I know it’s likely personal bias, but it really seems that essentially all the previous generations didn’t give even half a shit about human life.
My parents are Boomers and everything I've ever heard from them, their siblings, and their parents paints a very specific picture titled: "Throw the kids outside, feed the ones that come back." The prevailing attitudes in the neighborhoods my parents grew up in was that any group of kids larger than three could look after themselves. And if they couldn't? Well you probably had three or more spares
Of course, this was the same generation that was told "never go around Uncle Bobby's house alone" and that was the extent their parents would warn them about the known (and unreported) pedophile in the family
We had a Subaru Brat. Hated being in that rear facing backseat in the rain with maybe a garbage bag "raincoat", people in the cars behind us making way too much eye contact.
Ah, the tax avoidance murder seats that in later models came with labels saying "Do Not Use These Seats As Seats".
We had one of those in....it wasn't a Subaru, but something, in the late 80s/early 90s. We called it the "way back seat". I loved waving at the cars behind us.
But yeah, what a fucking terrible idea.
That's funny. We had a "way-back" seat in my family's late-80s-era Chevrolet station wagon. It's where the cool kids got to sit when the car was full. It was great for making me super car-sick.
On the topic of jungle gyms, I cannot find a picture of it but my elementary school used to have a huge, octagonal, steel jungle gym that had to stand at least 10-12 feet off the ground, and had 4 fire-polls that ran down the middle once you were at the top.
We used it to play a game called "spider" where one player who was "it" would crawl around the inside of the dome and try to tag the rest of us out before we got to the top and slid down. There were all kinds of rule variations that I barely remember, including capturing players or freezing them so they had to get tagged in by another who just slid down the pole. Stuff like that. It was fun, but I'm sure my classmates fell off that deathtrap every day.
When I was single digits, I used to ride in the back of my Dad's pickup truck while he whipped around corners and pumped the brakes at random intervals trying to knock me down. The 80s were different
We would tandem some GT snoracers with rope to the back of the youth van and go flying down snowy roads , I still dunno how we are alive.
Jesus Christ, GTs are dangerous enough on their own, how did you not Final Destination this
I feel I can fully explain our level of stupid invincibility by mentioning there would be fights to be in the final GT of the ropes, because that is the one that would get flung the hardest on a corner.
I read about how the increase in all these safety factors is making kids too risk averse now as a side effect. like there are no more monkey bars on a lot of playgrounds because kids might fall and hurt themselves.
when I was a kid there was a bunch of them on the playground including one really difficult one that had a V shape incline/decline on it. it was the pinnacle of kid aspirations
My school playground had these two like tower things with big tires bolted on both sides so you could climb up. We fell off those onto the lovely playground gravel all the time. Then one got struck by lightning, totally burned to ash. The other stood until enough patents complained.
I suspect increase cultural caution and safety mindedness is less from Americans getting a clue and more fear the actual christian devil is out to get them through every community facet.
Reading about things like children getting into major brawls definitely makes me think modern American parents care a bit more about their kids not getting seriously injured
GROTH: Did you yourself get in a lot of fights when you were a kid?
KIRBY: Yes. They were unavoidable.
ROZ KIRBY: And your brother got into a lot of fights.
KIRBY: Yes. As I said. my brother was a big kid.
GROTH: A tough kid?
KIRBY: He was as tough as anybody else, but he was young. He was five years younger than myself. My mother wanted my brother to wear nice clothes and be a big style kid. Well, can you imagine a big style kid with a lace collar and velvet pants and long, curly hair — blonde hair that came down to his shoulders? I’d get into fights because of my brother, and I got into fights because of his velvet pants and his lace collar, and my brother being a younger boy did the best he could, but I had to whale into these guys. I had to really whale into ’em, and I did. And it was a common, everyday occurrence. Fighting became second nature. I began to like it. And I love wrestling. When I went into the Army. I took judo. Out of a class of 27, just me and another fellow graduated. There was nothing wrong with me. I loved it.
GROTH: Now these fights in your neighborhood — these were serious, knock-down, drag-out fights.
KIRBY: Oh yes, they were. Not only that, but they were climb-out fights. There was a monument store. There was a store that built funeral monuments, and we used to run over those monuments. We used to hop from monument to monument chasing each other. For all I know, the may still be on Suffolk Street.
GROTH: Now, what do you mean by a “climb-out fight”?
