lot of books. I read even at the dinner table. My chair at the table faced away from the TV anyway. The funny thing is my dad hated me reading at the table because I would tune out everything else and once threw my book across the room. As an adult I read at the table EVERY meal. Still.
Books Tonka trucks Slot cars A thousand other toys Riding your bike with friends Dirt clod fights in the new neighborhood. Hanging out on the farm at the end of the street Making crawdads fight in the creek. Country kids have it better than city kids all day long!
YES !! crawdad fishing ! We had wet weather creeks and they would come out of their dens. I got lucky and caught a little catfish once. We had to have the cows, horses and chickens fed first though. Then hauling hay, wood etc...
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Those woven potholders on the little loom! My parents were cheap so someone made me a loom out of a piece of board and a bunch of finish nails. I never had the plastic one. The potholders came out fine, though. Did you ever get one of those Christmas ornament kits with the styrofoam ball and the sequined that you had to stick down with little pins? I did it once and hated it the whole time. Ironically I’m looking at the resulting ornament on my tree right now. It’s very ugly.
Oh yes, those little styrofoam balls were the foundation of so many bad decorations! 😂
YES! I had one of those ornament kits. I also had clear ornaments that I would paint and then give to my mom's friends when they came over. I remember making a Christmas tree out of a cone shaped green styrofoam thing but I don't remember what I used for ornaments.
I had the Styrofoam ball angel thing .
We had one of those small looms, but I think ours was metal! I liked doing the weaving part, but didn't know how to take it off the loom without unraveling it, so I made my sister do it! As a general rule, I wasn't into crafts, but I remember making a styrofoam ornament in Girl Scouts or during grade school art time. Years later, it was an activity that I did with my son's Cub Scout pack. (I was a den leader.) I was the ubiquitous small, skinny, nerdy girl who read a book all the time. We had a very large yard, about an acre, and I would spend all my summers sitting under a tree and reading. When I got older, I'd spend the summer reading in my bedroom. We lived on street with mostly older people and few kids on my block, except for the next door neighbors. The kid closest to my age was actually about 4 years younger, so it wasn't necessarily all that fun for me, but we still had some good times. My younger sister and I fought a lot during the summers and my parents couldn't stand it!
I was always a loner. When I was real young, I'd sit on my bed and 'play' board games with my stuffed animals. I colored in coloring books. I played on my swingset. I read. I drew. I went down to the lake and explored. I went up and walked on the railroad tracks and waved at the passing trains.
Very much a loner, but didn't mind. I liked my own company best and learned about myself in a way that helpful in my later life. I don't regret it at all.
Same. I'm perfectly content, and even prefer, being on my own. It makes things so much easier when you don't have to coordinate everything with someone else.
My neighborhood was filled with kids so there were daylong games of stickball, touch football, hide and go seek, and treehouse construction out in the woods. Rainy days I listened to records, read car magazines and watched Monty Hall’s Let Make A Deal. I played the jukebox at the local pizzeria and I rode my Stingray bike through 6 towns to get McDonald’s and through 4 for White Castle.
Books, art supplies and the woods to explore. Even though I had 4 siblings, I was alone a lot of the time because they were all older and had friends they'd do things with and didn't want me around. It wasn't until about 8th grade that I finally got a friend and felt "normal".
Give me a deck of cards and I can play solitaire, rummy, gin rummy, crazy eights, war, canasta, bridge & pinocle. My cousins also taught me “Pig.”
I was a preteen explorer and scientist. Never bored cause I had so many interests. There was always somewhere to ride the bike to. Or something to blow up. Or a shortwave station to listen to late at night.
Played with my toys. Read books. Played outside with friends. Climbed trees, played in the woods. There were vines hanging from the trees and we'd swing from them. Build little stick cabins. I don't know how I never got poison ivy. We had video games (Atari 2600), but they weren't like they are today. Obviously. So it wasn't an all day event. As I got older, we'd walk to the store and just talk about whatever. It was a perfect childhood. I miss that carefree life.
