Have to agree with Pacamom, based on current conventional wisdom, the most dangerous toy we had growing up was our bicycles! I actually survived riding 2 miles back and forth every day on the way to school without a helmet. Now even skiers and snowboarders wear helmets. Anyone else think that helmets might make kids more reckless?
Thomas Sowell: There are no solutions, just trade-offs.
Rode mini bikes with no helmets, no shoes and no sense. We'd take those things out on the road and wind 'em out at full throttle downhill so we could reach a max speed of around 60 mph.
Rode horses with no saddles, no bridles, no helmets, no shoes and no sense. Played cowboys and Indians on said horses at high speeds wielding sharp weapons like whittled pine branches and those surveyor sticks with the pointy ends (Indians), and the cowboys used BB guns and pellet guns and really did shoot at us.
Built a go-cart from a lawn mower engine and boards. Thing was fast as a rocket going down above-mentioned road, but we forgot to add any kind of braking system. Since baby bro was the pilot, none of us got hurt.
Built forts in twenty-ton hay stacks that had multiple rooms and tunnels. How they didn't fall in more often attests to our outstanding building abilities. Or luck, not sure which.
Built live traps by digging huge pits, adding pointy sticks in the bottom that aimed at the sky and then making a lattice of logs over top that was covered with pine boughs and other natural looking stuff. The prey? Any kid that forgot those were there or a mountain lion. We checked them about every two weeks, but never caught much.
One kid rides a horse (usually me) and wraps a long rope around their waist that is then tied to another kid (usually baby bro again) who is trying to ski on the mud after a good rain. Another option if no other kids were around was to simply hang on to a horse's tail and smack them on the butt so they'd drag you.
Later, this rope around the waist method was modified to drag someone with a board strapped to their feet. Eventually, we'd run the horse alongside the canal and the one with the board strapped to their feet would try to water ski. Again, this didn't work very well.
Firecrackers in bottles, cans, barrels and then lit and thrown. Making bombs was a fun thing to do too when we could swipe some fuel from the tractor. Yeah, lucky we didn't torch the entire mountain.
I'll quit now, but you get the idea...I'm not sure how any of us survived.
I remember wanting an electric guitar very much when I was about 15. Long haired hippy in the 70's.
My Dad bought me a Chemistry set instead. Almost burned down the dang house! Hehehe Never could play the guitar, guess Dad was right after all.
If you want to be, press one. If you want not to be, press 2
Republicans are red, democrats are blue, neither of them, gives a flip about you.
Oh, just the usual stuff...Red Ryder BB gun, slingshot, 55lb. double - tube steel frame bicycle, with no helmet. Rode up and down several two-lanes-each-way Denver streets, to and from school; steel-wheeled skateboards (there, I wound up picking gravel out of my palms a couple of times.) and later, Jan & Dean 'Sidewalk Surfin'-era mahogany skateboard, made in middle-school shop class, with hard plastic 'rink' wheels. (No helmet, again.) on a neighboring side street...almost three blocks long, with Hollywood curbs. (And the reciprocal 3-block hike back.) No 'Safety-Packaged', OHSA-approved toys/activities allowed.
We had fireworks wars, bb gun wars, slingshot wars, but the bloodiest were the catalpa bean pod wars. When green, the long pointed bean pods could be thrown and stuck into the opponent.
Kids, little heathens without smarts. :woo hoo:
1. Yamaha 125cc Three Wheeler- started riding it alone at age 7 (likes to roll over) :scared:
2. Yamaha 350cc four-stroke dirt bike- jumping it at age 9 :thumbsup:
3. The triple jump 50' or so across (a few crashes on that one) I jumped at 13.
4. Riding Hwy 285 down Crow Hill with the mountain bike at age 7 :crossed:
5. BB and pellet gun wars with neighbor friends.
6. Hose (used to siphon gas for dirt bikes)
7. Rocks (to throw of course)
8. Sticks (well, you get the idea) :bash
9. Mixing #1 and #2 with #5 :Whistle
10. Olympic sized trampoline (that was fun but prone for injury)
Hmm, I'm a little more careful now (just a little).
The Thing Maker! Who knows what was in that glue stuff that you cooked into bugs and dragons and other creatures. Not to mention the hot plate that you cooked with.
Interesting reading about riding bikes without a helmet or riding them along roads. Never considered that dangerous at all. I still don't see the problem with it. Yes, I do think one is a little more cautious without all the protective clothing. Accidents happened, but that was part of the growing up process and learning what worked and didn't work. Nor was rock throwing considered dangerous. You had to get out of the way and know how to duck low or behind something. Gas siphoning.. never thought about that, but that was part of work in filling lawnmowers and the like. As an avid collector of bugs and butterflies, I used cyanide in a jar to kill them. I suppose that was dangerous, but hell, I had sense enough to be careful with it... therefore not dangerous. I think a lot of things I did as a youth and considered normal or routine are now deemed dangerous for kids. Different times and different perspectives then and now.
Never could play the guitar, guess Dad was right after all. 