KIRBY: A climb-out fight is where you climb a building. You climb fire escapes. You climb to the top of the building. You fight on the roof, and you fight all the way down again. You fight down the wooden stairs, see? And, of course, I didn’t win all of them. You fought fair. If the other guy wants to fight and you knocked him out, you did your best for him. You didn’t want to hurt him any more. There was one time they knocked me out and laid me in front of my mother’s door. And in order for my mother not to be shocked they readjusted my clothes and they saw that nothing was rumpled and I looked very comfortable next to the apartment door, so when my mother would open the door it wouldn’t be that much of a shock.
I suspect increase cultural caution and safety mindedness is less from Americans getting a clue and more fear the actual christian devil is out to get them through every community facet.
I promise you that the mindset you're describing has never, one single time, led to the implementation of any safety system or feature that has actually improved safety or well-being
In fact in many cases it's happened despite those people's strenuous objections!
I suspect increase cultural caution and safety mindedness is less from Americans getting a clue and more fear the actual christian devil is out to get them through every community facet.
Reading about things like children getting into major brawls definitely makes me think modern American parents care a bit more about their kids not getting seriously injured
GROTH: Did you yourself get in a lot of fights when you were a kid?
KIRBY: Yes. They were unavoidable.
ROZ KIRBY: And your brother got into a lot of fights.
KIRBY: Yes. As I said. my brother was a big kid.
GROTH: A tough kid?
KIRBY: He was as tough as anybody else, but he was young. He was five years younger than myself. My mother wanted my brother to wear nice clothes and be a big style kid. Well, can you imagine a big style kid with a lace collar and velvet pants and long, curly hair — blonde hair that came down to his shoulders? I’d get into fights because of my brother, and I got into fights because of his velvet pants and his lace collar, and my brother being a younger boy did the best he could, but I had to whale into these guys. I had to really whale into ’em, and I did. And it was a common, everyday occurrence. Fighting became second nature. I began to like it. And I love wrestling. When I went into the Army. I took judo. Out of a class of 27, just me and another fellow graduated. There was nothing wrong with me. I loved it.
GROTH: Now these fights in your neighborhood — these were serious, knock-down, drag-out fights.
KIRBY: Oh yes, they were. Not only that, but they were climb-out fights. There was a monument store. There was a store that built funeral monuments, and we used to run over those monuments. We used to hop from monument to monument chasing each other. For all I know, the may still be on Suffolk Street.
GROTH: Now, what do you mean by a “climb-out fight”?
KIRBY: A climb-out fight is where you climb a building. You climb fire escapes. You climb to the top of the building. You fight on the roof, and you fight all the way down again. You fight down the wooden stairs, see? And, of course, I didn’t win all of them. You fought fair. If the other guy wants to fight and you knocked him out, you did your best for him. You didn’t want to hurt him any more. There was one time they knocked me out and laid me in front of my mother’s door. And in order for my mother not to be shocked they readjusted my clothes and they saw that nothing was rumpled and I looked very comfortable next to the apartment door, so when my mother would open the door it wouldn’t be that much of a shock.
Kirby was legit.
the kids in my development kinda divided into two groups. One loosely organized around an actual legitimate psychopath, and one around the dirt poor always building go-karts kid.
we had a lot of fights. most of the time it was just punch and throw, not going for damage so much as bragging rights.
but man, Steve, that's the psychopath, if he got you in his sights all of a sudden it was a fight to the pain.
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BlackDragon480Bluster KerfuffleMaster of Windy ImportRegistered Userregular
What if rush limbaugh's grave marker was some kind of kids play equipment
That's disgusting. It's covered in piss.
Near where I grew up there's a public park nicknamed "Penguin Park", due to its most visible item a 2.5 storie fiberglass penguin with a fiberglass slide coming out of his neck. The head of the penguin was where you entered the slide and it had a couple of large holes in the floor, I'm guessing for reducing weight as it wasn't really anchored to anything. Those holes were community toilets as the pee/poop would just fall into the base of the structure, no muss, no fuss.
Come summertime though, you could smell it from a quarter mile away. It eventually got condemned as a public health risk, not from the waste, but because transients would go up in the head to get drunk or shoot up, so there were always liquor bottles and used syringes all over.
Still have fond memories of that park. My freshman year of college I had my first outdoor copulation there, with the gal that'd be my fiance in a year. We christened an elephant on some spring shocks that rocked back and forth like one of those $0.25 carousel horses outside a store.
No matter where you go...there you are. ~ Buckaroo Banzai
When I was second grade, which means I would be about seven years old, my elementary school had this huge wooden structure with monkey bars, slides,, fire poles, a lookout tower with a fake telescope, etc
Someone shoved me off the middle of it and I broke my arm when I landed on the wooden mulch
I would hazard a guess that a lot of the playground equipment from that era is disappearing because it was expensive and dangerous
Do playgrounds still have those maypoles with metal chains?