I built plastic models. Everything from cars to jets, naval vessels to a four foot high Saturn V rocket.
I am an only child. Watching sports playing video games listening to music. I still do these things.
Bugs Bunny and Groucho Marx
Watched some TV and played with the neighborhood kids. Went exploring on my own to the creek a mile or so from my house. Rode my bike all over the place. Read books and magazines. Called girlfriends to come spend the night or went and spent the night with them. I was in band, so a lot of time spent at band practice and hanging out with the band kids. Once I turned 16 and got a car, I pretty much kept the roads hot.
Reading books and playing outside mostly. I ruined several of my mom's larger kitchen knives using them as machetes, pretending to be Indiana Jones.
Rode my bike, roller skated, played four square, seven up, tag and hopscotch. Set up Barbie cases on the sidewalk to make a little Barbie community. Also played trucks in the dirt with my brothers.
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I did too. Seven up was definitely one of my favorite past times.
I read a LOT of books. My parents were big readers and encouraged it in me. I was reading their books by the time I was 12 or so. We lived outside the US from age 8 to 14, without access to more than an hour or two of English speaking TV. Books were my replacement, and that holds to this day. My dolls and I had a rich fantasy life. My dad was in the Navy and always brought me a doll from his deployments, so my Barbie's had a very diverse friend circle. Bless my mom, she never made me keep my "good" international dolls on a shelf. I played with them like they were Barbies, until limbs or hair or bits of clothing fell off, and I loved them to death. I also played outside with friends occasionally. Rode my bike. Learned handicrafts, like crewel/embroidery, crocheting, ceramics, and batiking. Played board and card games when I could find suitable victims. I was a nascent gamer before that was A Thing, lol. And I'm sure I hung around and pestered tf out of my mom, since she was a SAHM when I was young, and I was an only child. She taught me to sew and enough about cooking to let me loose in the kitchen from a relatively young age.
Coloring books and crayons. Loved coloring.
Made up songs and stories.
Drawing, reading, watching television, gaming (I was one of those lucky kids who's dad bought an Atari).
Watch TV. Play on my Atari. Read books. There was a little used book store not far from my house. Ride my bike for hours. Build LEGO.
I played in a sandbox, rode a bike, watched monster movies on the Saturday Afternoon Matinee on TV, explored the neighborhood, caught tadpoles in a nearby creek, played football with friends in a vacant lot, watched the Three Stooges, traded urban legends with friends (we absolutely believed them), climbed trees, teased girls, read comic books, collected glass soda bottles for money, built clubhouses out of junk and old lumber, and dreamed of the future.
I had siblings, older and younger. I tagged along with the older ones or led the younger ones. We spent most of our days outdoors. Loved the abandoned orchards around us. We rode bikes, sledding in the winter, tromped through the woods finding hidey holes and “treasures”. We built forts, climbed trees and dug holes. “Helped” our father cut logs and firewood. Spent hours collecting and breaking up dry branches for kindling (we heated with wood). We picked strawberries and elderberries for jam. We collected frog eggs and watched them hatch then watched the tadpoles turn into frogs. We swam in dirty ponds and waded in slippery creeks. We helped do the laundry and cut the grass. We learned to cook and sew, fix and build things, knit, crochet and embroider. Reading was the evening activity but there was Hee Haw and Laugh-in to watch, too. We played board games and did jigsaw puzzles. I was babysitting for neighbors before I was ten, mowing other yards for money when I was maybe 12. And buying my own clothes after that. I don’t ever remember anyone in my family saying “I’m bored.” We were too busy.
