Knoch-knock. Can Ledgie come out and play?
 

What did you guys play when you were little?

There were a lot of kids on my street growing up. It was like something from the '50s suburbia (NO, I'm not that old) - the houses on the hill, the connecting streets, the cul-de-sac at the end with the park, the neighbors we all knew.

We played the following:
- running bases
- superheroes
- practicing plays such as Grease ( :lol: ) and an original ghost story
- with weeble wobbles, Colorforms, Micronauts, Sit & Spin, trading cards
- Pong, Atari, air hockey
- catch, blowing bubbles
- on swingsets
- hide and seek (Best in the dark in a basement, where the seeker gets to use a flashlight)
- drawing on sidewalks, & that thing that spun around as you dripped paints on it
- Mousetrap, & that plastic thing with the boxers punching each other
- kick the can, capture the flag, steal the bacon, baby in the air
- Trouble, Sorry, Operation
- Zim-Zam (Does ANYONE remember this? We had one in my backyard.)

I remember the hot days where our mothers would tell us we HAD to go outside to play because the weather was so nice, and we would get mad at our mothers. :rolleyes:

Can you come play? I'll let you choose the game. :)

I just had a weird sort-of-Stevie-moment RIGHT after posting this thread.
One of the toys I played with, I couldn't remember the name. The thing where you use the oddly shaped plastic tools to move your writing utensils in patterns & make interesting designs.
I gave up thinking about it & for some reason clicked onto the lyrics & interp.s forum, where I NEVER EVER go. I saw several threads & clicked FIRST on the Stevie review from 1983.
The article begins:

"Stevie Nicks Twirling In Her Fantasy World
by Steve Pond

Question: Who has more scarves than Elvis Presley? Who giggles more than the girls at a sixth-grade slumber party? Who twirls around more than a boxful of gyroscopes? Who sells more records than Fleetwood Mac?"

This freaks me out! "Gyroscopes" was what I was just trying to think of! It's like something supernatural directed me to this very article at this moment! How weird is that!

- Jake

I used to play Power Rangers during recess in Elemenatary school. :laugh: We have, like, no kids on our street, so recess was all I got.

I played...
 

Baseball (From the age of 6 to 17, A wrist injury ended my career or otherwise I would still be playing. My best friend Trina was the best pitcher on an opposing team, And I enjoyed creaming the s--t outta her 70-80 MPH pitches as a teen! When we grew to older teens we played...uh..."Doctor", We were inseparable, More like Brother & Sister than anything else.)

Army (The field near our home had an ol' Civil War battlefield look to it, With bunkers, hideaways & a large pond right in the middle.)

Fireworks Stand (Around this time of year my 2 older brothers & myself would take all the fireworks we had bought and set 'em up on the porchsteps and pretend we ran a fireworks stand, I still have vivid memories of this when I was between the ages 5-7)

Atari 2600 (I enjoyed buying all the new games and figuring out how to cheat at 'em...I had "Raiders of The Lost Ark" figured out in a days time, And at the time it was one of the hardest Atari games to decypher)

Music (The only time music will leave my life is when my life ends...)

Beating the living s--t outta the other kids in the neighborhood-Our fave pastime, If ya moved into our neighborhood ya got yer ass kicked, Especially if yer last name was Gann (We owned those b-tches)...It comes with the territory.

Going to the Silvermine arcade at Curt's Mall (We knew the owner and always got to play free arcade classics like Pac-Man, Pong, Star Wars, Tank Zone & the ever popular Kiss Pinball machine)

Monopoly-I am the undisputed world champ at Monoppoly...That is cheating at Monopoly, My Mother even lets people know how much I would cheat, hehehehe!!!!

Power Rangers is after my time, you whippersnapper. (Where's the smilie with a cane & the words "Get off my lawn!")
Did you have a favorite Power Ranger? (Is there a difference besides the gender & unifiorm colors?)

- Jake

The army thing sounds cool. The park at the cul-de-sac was nothing special, except there were hills for cool sledding on either side, & the older kids made up these stories about Indians killing people with a fallen tree and a boulder that are still there. I had cool nightmares about headhunters marching up the street to my bedroom.

