What kind of dangerous toys did you have?

[cowboy357]

We are lucky if we can get 1 channel to come in since the digital switch . Luckily We dont like watching tv anymore since there aint nothing worth watching these days . Bob

 

[LBrown59]

We spent hours exploring the woods. Also,
1* there was interstate highway worksites to check out on the weekend when the workers were off.

There weren't any interstates when I was a kid.

We Survived
Every time I read about some kind of political correctness psycho-babble,
I think of the Good Ole days?
1*To all the kids who survived the 50's, 60's, and 70's
2* We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down the hill

The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!
This is pretty much how I grew up. It's a different world today.

1*I grew up duiring the 40s and 50s.
2*Me an my cousin built them too .
One day in the mid 1950s we decided we wanted one with a motor on it so we started building one .
My uncle joined in with us and helped us build the first and only motorized go cart there ever was around here.
IT was years and years ahead of it's time.

By today's standards, every toy I had as a kid would be considered dangerous.
*DOB 1945.

My wife was born in 1945 too.
I was born at the begining or WW2 though .

 

[tallyho8]

I almost forgot about the carbide cannon I had as a kid. I didn't have it long enough to find out how dangerous it could be because my parents took it away when the neighbors complained about the noise.

I never got to try out my 20' "fireman's pole" because my mother discovered me making it just as I was finishing up and about to test it.

We were probably a little stupid when we used to catch a strange horse in one of our neighbor's pastures and run a hay string through his mouth and ride him around bareback in the pasture. I would have a fit if I saw some kids doing that with one of my horses.

We were about 6 when my friend decided to soup up his Lionel train. He figured that since the transformer cut it down to 12 volts, he would run a line cord with 120 volts straight to the track and make it go real fast. Luckily, the only damage he did was burn out his train motor.

 

[foggy1111]

WOW....what memories. Did most of what was said above.....funny how we lived through it all.

When we had a few minutes to spare we would play a game of "Stretch". (by throwing our jack knife to stick hopefully beyond the foot of the opponent to make him stretch into the "splits". The rules were never very clear to anyone....but we played anyway. Can't remember anyone getting stuck.

Also, we would get Cherry Bomb's and TNT's and shoot 'em with a slingshot. Sometimes we would put the cherry bomb fuse out of a carps gill....light it....and let 'em swim. Pretty exciting when your 10.

Never really did figure out how to make good brakes to stop my downhill go cart.

 

[LBrown59]

1*we would play a game of "Stretch". (by throwing our jack knife to stick hopefully beyond the foot of the opponent to make him stretch into the "splits". The rules were never very clear to anyone....but we played anyway. Can't remember anyone getting stuck.

1*I used to do this.
I was very good at knife throwing especilly with my feet spread apart when wobbleing around trying to keep my balance.

 

[foggy1111]

One year I got a set of ski's for Christmas. The kind with a strap to go over your instep. Well.....I never saw anyone ski before.....so I strapped 'em on and pointed em over the top of the steepest hill in the area......where all of us rode our "runner type" sleds and toboggans. I didn't know about going back and forth to control your speed, or plowing....so.....it was pedal to the medal down the hill....and hope you didn't die when you crashed into the brush pile at the bottom. I think it took me about two years to learn to slow down by turning the ski's.

We also played crack the whip on our ice skates......and I broke off my (second) front tooth playing that....before my mother took my skates away. I just got a new front tooth "implant" to replace the cap I've had for many years......as a result of breaking that tooth off.

 

[Wis Bang]

Plug the barrel of the bangsite [carbide] cannon w/ mud. Didn't make much noise but it did make a mess...

How about the Matel 'vacu-form' had a metal frame to hold a sheet of plastic & heated it. Then you swung it over a item on the adjoining vacuum table & pumped to form a plastic copy that you trimmed w/ a supplied knife...

Skate boards made from a plank and an old shoe skate. Lot's of broken arms from those...

Tailgate rides holding onto the chains holding the tailgate out...

Riding my tricycle on the blacktop at the cabin cause there was no traffic and a 6 yr old could hear the cars coming a mile away...

Estes Rockets.

We had all the GOOD stuff back then

 

[irwin]

If a kid did today what my brother and I use to do..he'd be taken away from his unfit parents... and yes, only 3 channels and if the sun shown into the living room the light would wash out the B+W picture completely.

Good thread, I'd forgotten about the many rides on a, primitive homemade, skateboard pulled behind a bicycle, had a rope tied to the bike and a stick tied to the other end.. asphalt skiing (watch out for pebbles, those little steel wheels would lock right up... nasty roadrashes)

I was really into model rockets Estesrockets.com - Model Rockets, Rocketry, R/C Airplanes, Radio Control Products and they're still in business over 45 years later (actually they've been in business for 51 years, mail order for 49 years)). I know I sent them more than a few moneyorders as a pre-teen.

About Estes-Cox Corporation
Estes-Cox History

Estes Industries was founded in 1958 in Denver, Colorado. Vern Estes developed a machine that mass-produced solid propellant model rocket engines. This invention gave people a consistent and reliable way to launch model rockets. Later, the company branched out into the mass production of balsa nose cones and adapters for model rockets. Estesｮ began selling model rockets by mail in 1960.