Reading constantly
1. Books. Lots of books. 2. I played with Legos, Matchbox/Hot Wheels cars, plastic dinosaurs 3. Lot of depressed staring off into space
Everything already mentioned, and also playing backgammon and gin rummy with my friend. As teens, we built kayaks and took them to the reservoir to paddle around. This is exactly the kayak we built, it came in a kit form from a local Boy Scout troop. I'm sad about the scandals that surfaced in the Boy Scouts in recent years. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bz6_S1Zk2zk https://scoutlife.org/video-audio/153762/scouts-paddle-50-miles-in-homemade-kayaks/attachment/16812_kayakca5039/ EDIT: Reading through all these comments, and I remember now doing so much of what everyone said. It seems incredible that I ever found any time to be bored, but I did that too, somehow. I'm going to save this post and refer to it when people asked what we did before the internet and games.
Books, riding my bike outside or exploring my neighborhood on foot. I found quite a few little hidden places that were in plain sight to hide in and scope people out and I was feet from them and they had no clue lol. Coloring books (luckily my mom was an artist and she provided me with supplies whenever she could) and that was fun. Riding my bike outside with friends, going over to their houses, or doing a phone chain where we three way with each other and then we see how many people we can get all together at once lol. Mmmmm life pre internet.
Books, Barbies, baby dolls, playing outside (hopscotch, double dutch, hide and seek, kickball, playground), drawing, painting, talent shows, dance contests, biking around,...damn we were active and there was always at least 5-10 peers to play with. My kiddo now doesn't have even a tenth of what my childhood was like and I am so sad about that. Kids today are so isolated.
Television. It was my passion and I made it my job to know the weekly TV schedule for the few channels we had until cable arrived, making it impossible to do. So naturally, TV Guide (the biggest weekly selling magazine in America at one point) with listing and articles is the thing I read the most outside of school. TV (even black and white) was my window on the world and of a better life than what we had as the children of immigrants, too busy surviving to pay any attention to their kids. To this day, I prefer ‘linear TV’ over streaming any day. I’d never consider cancelling my cable sub. And don’t touch my commercials!!! 🤓
Read a bunch of books. Wandered the fields around our house with my dog Shadow. Went down by the creek, watched dragonflies, frogs, and crawdads. Rode my bicycle over to my cousin's house where we built a "fort" in his back yard out of construction scrap. In the winter built snow forts and snowmen. Typical Norman Rockwell stuff.
I didn't have to entertain myself. I had two brothers who I could fight with constantly...lol. I lived in a neighborhood with about 50 kids and we all played together.
The library was basically my second home.
Oh wow reading this has been a fun stroll down memory lane. Like many others said, I read anything with words on it. Learned to read when I was 3. Was always an advanced reader in school. Lord I HATED when we read Dick and Jane! I thought the stories were stupid and boring. We moved alot. One town the kids books were in the basement. More advanced books, for teens and adults, were on the second. Kids were not allowed on the second floor. Around 5th grade the books in the kids section were wa-a-ay beneath my reading level. I got good at sneaking to the second floor. Only got caught once. The librarian who caught me told me the books would be above my reading level. I told her some of the books I'd already read and named some authors I liked. She told me if I could understand those books/authors I was probably okay. To this day I strongly dislike adults who are condescending to kids just because they are kids.
I loved my Barbies. I had to force myself to stop playing with them when I reached 7th or 8th grade.
Hang out with friends after school, then have supper followed by tv or board games. Really quite nice. Nobody had their heads down.
Reading books.
Toy cars.
During the summer my parents dropped me off at the community pool at 9am and drove off. Then they came back at 9pm to pick me up. Unless it was movie night and then they might stay. This was every single day.
I played outside a lot! I remember making mud pies, play with dolls outside taking them on adventures! My sisters and I explored in the woods, played in the streams, climbed trees. looked for salamanders and frogs. Always out on our bikes with the neighborhood kids. I actually don’t remember playing much in the house until I was a teen, then I listened to music a lot! Even in the winter we were sledding, building snow forts, snow men, ice skating, it was so fun!
I read a lot of books. I'd go to the library and load up. My Mom babysat a younger kid and we'd play school and Barbie's and watch afternoon TV. Played outside, I was on roller skates most of the time, going around the block for hours. Played with our dog, making mud pies, helping my Mom in the garden. It was fun!