Were you always a big kid, or did you also get beaten up?

- Jake

Hee. My favorite was always the yellow ranger. No matter who it was - Trini, Aisha.. the other ones. I stopped watching in 3rd grade.

After I posted, I remembered I'd swing all recess after I realized that the Power Rangers were lame.

It's tough, comng of age. I remember how my world was rocked when in the first grade Mrs. Warner gave us a stern lecture that the Fonz was not cool. You don't recover easily from those hard life lessons. :distress: :cool:

- Jake

Wow...you were in 3rd grade...damn i'm old.

We played a lot of jailbreak during the summertime, streethockey, capture the flag, hide and seek (sometimes we'd be asses and not look for the person :laugh: ) , we'd jump on the trampoline, play soccer, play with dolls, put on shows....ahhh...sometimes I'd like to go back to that...

We did that a few times, if somebody was the seeker in hide & seek or the kicker in kick the can. We'd all go into somebody's house and watch TV in the air conditioning. :shocked: :angel:
I'm going to be making this up in my next life.

- Jake

I was...
 

the baby (My oldest brother Bill is 6 years older and Geary is 4 years older) so the only time when I got my ass kicked was by my brothers.

We used to play kickball too, I remember never beating Geary and I hated it, He enjoyed annoying the s--t outta me, But life has a payback...His daughter Kendra is basically my clone (She has my looks & personality, So much it is eerie...Poor girl!!!) and she is as hyper now as I was as a child.

Going to the midnight movie/drive-in was also cool. I remember seeing Star Wars the weekend it was released and only 5 people were at the cinema: MY brothers Bill & Geary, My brother Bill's girlfriend Carrie & her sister Tonya (Who I think is Christine McVie's long lost daughter, The resemblance is uncanny) & myself. We (Geary & myself) sat in the front row and chuncked popcorn at Darth Vader when he talked in the deep breath voice, Telling him to "Wake up".

Football was another fave-My Mother loved to play tackle the man and we would all play in the field across from our home (My Mother could also play baseball), But she would pin me down and tickle me til I p-ssed myself (Trust me, If anyone tries to tickle me now I "run like hell"!!!!)

Another childhood memory I have is when my Mother bought her 1976 Pontiac Trans-Am (I come from a long line of auto mechanics & race car drivers, My late Father was an auto mechanic & TV repairman, I inherited his technical ability)...She had it tuned up so it could exceed the 180MPH on the speedometer. It was clocked by the Oklahoma Highway Patrol at 186MPH...This one cocky patrolman had a 1979 Bandit Limited Edition Turbo TA he thought was hotsh-t, So he challenge my Mother to a dragrace on a highway while the other OHP troopers in his unit watched to make sure the race happened without accident and they thought he would win, So this dumbass wanted to make it a "pinkslip" race which my Mother accepted happily...My Mother smoke his happy ass so bad the other troopers were laughing at his humilated ass when the race was over. He is lucky we didnt bring out the 1969 SS Camaro we owned, It was faster than my Mom's TA!!!

My sister & I played Hide & Seek in the house. Before she became EVIL. (Ask Riss!)

I remember when I was little I used to be obsessed with... I wanna say Mighty Max? He was like Polly Pocket for boys. I remember having a little science lab one and I remember finding a huge mountain thing in my mom's closet.... that I was getting for Christmas.

I just thought Santa dropped it off early. :laugh:

I didn't find out about Santa until... 3rd grade, maybe. I learned the hard way. I was telling people in the lunch line about the stuff I got and the 5th graders were like "You LOSERS. Santa isn't REEEEEAL." :( I should have picked up on it when I was throwing something in the trash can in the kitchen and I saw all of the cookies we had left out for Santa in there. -_- I figured he just knew where the trash can was. :laugh:

My parents LOVED messing with us re: Santa. My dad would put fake deer hoove prints in the snow in the backyard and we fell for it every. time.

G-d we were lame.

