[tonyz]

That video brought back great memories.

Underground forts, shingle fights, dirt bomb fights, climbing the highest tree we could find. No supervision. No adults.

We were given knives before 1st grade. There were these air rifles that we would stick the muzzle into the ground...get a dirt plug and shoot the dirt plug at one another...BB guns arrived not much later.

"Exploring" the woods was an adventure...worst thing I came upon was a deer carcass. One time, about 4 or 5 years old, I brought home a pocket full of frozen rabbit droppings proudly showing my mortified mother some strange (and new to me) "treasure" that I had found.

"Spying" on the older kids was also an adventure and one best not get caught...lol, one time I did get caught, they strung me up by my feet from a tree...my little buddies had to rescue me and cut me down after the big kids got bored. I'm sure someone would be arrested for similar today.

We quickly moved up to fireworks wars and bottle rocket wars that I'm certain would get us in BIG trouble today. We were also allowed to sleep out in tents unsupervised as 8 and 9 year olds. We took the time to explore as much as we slept. I guess there could have been casualties but what fun and what freedom. I can't imagine any of that today. Yeah, we sometimes got in trouble but those were lessons well learned.

I enjoy these threads because I realize how truly lucky I was in contrast to how formal and hyperorganzied childhood is today.