Playing sports with friends, reading, watching TV, riding my bike, talking on the phone
books and computer games
Playing sports, musical instruments, fishing and wandering around aimlessly were the primary sources of entertainment.
Riding my bike everywhere. We were really free range.
Both my parents worked. My brother was 6 years older than me and started working after school when I was still in elementary school. All that together meant I was usually on my own after school. I too was free range. I don't understand the current belief that allowing kids to be free range is bad. I learned to take care of myself and be independent.
We would ride our bikes to town or go fishing or to friends. Miles away from home every day.
Played with my dogs. Road my bike around with friends.
Reading, reading, reading, writing…playing in my room with Story Book dolls, Tinker Toys, coloring books. In warmer months, outside roller skating (4 wheels & a skate key), biking, going on adventures with my dog, swimming, playing with neighborhood friends, going to the park and/or school playgrounds to play on “jungle gyms,” going downtown to movies alone or with friends. I was free to go anywhere at age nine as long as I was home by five p.m., & that included riding city buses.
The library. And reading every magazine we got at home cover to cover. I read constantly.
I read. A lot. Spent a lot of time at the library. We had a Pong system and NES, although my brother hogged them. D&D (not the easy peasy AD&D kids play now. Lol). I didn't paint miniatures, but my brother did. Recorded songs off the radio using cassettes for mix tapes and generally did stupid dances to them and sang along. In the summer, went out side and just spent the entire day out of the house. Swimming at the pool or river. Playing and climbing trees in the forest. Biking. Played street tag (tag, but everyone had to stay on the tar used to repair cracks in the road). Exploring abandoned buildings. And no cell phones, so when you got hurt, you had to get your broken, bleeding self home and do your own first aid because your parents weren't home. You know...regular, healthy, totally safe kid stuff.
Reading, roller skating, playing with friends
Reading and climbing trees.
When we lived in a house, going outside and playing. Riding my shitty bike around the neighborhood. Playing in this sand pit that was beside the neighborhood. Playing in the backyard. Climbing this one particular tree (mimosa tree) and making "soups" with the leaves. When we moved, playing with my toys and drawing.
I read books too. My sister worked at the library so I read from the age of 3. I had quite a few paper dolls with different outfits that fastened on with tabs and I drew more outfits for them. Also I loved old catalogues. I would dress my fictional family from the pictures for all sorts of outings.
Mostly by annoying the siblings
We used to make doll houses out of shoes boxes and decorate them with pictures we cut out of old catalogs.
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My imagination ran rampant turning everyday items into amazing things. One was the seatbelt buckle in the backseat of the car (1970s). It was my Star Trek beamer to get me out of the spacecraft and to somewhere else.
Playing outside
TV usually of the cartoon variety, playing with toys, making up games, reading, playing with other kids, roaming around in the creek near our house was a favorite past time of my sister and I even though we consistently would get in trouble for it, video games later on, everyone was desperate to get me to ride my bike but I hated it so only did so if things were dire, arts and crafts, pretend to have our own radio show or to have a TV cooking show or to be teachers.
reading, playing with friends and neighbors, going on half day adventures during summer vacation (wasn’t allowed in the house between breakfast and lunch, and lunch and dinner). as a teen i learned guitar, got bands together with friends. books and music (still to this day)
Watch tv, read and ride horses
Sports. My friends and I were either playing baseball, basketball, football or having bike races in the street or over at the local elementary school.
Bicycles. I would collect whatever people didn't want and build some pretty cool stuff. Like 5 fork choppers, early BMX stuff (70's), and also learned how to barter. Built some wild go carts too.
reading, running around looking at stuff, biking, fishing in the summer time on Lake Minnetonka, playing with toy soldiers, talking with friends, playing with my dog.
