Grew up in a small, rural Illinois town. No one, and I mean no one locked doors. You would go to a friend's house, knock on the door a couple times, then open it. You'd peek your head inside and say "hello" and if someone answered, you were good to go inside. If no one answered, you left. My grandparents didn't start locking their doors until about 10 years ago. Meth and Chicago transporting juvenile delinquents down south brought the crime.
I remember leaving on my bike with a bag lunch at dawn and my friends and I would ride for miles on end in the middle of nowhere. No cell phones. No check-ins. Nothing but our friends and our bikes. IF something went wrong, we knew we'd have to knock on a stranger's door and call for help. We knew to stick together. The only rule was to be home when the street lights came on.
I lived in a small rural town in Illinois when we raised our kids. None of us locked our doors. To this day, some people in town still do not lock their doors. It was such a blessing to raise our children in that town.
I remember that Liberty5309. We never locked the doors unless going out of state or something. I lived in a rural town in Maine population 500 in East Machias ME.
We never had to worry about crime. Never had to worry about the police. Never had to think about if my mother let me walk to the local convenience if the cops would arrest her like they did that lady recently.
Yep. Doors were definitely locked in my neighborhood. It was so common there was even had a name for it in the 70's and 80's. "Latch key kid."
I had to enter through the garage and use the key (which my mother made we wear under my shirt around my neck) when the bus dropped me off from school.
Yeah what do people think the "latch key" part meant? How else were we going to get in when we came home from school a couple hours before our parents got home from work?
Grew up in the 60's-70's on a farm in the Midwest. Neither Front or back door had locks installed in the doors. Tool shed, barn, various animal buildings with doors, no locks. Parked the cars and trucks in the yard, keys in the ignition. Rifles hung in the back window of the truck (which we occasionally drove to school)
Nobody even thought of touching someone else's rifle without permission - and the owner being present. Wasn't unusual for a kid to take a new shotgun/rifle into school to show a teacher.
I'm not going to say that we would shoot arrows straight up over our heads with bows and then run to get out of the way of the descending return flight of the sharp metal-tipped arrows...
... cause no one in their right mind would have ever done that.
We lived in a nice neighborhood. I had a key and dad always made sure everything was locked at night. He sure as hell didn't leave his keys in the car either. That's some careless ass shit.
Lived in a small town,in the middle of nowhere. No drug addicts in those days. Why bother taken keys out,if no one is stealing cars? And it wasn't just us, everyone in town was the same.so you lived in a shithole that looks nice not a nice neighborhood.
LOL, I grew up in a small town in the north and people not only left their keys in the car, but they also left their cars running in the parking lot, unlocked, when they went into the grocery store during cold winter months!
The key that started the car was also the key that unlocked the car and there were no key fobs or automatic locks. So if you wanted your car warm when you came back, and if you wanted to avoid it not starting, you just kept her running.
If you wanted your window down, you rolled it down. No automatic anything. If you really had your shit together you hid a coat hanger in the wheel well so if you accidentally locked your car with the keys inside, or with the car running, you could fish the coat hanger through the window and snag the lock and pull it up.
A very different time!
Rocky IV, Top Gun, Spies Like Us, Red Dawn... Reagan Cold War Kids had it all!
I didn’t have a key, but there was one hidden outside in a special place. I was trained to get the key, get into the house, lock the door behind me, then walk through the house to the back and put the key where it belonged.
Everything the OP describes was even more true in the Fifties. Except the part about leaving the doors unlocked. Nobody I knew ever deliberately did that, and we lived in a small, mostly rural, Pennsylvania town.
Right there with you. Grew up the same time. Did you ever think those very same hippies are the ones running our government? The main reason I hate someone calling us boomers. The cabal started their distruction of America way back then. I tell my kids the stories of that time so they know what Trump means about MAGA.
60s ---- we played real TACKLE football not the sissy flag football ---- no protection at all. We would get a broken arm every now and then. Everyone would sign the white plaster cast.