There was one on my childhood playground.
Rusty as heck.
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StraightziHere we may reign secure, and in my choice,To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered Userregular
A lot of playground equipment from twenty or thirty years ago is disappearing because that shit's old
Yes, there are safety concerns and similar that might accelerate certain processes, but even the best made structure is going to get worn the fuck out by hundreds of children clambering over it every day
And when it gets replaced, it will get replaced by what's available, which might involve different materials or designs or whatever else - you can watch the trends rise and fall with playground equipment as you can with any other design school or industry
A lot of playground equipment from twenty or thirty years ago is disappearing because that shit's old
Yes, there are safety concerns and similar that might accelerate certain processes, but even the best made structure is going to get worn the fuck out by hundreds of children clambering over it every day
And when it gets replaced, it will get replaced by what's available, which might involve different materials or designs or whatever else - you can watch the trends rise and fall with playground equipment as you can with any other design school or industry
Honestly, the new playgrounds are pretty cool
In my city they've been theming a lot of them and the structures are all actually fairly different; the one near me is dinosaur themed including a big fossilized t-rex, and the other one in walking distance has a sort of space theme with phases of the moon on the sidewalk and an atomic looking climbing dome with bars and nets interwoven in it, and some splashpad stuff on the outskirts
I drive by one on the way to get groceries that features Chinese-style dragons and has multiple languages on all of the signage, which is especially nice to see in the 'burbs
StraightziHere we may reign secure, and in my choice,To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered Userregular
Yeah I love checking out playground designs and stuff like that, there is some wild stuff being made these days
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WeaverWho are you?What do you want?Registered Userregular
The big huge playground nearby in Germany that we called "the fort" had way larger cargo net structures that any kid had a right to be clambering around in.
The big huge playground nearby in Germany that we called "the fort" had way larger cargo net structures that any kid had a right to be clambering around in.
The big huge playground nearby in Germany that we called "the fort" had way larger cargo net structures that any kid had a right to be clambering around in.
I think those are still used today..
Yea these have been going up around here for the past few years. they look AWESOME. I would have loved to play on these as a kid.
I got into fights for the sheer fuck of it (boredom, attention seeking, acting out from shitty home life) until about fourth grade, when a larger, tougher kid came within a couple inches of smashing in my head in with a rock bigger than his fist, and I suddenly came to the conclusion that oh wait, this is serious business
Less that I'd be hospitalized or possibly killed, more that I knew if I went to the doctor with a massive head injury it would cost my parents major money, and I would be in big trouble
The big huge playground nearby in Germany that we called "the fort" had way larger cargo net structures that any kid had a right to be clambering around in.
I think those are still used today..
We’ve got one of these at the local playground here. I climbed up a few years ago, out of a desire to reclaim a childhood fun on a structure cooler than anything I had access to growing up. When at the top I wondered:
- how the heck is a kid going to get down safely once they climb up here?
- How the heck am I going to get down?
Posts
My parents are Boomers and everything I've ever heard from them, their siblings, and their parents paints a very specific picture titled: "Throw the kids outside, feed the ones that come back." The prevailing attitudes in the neighborhoods my parents grew up in was that any group of kids larger than three could look after themselves. And if they couldn't? Well you probably had three or more spares
Of course, this was the same generation that was told "never go around Uncle Bobby's house alone" and that was the extent their parents would warn them about the known (and unreported) pedophile in the family
That's funny. We had a "way-back" seat in my family's late-80s-era Chevrolet station wagon. It's where the cool kids got to sit when the car was full. It was great for making me super car-sick.
On the topic of jungle gyms, I cannot find a picture of it but my elementary school used to have a huge, octagonal, steel jungle gym that had to stand at least 10-12 feet off the ground, and had 4 fire-polls that ran down the middle once you were at the top.
We used it to play a game called "spider" where one player who was "it" would crawl around the inside of the dome and try to tag the rest of us out before we got to the top and slid down. There were all kinds of rule variations that I barely remember, including capturing players or freezing them so they had to get tagged in by another who just slid down the pole. Stuff like that. It was fun, but I'm sure my classmates fell off that deathtrap every day.
I feel I can fully explain our level of stupid invincibility by mentioning there would be fights to be in the final GT of the ropes, because that is the one that would get flung the hardest on a corner.
Like getting flung over a ditch was a goal lol
My school playground had these two like tower things with big tires bolted on both sides so you could climb up. We fell off those onto the lovely playground gravel all the time. Then one got struck by lightning, totally burned to ash. The other stood until enough patents complained.
It's impossible to know, since he's always got that onion on his belt.
I bet Rush would know about the old time ways and could tell us if it were the style at the time.