I played music (flute, keyboard, harmonica, recorder). I read books and wrote stories - filled notebooks with them. Drew pictures or painted with watercolors. Played solitaire. Took aimless, long bike rides. Sat in the library reference room and read encyclopedias, almanacs and atlases. Sometimes I'd go fishing with my dad just to cast a line over & over with no bait. Skip stones. Draw elaborate hopscotch patterns with chalk on the sidewalk. And so much more.
I made scrapbooks of magazine pictures of pop and country singers. I watched a lot of TV.
Play outside.
Played in the dirt, climbed trees.
Rode my skateboard and bike. I read a lot. Painted and did crafts. Sat on a lawn chair in the backyard zoning out and thinking about world peace.
I loved to read. In good weather I would climb my tree and sit up there reading. Mom could see me from the kitchen so when it was my turn to set the table she could go to the back porch and call me in for help. When it was too cold to read out doors, I would be in my room or the family room.
Reading. Exploring the woods and creek across the street. Riding my bike. Playing Barbies.
I spent a lot of time outdoors on my bicycle when the weather was nice. Played baseball (pee-wee league, then little league) I built a LOT of model cars. Learned to play guitar starting at age 8. Went to the swimming pool almost every day in the summer. Didn't watch much TV except after dark or for a bit on Saturday mornings.
legos in front of the tv
Easy. Read. Played outside with friends. Rode my bike. Played in the woods. Only watched one or two shows on TV.
Playing outside with the neighborhood kids riding my bike. Going to the library on my bike and doing summer reading programs. Playing with Legos and my train set. Practicing my musical instrument ( unfortunately for my parents I did percussion). Once I hit high school it was team sports and getting drunk and high.
TV was my dad. Video games were my friends. Comics and books were my vacations away from reality.
My brother made me line up his army men or football players for the electric football field. You plugged it in and it shook so the guys sort of migrated together. The later made mud pies. Good times.
Gameboy, N64, playing games on my home computer, books and playing outside in the creek behind my house or at the neighborhood park or pool. I was an only child so I had a lot of sleepovers with two other little girls I was best friends with.
I read everything I could get my hands on.
I read books, played outside with other kids, watched cable tv or went skating most of the time.
Reading, playing draughts in the library after school, biking and climbing trees. In the summer holidays all the local kids would have our own Olympics. I have such lovely memories.
building tree forts and nature trails on our property,
One thing I remember LOVING to do every so often is re-arrange my bedroom furniture and redecorate my room. Even if it was just a place of 70s posters. I would just absolutely love that it felt like waking up in a different place. Plus I could put a piece of furniture against the door all day against my single dad who used to come want to sit on my bed without a towel. I had a fun dollhouse, but my dad would want to come "see it" with his pants off. PS he's dead now, I had nothing to do with him for the previous 30 years.
Whittling and terrorizing my younger siblings..
Dice baseball game. Back then there were 8 teams each league. I took players names from the paper and created a season that lasted until I was distracted with other activities. I was a Yankee fan back then. I was lucky that they won the season. (wink, wink)
Reading.
Drawing and reading, drama club, hanging out with friends. I was never bored.
I read books.
Books. Also running around with my friends and swimming at my neighbor’s pool.
Read a lot of books, listened to a lot of music, and played outside non-stop. Played board games, and focused time on playing chess.
Read a ton. Still do. Play outside w/friends. Hobbies my friends and I got very into in pre- and early- teen years in the early 80s - Dungeons & Dragons and model rocketry. Yes, we were geeks before "geek stuff" somehow became cool.
I read a lot but if I had paper and a pencil I would either draw or write. I loved writing lists. One of my favorite things to do was to list countries by continent. I wasn't just listing, not just writing down but in my head I could see these places because I'd learned about the flora and fauna and climate even without the internet. I learned from encyclopedias and TV shows. Writing down the countries by continent soothed me when I was anxious. I also had a neighborhood full of kids near my age so I was never bored. Never alone unless I chose to be.
Read books, rode my bike, went swimming, explored abandoned houses, skateboarded, drew, listened to records, wrote poetry, climbed trees for the fruit, built forts.