In the late 70s and early 80s, we played "smear the queer" and "king of the mountain" (wherein we threw each other off a 7-foot-high tower onto the hard ground and the last one standing won).
We didn't need reasons to try to kill each other, just something to call the game. There were no bike helmets or knee pads. Hell, in grammar school, we had this gigantic swing set and we'd all swing as hard as we could to try to make it fall over. Never did quite make it, but a 40-lb kid can launch like a rocket when swinging that high. Good times.
We had some 50 below zero days a couple of times, and let me tell you, that is some cold weather. Instant frostbite in minutes. School would be canceled, not because of the snow, but because the busses wouldn't start.
When we heard it was going to warm up to 10 below, we hatched a plan to go to the bus yard and unplug the buses the night before so they still wouldn't start.
It turned out to be just a childhood plan that we never followed through on. We still fell asleep dreaming of our genius to get one more day of school off though. Boy were we smart.
Our various houses were all unlocked - I never had a key, nor did my siblings. Iraduated high school in '79, so my childhood was early 60's-70's. My folks were drinkers, so we had almost total freedom to parent ourselves. We turned out fine - 2 girls and 3 boys. Those were the best times in America, IMHO!
It allowed the kids to develop a sense of independence and self which likely helped carry them into a better-functioning adulthood.
I was never in the house in my teens. I was always out in the woods or biking around, exploring and such. I used to follow train tracks for miles just discovering shit. They were good times.
We generally left our doors open unless we were on vacation. The dog road up front and the kids in the back of the pickup truck. We were far from rich, but I had my own snowmobile and at 16 I had a used car that my dad bought for $50 and then we put a good used engine in ourselves. My mom had a voice that would carry for several miles to call us for dinner. My brother and I had designated chores. Our allowance was a quarter for each chore we did for a whole week.
I was born after the 80s but really feel I missed out. The music, movies, the unbridled spirit of American energy, the birth of home computers and video games — as someone who didn’t live it, it feels like peak US culture and optimism.
The 90s was pretty great too, but I also think late 90s is where you see the cracks forming and building into what we’ve come to now.
Seems we have a few Snowflakes in this thread.....
'They' want to Debate whether this is true or not and are REALLY MISSING the fucking point of the thread...😆😆🤣...Wow...
Every time I see these posts my heart aches and yearns for that kind of childhood, community, and country. I was born right when the internet was finally adopted by most, or felt that way. I got glimpses but slowly saw it dying, It felt like me and my friends were the last to run home at night when the lights came on and then we never went out again. Not that the internet ruined it, but what has slowly become of our corrupt nation.
Well I’m a child of the 50’s and early 60’s and I can heartily attest that those years were the best. I was raising my kid in the 80’s and she had it good, too, but not as good as I had it.
Mainly bc there were a lot less kids (then us Boomers). and moms were working in the 80’s.
We had lots of moms keeping eyes on us in the 50’s. They were a force to reckon with if you got out of hand!
My only lonely (adopted) kid had to be shuttled to multiple activities to keep her from sitting in front of the boob tube.
I bet the news played a big part in creating that fear. Just like they do today.
In big cities you always hear more ambulances because there are more people. I remember being on edge whenever we visited family in the city. I could barely fall asleep at night. I had one eye open and a night light on.
When I moved to the country/ rural Midwest, it was an adjustment. Quiet. No sirens. Hard to sleep! But now we are a quarter mile from the train and a mile from an airfield....so at least there's that. City natives get used to noise hypnosis and being on edge. I'm nervous if it's too quiet now.
In rural Mississippi I don’t believe anyones doors had locks. We had a screen door with a hook latch to keep the wind from blowing the door open but that was about it. That was in the 60s.
I grew up late 60s early 70s. We DIDN'T HAVE a key to our house until we were leaving for 2 weeks vacation in 75. Mom talked Dad into getting one. We didn't have a milk box outside our door, our milkman simply came in the open side door and put it in the fridge. And yes keys were usually left in parked vehicles so they could be moved if needed.
