How classic was your childhood?

[Rain Man]

Prison Bitch's fishing thread got me wondering. How classic was your childhood? Take the enclosed poll to find out, and then let us know how many you checked off the list.

Rules: Count only things that you did BEFORE the age of 13.

Disclaimer: I'm a guy so I don't know what girls did before the age of 13. However, I suspect there's significant overlap so hopefully this list is reasonable for people of all chromosomes.


You can summarize your childhood score here:

45 or higher - Your childhood was so American that it was actually Australian.
40 to 44 - Your childhood was classic American and not a pansy soft American. You're an American who eats steak.
35 to 39 - Your childhood was classic American, but probably from one of the coastal states
30 to 34 - Your childhood might be classic American, but more likely it was Canadian.
25 to 29 - Your childhood was more European than American, but one of the tougher central Europe states like Germany or Slovakia. Or maybe Iceland.
20 to 24 - Your childhood was probably English.
15 to 19 - Your childhood was probably French.
10 to 14 - Your childhood was probably Japanese or some other place that's fundamentally different.
9 or lower - Your childhood was probably in one of those bubbles due to an immune system failure.

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by prhom

41 here. I always felt i had the quintessential American childhood experience. I even built a raft with the intention of floating down the Colorado River like a modern day Huck Finn, but then my parents refused to help me transport it from our backyard to the river. It's probably for the best that they didn't let me go through with that crazy idea.

They cost you the adventure of a lifetime. I bet you would've found treasure and fought pirates and all sorts of stuff.

[BWillie]

Wow, I had a super classic American childhood upbringing and I still have dead hookers in my trunk.

[Graystoke]

Glad to see America is still alive

Now lets go pop some wheelies on our Choppers.

[BucEyedPea]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

They cost you the adventure of a lifetime. I bet you would've found treasure and fought pirates and all sorts of stuff.

Oh, no, no we do that living near the ocean. We had rafts, canoes, row boats, sail fish, small motor boats and Catamarans when older. We would sink 'em, tip 'em over, spin them around over and over and take the over others whether on a lake or the ocean.

[Iowanian]

We discussed trying to catch a baby deer this spring and doing a recreation pic.


One of the all American childhood things we did that isn't listed...we had an old Honda three wheeler. In the winter after chores, dad would tie an old plastic sled behind it and pull us around the pasture. I think the other all American childhood thing was the odd sized
, make shift baseball diamond in the yard, and the pasture by moms garden when we got bigger. After chores or when my cousins and friends were at our place, we played a lot of ball. If it was just us, we had a vintage catchers mitt and we'd practice for little league. Ha.te to know how many fastballs I threw at my brother between 4-6 grade.

We were pretty broke but the older I get the better I realize we had it. When you're broke, you raise a big garden and eat pork chops and cured bacon. I'm so fortunate as it taught me how to succeed today.

I'm trying hard to give some of these same things to my kids today....if I can get them away from a screen device.

[Dartgod]

Originally Posted by Iowanian

We discussed trying to catch a baby deer this spring and doing a recreation pic.


One of the all American childhood things we did that isn't listed...we had an old Honda three wheeler. In the winter after chores, dad would tie an old plastic sled behind it and pull us around the pasture. I think the other all American childhood thing was the odd sized
, make shift baseball diamond in the yard, and the pasture by moms garden when we got bigger. After chores or when my cousins and friends were at our place, we played a lot of ball. If it was just us, we had a vintage catchers mitt and we'd practice for little league. Ha.te to know how many fastballs I threw at my brother between 4-6 grade.

We were pretty broke but the older I get the better I realize we had it. When you're broke, you raise a big garden and eat pork chops and cured bacon. I'm so fortunate as it taught me how to succeed today.

I'm trying hard to give some of these same things to my kids today....if I can get them away from a screen device.

That's awesome stuff, man. I got a bit verklempt.

[Baby Lee]

Originally Posted by Graystoke

Glad to see America is still alive

Now lets go pop some wheelies on our Choppers.

Get out the way ya old hippy!!
It's the Rad! generation!!

[scho63]

Originally Posted by Halfcan

Forgot to add on the list..

Get injured on a skateboard.
Break a bone playing sports.
Get a tooth knocked out doing something stupid.
Snap a girls bra.
Have kite fights using razor blades added on your kite.
Burn shit for no reason- Army men, GI Joes Model cars.
Build a bike ramp and then rack yourself when you jump it and the handle bars slip.
Blow up ant hills with firecrackers.
Rebuild or repaint your bike for no reason.
Put baseball cards in the spokes of your bike that would be worth $ now.
Build a fort in the woods out of a refrigerator box and scrap wood.
Have a dirt clod fight and almost lose an eye.
Play pickup football games with every kid in the neighborhood.
Drink out of a garden hose in summer. Nothing beats that stale garden hose water when you are thirsty.
Chase down the ice cream man.
Play hide and go seek with neighbor kids.
Water down your snowballs and let them freeze over night for the big snowball fight the next day.

Some real good ones there!

[scho63]

THIS THREAD IS GOING TO BE...............

[Baby Lee]

Originally Posted by Halfcan

Build a bike ramp and then rack yourself when you jump it and the handle bars slip.

How many points I get for this?

Built a wood ramp to use on the street.

Neighborhood bully loosened my front wheel

Jumped off and my front wheel popped into the air

Fork dug into the pavement and I went right onto my chin.

12 stitches to reattach my 'waddle' to my face.

[RippedmyFlesh]

Nice job Halfcan. I could only think of a couple.

Trying to give the dog the food you don't want for dinner. My dogs were always like "**** these veggies" and I would get caught.

Having to write 100 or 1000 depending how sadistic your teacher was "I will not talk in class" type shit. You would draw a line all the way down the paper for the I's.

[ShiftyEyedWaterboy]

Growing up in Louisiana I can check most of these off except the hot teacher and spelling bee.

I lived right on the bayou. Used to go stand on an old bridge and watch/throw rocks at the gators in the evenings. I remember having to take the long way to school one day because one of those SOBs was sunning in the middle of the road.

[Frazod]

My bad bike ramp story involved landing wrong - it jarred me and my face went into the metal bar between the handlebars. Broke off parts of both my front teeth, the space resembling an inverted V. Had to have both teeth capped.

Mom sure was pissed about the extra dentist bill.

[BWillie]

Originally Posted by Baby Lee

How many points I get for this?

Built a wood ramp to use on the street.

Neighborhood bully loosened my front wheel

Jumped off and my front wheel popped into the air

Fork dug into the pavement and I went right onto my chin.

12 stitches to reattach my 'waddle' to my face.

You lived next to a psychopath growing up. Cool.

[Baby Lee]

Originally Posted by Frazod

My bad bike ramp story involved landing wrong - it jarred me and my face went into the metal bar between the handlebars. Broke off parts of both my front teeth, the space resembling an inverted V. Had to have both teeth capped.

Mom sure was pissed about the extra dentist bill.

My cousin biffed by misreading a 'pop-up' jump.

This was a dirt jump, and most are gradual, so you launch off the apex by pulling back on the handle bars and extending your feet on the pedals to land back wheel first.

So this particular jump was a pop up jump, where it's vertical at the end and throws you into the air. If you pull back on the handlebars and extend your feet like normal, you end up throwing the bike out in front of you. Quite the opposite, you need to stiffen your arms and draw your feet up into a crouch.

So my cousin comes flying along, hits the jump, throws the bike about 20 feet in front of him, and lands heel first from about 15 feet in the air, spraining both his ankles.