Stan looking back it is a wonder I am here at all. Your post got me thinking about all the things I did growing up which are frown upon now but we're done without any problems. Here are some of my worst ones. Like taking my .22 rifle to school on the bus, no case of course, to shoot it after school in the local 4h or NRA program. Walked the rifle directly to the gym teachers office and left it there in the rack all day. I think we paid 27 cents for 50 .22 lr bullets to shoot behind the gym. Top score that day got an extra 50 bullets. Competition was fierce for those free bullets. Now days they have the swat team on me. Some years we have eight or ten boys on the bus with their .22's.
Driving tractors on the road when too young, age six or seven. Driving farm trucks on the highway when too young to get a regular drivers liscense and back then it was legal. I could drive a six wheel truck loaded down with grain but not my mothers two seater convertible.
Walking barefoot as much as I did it is a wonder I don't have more foot injuries than I got. Glass, metal you name it cut my feet up. But I loved going without shoes. Never gave a single thought to protecting my skin from the sun. By the Fourth of July I could pass for a colored person at a medium distance. By the end of August I had to be a registered Democrat. Now I worry about skin cancer but the damage is done.
Hitch hiking. Years ago you could hitch a ride anywhere. You could pick up a person hitch hiking and never have a safety problem. Heck we walked everywhere. A mile or two was nothing. Bikes or tractors were for real trips.
We used dynamite to blow out stumps and my brother and I must have blown out several hundred stumps by ourselves. Driving tractors with fenders removed. Power take offs with no shields to prevent getting entangled. Unclogging a corn header or the discharge on the combine when they choked up. Still under power too often. Testing to see if the fence is hot. Yes,,,,,,,yes it was too often, ouch. Climbing over 80 feet up a large pine or oak tree just because I could. Mixing fuel oil and a common farm fertilizer to blow a pot hole in the marsh because after 1968 dynamite was much harder to get.
Countless time going out in a small Woden skiff. with no life vest of any type. Staying just a few minutes too long on the Chesapeake Bay, when a storm was coming because the fish were biting too well or the ducks were thick as fleas. Going out in a boat that was about half rotten in the first place.
But you learn. You learn there is no safe end on a snake because when angry they are faster than I was. I hate wire cables for pulling but never fear to use a chain to do the same task if possible. Having seen more than one cable snap and come back whip fashion will teach you quick. You learn to pay attention to your job at hand. Finger don't grow back after all.
I would not think about letting my kids or grandkids do a tenth the things I did growing up. And that's sad because I had more fun than you could ever immagine but I don't think kids today could do half the stuff I did and get away with it.