Same here, grew up in late 60s and 70s, can't remember ever having a key to the house and it wasn't until the late 70s and 80s that the house was locked when we left. I am lucky enough now to live outside of a small rural community in a rural state and do not lock my doors unless I am leaving for overnight. While at home my keys are all in my vehicles, but I live on a private road with great neighbors, with 3 of 8 properties on the road being Marine Corps vets, we are very aware of who comes and goes.
I agree. I think the 80s/90s were the best times not only for kids, but for everyone.
Money certainly went further in those two decades. We didn't have the internet or these 'smart' phones and yes these sexy flat screen 4k TVs, but we did have enough tech to make life a little easier and fun.
When I was old enough my mom and her husband would take off for the weekend and I'd stay at home with zero supervision. I was able to walk to the local convenience store without a corporate municipal goon a.k.a. the police arresting my mother for letting me walk a 2 mile round trip. I actually walked to school at one place I lived. It was about 1 mile maybe less and there were never any problems.
Plus I'd love for the restaurant smoking bans to be history because having coffee and smokes with friends at Waffle House is as 80/90s as it gets.
Thats absolute crap. I was 14 in 1970 and I lived through the 70s and up and I can tell you the best time was in the 70s. In the 80s things were still good but were starting to take a turn or at least that is what I noticed.
This is still obtainable folks, our kids have made their own ramps, and sometimes it's not just the bicycles but the dirt bikes ramping as well. We HAVE to be the change we want to see; all kids deserve it and all Moms deserve that wagon!
We did not leave our doors unlocked in the 80s. I don't know anyone who ever did that.
Grew up in a small, rural Illinois town. No one, and I mean no one locked doors. You would go to a friend's house, knock on the door a couple times, then open it. You'd peek your head inside and say "hello" and if someone answered, you were good to go inside. If no one answered, you left. My grandparents didn't start locking their doors until about 10 years ago. Meth and Chicago transporting juvenile delinquents down south brought the crime.
I remember leaving on my bike with a bag lunch at dawn and my friends and I would ride for miles on end in the middle of nowhere. No cell phones. No check-ins. Nothing but our friends and our bikes. IF something went wrong, we knew we'd have to knock on a stranger's door and call for help. We knew to stick together. The only rule was to be home when the street lights came on.
👌🙏🏻😎
We did that in the 70's. So glad to see it lasted for at leat a decade more.
60's for me. It was a great childhood.
I lived in a small rural town in Illinois when we raised our kids. None of us locked our doors. To this day, some people in town still do not lock their doors. It was such a blessing to raise our children in that town.
👌👌🙏🏻
I remember that Liberty5309. We never locked the doors unless going out of state or something. I lived in a rural town in Maine population 500 in East Machias ME.
We never had to worry about crime. Never had to worry about the police. Never had to think about if my mother let me walk to the local convenience if the cops would arrest her like they did that lady recently.
Yep. Doors were definitely locked in my neighborhood. It was so common there was even had a name for it in the 70's and 80's. "Latch key kid."
I had to enter through the garage and use the key (which my mother made we wear under my shirt around my neck) when the bus dropped me off from school.
Yeah what do people think the "latch key" part meant? How else were we going to get in when we came home from school a couple hours before our parents got home from work?
In the 60s ----- we had a mom at home full time
We made our own skate boards ---- and lawn darts.
Grew up in the 60's-70's on a farm in the Midwest. Neither Front or back door had locks installed in the doors. Tool shed, barn, various animal buildings with doors, no locks. Parked the cars and trucks in the yard, keys in the ignition. Rifles hung in the back window of the truck (which we occasionally drove to school)
Nobody even thought of touching someone else's rifle without permission - and the owner being present. Wasn't unusual for a kid to take a new shotgun/rifle into school to show a teacher.
Celebrate diversity ....
Speaking of lawn darts...