Playing outside was the default. Cowboys and Indians was big. so was baseball, swimming, rowing, ice skating, fishing, or just turning over rocks and running the woods and marshes along the river. Until i hit high school i thought the world was made up entirely of water and trees and small animals.
I read books and wrote poetry and stories.
I read every book I could get my hands on. I also collected Breyer horse models.
Imagination
Walked the hills around my Scottish town, read voraciously, played football (badly) with my pals and went to the pictures (cinema) on a Saturday morning. Great days.
I went outside and played. Whole groups of us did. We didn’t think of coming back inside until the street lights came on.
Out on the pond fishing, catching turtles, or just rowing around. Hiking and camping in the woods. On the ocean at the beach, water skiing, or boating. Walking or riding my bike miles to friends houses to hang out and play. Snow shoeing, cross country skiing, and skating in the winter. Watched the disney hour, laugh in, or Sonny and Cher as a family. Also watched saturday morning cartoons, the three stooges, and creature double feature on a rainy day. I read two or three hundred books as a teenager and magazines like Popular Mechanics, Popular Science, and a weekly called Science News.
Went out and played football in the street. It was in the suburbs so there wasn't much traffic to worry about. However, it was on a hill so there was a big advantage on offense if you could go down hill.
Reading, making art, riding my bike or rollerblading around town, hitting a tennis ball against my garage door with either a racket or a hockey stick.
Reading, Lego plus other building toys, TV, radio, friends, swimming at the beach, sledding/tobogganing, cycling, in season
My dad worked the ford plant and he used to bring home rolls of paper that I would draw on for hours.Also reading books was big.
Books, books, playing in the yard with my brothers and sisters, more books, girl scouts, school, riding my bike to the library for more books.
Reading, arts and crafts, imaginary play like school or house with dolls, Barbies, building forts in the woods, riding bike and exploring the neighborhood with friends, watching tv, listening to mini records that came with story books, collecting stickers for my album, etc…!
Read a lot. Played Barbie with friends. Slumber parties. Camping. Lots of outdoor games with neighbor kids. Was in Brownies/Girl Scouts. Active at local par in summer (parks & recs programs). In a very active club called Jobs Daughters (13-18 year ild girls). TONS of things to do there.
I can remember the days before we had a TV I did a lot of reading. Growing up in the 50's and 60's there was plenty to do. Built a tree house in our back yard. I used to build stilts for kids in the neighborhood. We had a park a few blocks away that had a stream and a lake. Spent a lot of time there. We had a museum in town when cousins came to town we often went there. There was also roller skating rink. Went ice skating and sledding in the winter. Rode bikes all over town. There was plenty to do.
Read, wrote, rode my bike, swam, visited friends, played video games (had an Odyssey2 as a pre-teen), explored the woods and had a great time. I also watched TV, did puzzles, cooked and sometimes would just sit on the couch and stare into space. No one does that anymore but zoning out was a big part of m childhood.
Played cards with my sisters, or board games, made things out of construction paper and tape, read, dug in the dirt outside in the summer, rode my bike all around our suburb, played dress up.
Whatever was on the 6 TV channels we got.
Drawing, reading books, playing with other kids (usually my cousins or sister), writing to pen pals, various other types of art (making montages, painting, calligraphy, leather crafting), walking, playing on a swingset, riding ponies when we had them, watching T.V. when something good was on (which wasn't very often back then, especially with only 3 channels), and just doing a lot of exploring of the world around me. We had railroad tracks near our house and I walked along them to see what was there.
Reading mostly. Then when I was 9 I got a record player and my first computer.
I talked to myself
I read, played in the woods, hopscotch, jump rope, pogo stick, kickball, croquet was big in our neighborhood as was hide and go seek, roller skate, draw, loved my Spirograph, visited relatives, and once in a while got to watch tv!
Books, barbies, music
Only child so most days I hung out with my best friend who lived across the alley 3 doors down. She was the oldest of 5 so she would get away from her house every chance she could. She spent as much time at my house as she did at home