I'm not touching this line. :shocked: ;)

For some reason we almost never played football, though we played every other sport.
And we played Star Wars. I had a plastic light saber that would glow in the darkif you held it ahile to a light. Being too lazy and clever for my own good, I put the light saber under the bathroom lights, ontop of the mirrored medicine cabinet. When I remembered it was there, I found it had melted. :shocked:
Do you own fast cars these days?

- Jake

Is your father Chevy Chase/Clark Griswald? :laugh: :shrug:

- Jake

Santa screwed up...
 

in our house, Well kinda.

My Mother would buy the presents early and try to hide 'em from us 3 boy, So was she ever surprised one Christmas when we found the presents in her bedroom and opened 'em up to see what we were receiving....The only problem was that we rewrapped the presents in different paper!!! Man, was she po'd or what :laugh:

Not as po'd as when I dialed a pay-per-call sports line and ran up a several hundred dollar phone bill, Let's say we definitely werent a "spare the rod, spoil the child" family :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

It was Mighty Max!!

http://www.virtualtoychest.com/mightymax/mightymax.html

It's got a picture of the mountain playset I found in mom's closet. It opened up and there was a whole bunch of random stuff inside you could stick Max in. It owned.

EDIT: This is the science lab one I had:

http://www.virtualtoychest.com/might...ull_1_crop.jpg
http://www.virtualtoychest.com/might...ull_2_crop.jpg

I also had these: http://www.virtualtoychest.com/might...ake_2_crop.jpg
http://www.virtualtoychest.com/might...bat_1_crop.jpg

My sister just walked in here when I was looking at them and she freaked. out. She was like "Homahgah! I remember those!!"

My parents would have KILLED me for that. :shocked:
My Chanukah gifts were often so lame they weren't worth searching out. Eventually my parents would just take us to the store and say Here, pick what you want.

- Jake

Unfortunately...
 

No. All we have (Debbie & myself) is a 1996 Nissan Sentra GXE (The "War horse"/"Black Death"). Our Nissan has a fetish with large wildlife (Only when Deb drives) because it has splattered alot of animals (Including a deer which tore the sh-t outta the front fender weld)

My brother Geary owns a Shelby Avenger though (Even had the legendary Carroll Shelby sign the dash, That is one fast ass car).

I'm scared of hitting animals. I saw a lot of deer when I lived in Austin, and since these days when I go there I usually drive back late at night, it pays to be careful.
But it says something especially about the quality of life in Oklahoma that woodland creatures are seeking to hurl themselves into a moving vehicle. :cool: :lol:

- Jake

Never seen it before. Wait, yes I have. (Hi, Marissa. :wavey: )

Seriously, what the hell did you do with that?

- Jake

We figured...
 

that deer was depressed because of a lovers spat and decided to end it all on our car :laugh:

Brian "Debbie-2 Wildlife-0" j.

Virginia is for lovers...Oklahoma is for splatters.
Nice ring to it.

- Jake

Dude, honestly? I don't know. lol.

I guess it's one of those things you let your imagination go haywire with. All I really remember about it is me thinking it was the best. thing. ever.

Apparently, there was a cartoon that went along with the toys. Maybe the toys represented stuff he did on the show? I never watched it (I didn't even know there was show until now).

Man. Trip down memory lane much?

Really,,,
 

I havent seen one of those before either...

I still own 3 of the toys I had as an infant:

A pink stuffed elephant

A plastic Tweety Bird

And a Playmate (I think thats the name of the toymaker) Pull-string firetruck with 2 wooden figures (The ladder works, The hoses are still in tact & the bell rings when it is pulled by the string, Except for the paint fading it is in excellent condition for a wooden 34 year old toy)

It reminds me slightly of the Micronauts toys (before your time). My brother & I liked to shoot the rockets out of the bad guys' arms. We would build forts in the basement, fire at each other, and eventually just throw whatever was within reach.

- Jake

Why'd you have to ruin it with a description? :shrug: I was picturing her with the bunny ears and all in your playpen, thinking WOW, Brian has the coolest folks ever! :lol:

- Jake

How about...
 

"Stretch Arm-strong"? Man, That was one elastic rubberized action figure...