I'm not going to say that we would shoot arrows straight up over our heads with bows and then run to get out of the way of the descending return flight of the sharp metal-tipped arrows...
... cause no one in their right mind would have ever done that.
Survival of the fittest they say.
Well, I'm still typing today. 🏹🤦🏻♂️
you're supposed to catch them before they hit the ground :0
One-handed with eyes closed! 😁
I walked through the unlocked door and locked it behind me.
Hence the "latch key" kid
I was gonna say the same thing.
I never had a key to our house, and I never saw my parrents lock the door. And we never took the keys out of the car.
We lived in a nice neighborhood. I had a key and dad always made sure everything was locked at night. He sure as hell didn't leave his keys in the car either. That's some careless ass shit.
Lived in a small town,in the middle of nowhere. No drug addicts in those days. Why bother taken keys out,if no one is stealing cars? And it wasn't just us, everyone in town was the same.so you lived in a shithole that looks nice not a nice neighborhood.
LOL, I grew up in a small town in the north and people not only left their keys in the car, but they also left their cars running in the parking lot, unlocked, when they went into the grocery store during cold winter months!
The key that started the car was also the key that unlocked the car and there were no key fobs or automatic locks. So if you wanted your car warm when you came back, and if you wanted to avoid it not starting, you just kept her running.
If you wanted your window down, you rolled it down. No automatic anything. If you really had your shit together you hid a coat hanger in the wheel well so if you accidentally locked your car with the keys inside, or with the car running, you could fish the coat hanger through the window and snag the lock and pull it up.
A very different time!
Rocky IV, Top Gun, Spies Like Us, Red Dawn... Reagan Cold War Kids had it all!
Our neighbor had two grills stolen out of their backyard in the summer of 1982. He cemented the third one in.
Neighbor down the street had their whole lawn stolen overnight. They had a crew install sod the day before.
Almost makes one wonder if the crew that installed the lawn by day removed the lawn by night.
Just think. You could reuse that sod over and over and make some bank. LOL
🤔🌱
u/#kek
Starting to wonder if you lived in my neighborhood.
I didn’t have a key, but there was one hidden outside in a special place. I was trained to get the key, get into the house, lock the door behind me, then walk through the house to the back and put the key where it belonged.
👌👌🙂
Same
My doors were never locked at my mom's house, but we lived in what was then a small town.
Mine were
Kind of depends where you live I would think
The 80's music kicked ass as well.
Everything from classic rock, rock, metal, country and even those MTV one hit wonders....
Wham! George Michael. Boy George. Pet Shop Boys...
West End Girls
Pet Shop Boys
Are you serious or naming groomers for fun?
Speaking of which, you've just been...
😊🤣
That's what I was wondering 🤔
Not to be a curmudgeon, but was even better being a kid in the 60s. :)
Yeah you guys had those cool ass science experiment kits with uranium n shit.
I Can Absolutely go for that...But I was only born in '62, so only got some of the 60's...😆😁
🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻
I could ride a wheelie as long as I wanted to ---- even go around corners.
Long handlebars and banana seats were given as Christmas presents.
I spent many summers riding my unicycle around the lake where I lived. Did you have a sissy bar?
Everything the OP describes was even more true in the Fifties. Except the part about leaving the doors unlocked. Nobody I knew ever deliberately did that, and we lived in a small, mostly rural, Pennsylvania town.
Evel Knievel had a big influence in the 70's.
Dukes of Hazzard had a big influence in the 80's.
I watched the General Lee jumping everywhere and was certain I could jump my Big Wheel off the deck.
Maybe I wasn't too bright, but I sure was a believer and filled with optimism.
I cleared all three steps but snagged my front wheel and smeared the side of my face on the concrete.
No scars! It was worth it.
🛫🚲🛬💥
I too had face plants thanks to them Duke boys. Big wheels can’t fly
I met him a few times and went to school one year with his son Robbie!