If, of course, he weren't dead already.
They probably die/get injured a lot less too
http://www.tcj.com/jack-kirby-interview/
I promise you that the mindset you're describing has never, one single time, led to the implementation of any safety system or feature that has actually improved safety or well-being
In fact in many cases it's happened despite those people's strenuous objections!
Maybe, I am not American so I would not know
they absolutely should have sued you
Kirby was legit.
the kids in my development kinda divided into two groups. One loosely organized around an actual legitimate psychopath, and one around the dirt poor always building go-karts kid.
we had a lot of fights. most of the time it was just punch and throw, not going for damage so much as bragging rights.
but man, Steve, that's the psychopath, if he got you in his sights all of a sudden it was a fight to the pain.
Near where I grew up there's a public park nicknamed "Penguin Park", due to its most visible item a 2.5 storie fiberglass penguin with a fiberglass slide coming out of his neck. The head of the penguin was where you entered the slide and it had a couple of large holes in the floor, I'm guessing for reducing weight as it wasn't really anchored to anything. Those holes were community toilets as the pee/poop would just fall into the base of the structure, no muss, no fuss.
Come summertime though, you could smell it from a quarter mile away. It eventually got condemned as a public health risk, not from the waste, but because transients would go up in the head to get drunk or shoot up, so there were always liquor bottles and used syringes all over.
Still have fond memories of that park. My freshman year of college I had my first outdoor copulation there, with the gal that'd be my fiance in a year. We christened an elephant on some spring shocks that rocked back and forth like one of those $0.25 carousel horses outside a store.
~ Buckaroo Banzai
When I was second grade, which means I would be about seven years old, my elementary school had this huge wooden structure with monkey bars, slides,, fire poles, a lookout tower with a fake telescope, etc
Someone shoved me off the middle of it and I broke my arm when I landed on the wooden mulch
I would hazard a guess that a lot of the playground equipment from that era is disappearing because it was expensive and dangerous
There was one on my childhood playground.
Rusty as heck.
Yes, there are safety concerns and similar that might accelerate certain processes, but even the best made structure is going to get worn the fuck out by hundreds of children clambering over it every day
And when it gets replaced, it will get replaced by what's available, which might involve different materials or designs or whatever else - you can watch the trends rise and fall with playground equipment as you can with any other design school or industry
chico confirmed alumnus of silent hill elementary
Honestly, the new playgrounds are pretty cool
In my city they've been theming a lot of them and the structures are all actually fairly different; the one near me is dinosaur themed including a big fossilized t-rex, and the other one in walking distance has a sort of space theme with phases of the moon on the sidewalk and an atomic looking climbing dome with bars and nets interwoven in it, and some splashpad stuff on the outskirts
I drive by one on the way to get groceries that features Chinese-style dragons and has multiple languages on all of the signage, which is especially nice to see in the 'burbs
3DS Friend Code: 0216-0898-6512
Switch Friend Code: SW-7437-1538-7786
I think those are still used today..
No, no, the small spooky town with the "cult" was about 13 minutes to the southwest of my even smaller spooky town.
Steam: YOU FACE JARAXXUS| Twitch.tv: CainLoveless
heavens
~ Buckaroo Banzai
Though we did stop when one kid broke his arm.
I came to the conclusion that this was where I was gonna live now and made a nest out of clothes
the thing is, my parents were home, and they didn't even think "man, haven't seen my 5 year old in a while."
His friend had a bow and arrow and they'd shoot an arrow up into the air and then try not to get hit by it on the way down
The game was no longer played after the owner of the bow got an arrow to the foot and her parents were not fans
3DS Friend Code: 0216-0898-6512
Switch Friend Code: SW-7437-1538-7786
Ah yes, the Child Launcher
we'd have a few people propelling it and the rest held on until they were inevitably tossed off into the wood chips.
doing that got me a wood chip in the eye and my dad wanted to rinse any splinters out but instead of like, water, he used cat medicine drops
I had to wear an eyepatch for a while and that eye has been weaker, vision-wise, since then.
These days, I just take joy that all of these things are rotting off the corpse of Rush Limbaugh.
Yea these have been going up around here for the past few years. they look AWESOME. I would have loved to play on these as a kid.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
Less that I'd be hospitalized or possibly killed, more that I knew if I went to the doctor with a massive head injury it would cost my parents major money, and I would be in big trouble
We’ve got one of these at the local playground here. I climbed up a few years ago, out of a desire to reclaim a childhood fun on a structure cooler than anything I had access to growing up. When at the top I wondered:
- how the heck is a kid going to get down safely once they climb up here?
- How the heck am I going to get down?