My fave toys are still any of the Evel Knievel toys, Slot car race sets (I love slot cars) & "SST Smash 'Em Up Derby" (My brother Geary bought my Mother an "SST" set...Man, I need to find one for myself.)

We'd do that too....bad kids... :angel:

This reminds me that one of my favorite things to do when I was a kid was making forts in my bunk bed (Yeah. There's only one of me, but I wanted a bunk bed. My Dad built it! +10! Too bad I was afraid to go to the top bunk. Eventually, I'd realize that I didn't need to top bunk so I told Dad & he cut that part off). I built forts in the family room, too. :D

What else did I do... When Dexter's Laboratory (show on Cartoon Network) first came out, I was determined that I was going to build my own lab.... in the crawlspace. :laugh:

I had him!! And his dog!! I never tried to see what was inside, but I think mine busted. Laaame.

I also LOVED building things with blocks. The best were Lincoln Logs. I? Loved those things.

I'd love to find some of the stuff I played with when I was little. I remember when my mom made me throw away all my action figures (Power Rangers, of course). I was a wreck. :( She said I was too old to play with toys. Psh.

I had Even on his cycle. Ultra-Man, too, who would slide down a rope. My brother had the Stretch thing until I cut him open. (Stretch, that is, not my brother.) I also managed to break open a Weeble Wobble, believe it or not. And I broke the bee off the See & Spell. I always wanted to see the insides. I had a white-haired action figure (forget the name) where you'd press a button in his back & you could see his blood pumping & his internal organs (his front chest & torso were clear). It was cool, but I think I melted him or something.

- Jake

My Mother...
 

was and is cool. She used to drive my oldest brother Bill to high school in her Trans Am and Bill's friends would say "Who is that groovy chick?" to which he replied "My Mom"...They thought she was his girlfriend, Bwa-hahahahaha!!!!

Ya gotta think, This was round 1979-1982, During the first hey-day of Fleetwood Mac when my Mother thought becoming a blonde was hella cool (Why my Mom became a blonde is beyond me, But she had the guys chasing after her...Maybe she wanted to be Stevie-like, Who knows, But I laughed when I visited my Mom last and saw FM's "Greatest Hits" was now included in her music collection)

I never slept in a bunk bed until my first year of college, & I insisted on the top bunk. I hate bunk beds. You feel the person move. But when I was little I really wanted bunk beds. Hell if I know why. We hafd a kajillion sofa beds in the house.

- Jake

My mom started going blond (from dark brunette) in those days because she got tired of strangers asking if I was adopted because of my blond hair and blue eyes. Of course, once she went blond, my hair got dark. Always rebelling.

- Jake

My brothers...
 

had bunk beds while I had my own bed.

The most fun I ever had in life was from about 1978-1982 (Our Father died in a car-wreck in Oct.77 which nearly killed my Mother & seriously injured Bill & myself, Geary was uninjured as was my Grandmother...I still have horrible memories of the BS in 1977 after my Father died), I wished I could go back and relive 'em over again :nod:

My mom went blonde when I was iiiin... second or third grade (sheesh, everything happens in 3rd grade for me). She started out with frosting, then she went full-on blonde. She said it was to hide the grey.

Last month, she went back to brown. It freaked me out at first because I was so used to her being blonde. I'm used to it now, though.

Sorry to hear about your dad. That's rough, especially on kids.
I'm not clear on why '78-'82 were so great for you. :confused:

- Jake

That's what my mom did, first with the frosting, then with the full blond.
There were a couple of perms involved, too.
Why copy Barbra. :rolleyes:

I used to swear up and down that I was adopted. My mom has loong blonde hair. My friends used to call her Stevie :laugh: My dad has dark curly hair. No..no one calls him Lindsey...he's a big guy :laugh:

Hee. My mom had a perm after she & dad got married and moved into their first house. She always tells me she remembers seeing the Stand Back video then (black widow, I can bend - right, Riss? ;) :wavey: ) and everyone wanted to be Stevie.

After that, she had short brown hair. Then bam - blonde.