 

[MossRoad]

Use to hang out and watch the "chain Gangs" work... usually about 12 guys in white/black strips cut brush and clean out ditches. Always one armed guard with a pistol and shotgun setting in the shade. Don't know why we can't use prison labor nowdays? Sure would help state budgets.

mark

You really don't know why they stopped using prison and local jail labor???

It was because labor unions, which most road workers belong to, complained free prison labor was taking away jobs, so they stopped.

 

[Uncle Doug]

We could get real fireworks in those days. Bottle rocket wars in the woods, making hand granades with a firecracker and mudball and lobbing them across the road to your friends in the other ditch. You knew when you got a direct hit, must of been the early version of "you sunk my battle ship".

If you wanted money you went out and collected soda pop bottles and took them to the store for the deposit. If you needed more money than that you push mowed 3 or 4 lawns for $5 a lawn. That was after having to push mow our own lawn to get our weekly $3-5 allowance. Another reason we were not fat kids.

Walked to school as young as 6 years old (uphill both ways) If your parents took you to school it had to be raining.

 

[jimmyj]

How about those gas powered airplanes that were on a string and you stood in the middle and they flew around you in a circle. We crashed them into each other and constantly hurt our fingers starting the props. We also used to have stick fights in the woods where you would whack a dead stick on a tree and the end would break off and fly towards your "enemy". My front teeth on the bottom are still crooked from stick fights!

 

[dawzie]

I grew-up on the families small fruit farm. Eight of us kids including cousins with a age differance of 12 years. I was the youngest. There were about six neighbor kids with-in a mile. BB guns where big. It was our job to keep the black birds out of the cherry trees. Many a chickmunk never made it either.

Tree forts were every wheres. I'm talking 15 - 20 foot up. Shingled roof. Allowed to camp out in them on weekends. PB&J sandwiches were breakfest and lunch. More than once someone fell/pushed out for doing something wrong.

Played army alot. When our BB guns where up graded to 22's somebody was going to lose more than a eye.

When we played cowboy and indian the younger group ended up being the indians and got the bow & arrows while the cowboys had the BB guns. Its amazing none of us ever got taken away.

In the winter we had this hill "toilet hill" (because of the two hole outhouse at the bottom) that we would sled down. Would build a snow jump to launch us into the air. We all had the wind knocked out of us several times.

Started one brush fire from shooting bottle rockets at each others tree forts. Lost one tree fort and grouned for a week, in the middle of summer

We would leave the house after breakfest and be home in time for supper. Never a care where you went or what you did. During the week dinner was at noon. That was the big meal of the day.

I can remember my uncles going the the Grange for square dancing on weekends.

I think I'm still living on the edge at 56. Cannondale quad, Harley roadking, three chainsaws and a GF younger than me.

Oh, I still live on that same farm, its been broken up but its still all owned by family. Just no more farming. Now some rentals.

 

[The Haymaker]

Lets see..... There was free access to the 1972 JD140, which you could throw in gear and run beside it. **** chains are hard on legs! There was acetylene, used mostly for filling milk jugs and touching them off. (What? I can't hear you!) and now, having had my body grow around my immature brain, I have this!

YouTube - Newtons Law pneumatic cannon

 

[jimmyj]

Haymaker, you touched a memory off for me. We used to get those big inflatable "punching clows" and fill them with oxy acetyelne and then blow them up. Yikes!

 

[The Haymaker]

Haymaker, you touched a memory off for me. We used to get those big inflatable "punching clows" and fill them with oxy acetyelne and then blow them up. Yikes!

Between that, Queensryche, and dirtbikes, I'm headed for premature deafness. But then, I've noticed a key thing on most guys who have been married for a long time...... They're hard of hearing!

I've moved from acetylene to Tannerite. Mucho fun!

 

[The Haymaker]

And then there was the BMX bikes, in which we were just as good as the pros of the time, with no rear brakes, bald tires, only protective gear was the minimal padding provided by a pair of dirty underwear and shorts......

 

[automech]

I loved jarts, those big lawn darts that are outlawed now. Guess too many people got jarted.

 

[The Haymaker]

"Oops, I've been jarted again" Isn't that a song?

I've hunted everywhere for a Jart to use in a sabot with the air cannon. No such luck!

 

[capt jack]

M-80s, and I don't mean those little firecracker things they call M-80s at the fireworks stand these days. I,m talking about a real 1/8th section of a stick of dynomite with a fuse. We lived near the Mexican border and these were everywhere in the early 70s. Of course after lighting them off one at a time the next step for us 12 year old navy seal wanna be's was multi M-80 explosions. No animals or mail boxes were ever harmed, but red ant mounds and a few trash cans were in danger. If we had not moved on to cars and girls we would all be blind, armless or dead. WARNING..... kids, DO NOT try these things today, we were PROFESSIONALS!!
Jack

 

[capt jack]

M-80s, and I don't mean those little firecracker things they call M-80s at the fireworks stand these days. I,m talking about a real 1/8th section of a stick of dynomite with a fuse. We lived near the Mexican border and these were everywhere in the early 70s. Of course after lighting them off one at a time the next step for us 12 year old navy seal wanna be's was multi M-80 explosions. No animals or mail boxes were ever harmed, but red ant mounds and a few trash cans were in danger. If we had not moved on to cars and girls we would all be blind, armless or dead. WARNING..... kids, DO NOT try these things today, we were PROFESSIONALS!!
Jack