Ramps of yesteryear equal trampolines and electric bikes of today. Speaking of course of ER visits😂🤣😂
My life as a kid in the mid-60s before hippies ruined the end of that decade. I once rode my bike across two county lines just to explore.
Right there with you. Grew up the same time. Did you ever think those very same hippies are the ones running our government? The main reason I hate someone calling us boomers. The cabal started their distruction of America way back then. I tell my kids the stories of that time so they know what Trump means about MAGA.
A bag lunch and a water bottle, and it was an all-day ride back then. 🚵🏻♂️😁
We had gadgets...I played the heck out of this:
https://www.handheldmuseum.org/images/devices/mattel-electronic-football-0.jpg
Yeah the Nintendo Gameboy existed back then too. It's just that not everyone could afford them unlike now where even the homeless have smartphones.
IMO ----- video games ----- are the LACK of a real-world childhood.
60s ---- we played real TACKLE football not the sissy flag football ---- no protection at all. We would get a broken arm every now and then. Everyone would sign the white plaster cast.
In the late 70s and early 80s, we played "smear the queer" and "king of the mountain" (wherein we threw each other off a 7-foot-high tower onto the hard ground and the last one standing won).
We didn't need reasons to try to kill each other, just something to call the game. There were no bike helmets or knee pads. Hell, in grammar school, we had this gigantic swing set and we'd all swing as hard as we could to try to make it fall over. Never did quite make it, but a 40-lb kid can launch like a rocket when swinging that high. Good times.
We did that too decades later, but mostly in the snow. We could instantly ice down any injuries.
Texas ---- Our area doesn't get much snow.
When it does get cold --- it's windy at sea level ---- feels cold as shit. Sometimes we get nasty ice.
We had some 50 below zero days a couple of times, and let me tell you, that is some cold weather. Instant frostbite in minutes. School would be canceled, not because of the snow, but because the busses wouldn't start.
When we heard it was going to warm up to 10 below, we hatched a plan to go to the bus yard and unplug the buses the night before so they still wouldn't start.
It turned out to be just a childhood plan that we never followed through on. We still fell asleep dreaming of our genius to get one more day of school off though. Boy were we smart.
Oh, f*ck yeah!
Our various houses were all unlocked - I never had a key, nor did my siblings. Iraduated high school in '79, so my childhood was early 60's-70's. My folks were drinkers, so we had almost total freedom to parent ourselves. We turned out fine - 2 girls and 3 boys. Those were the best times in America, IMHO!
👌👌🙏🏻
It allowed the kids to develop a sense of independence and self which likely helped carry them into a better-functioning adulthood.
I was never in the house in my teens. I was always out in the woods or biking around, exploring and such. I used to follow train tracks for miles just discovering shit. They were good times.
Yes...Always outside 👌👌🙏🏻
The movie "Stand By Me" was a good one when it came to following the tracks.
Boom babba, boom babba, boom babba, boom...
We generally left our doors open unless we were on vacation. The dog road up front and the kids in the back of the pickup truck. We were far from rich, but I had my own snowmobile and at 16 I had a used car that my dad bought for $50 and then we put a good used engine in ourselves. My mom had a voice that would carry for several miles to call us for dinner. My brother and I had designated chores. Our allowance was a quarter for each chore we did for a whole week.
I was born after the 80s but really feel I missed out. The music, movies, the unbridled spirit of American energy, the birth of home computers and video games — as someone who didn’t live it, it feels like peak US culture and optimism.
The 90s was pretty great too, but I also think late 90s is where you see the cracks forming and building into what we’ve come to now.
The 80's Optimism was in large part due to Reagan.
Today's Optimism will be fueled by Trump.
Let's Gooooooooooo!!!
u/#trumpdrums
👍😎
come on man, it was the 50s!
😆😆🤭
Seems we have a few Snowflakes in this thread..... 'They' want to Debate whether this is true or not and are REALLY MISSING the fucking point of the thread...😆😆🤣...Wow...
HA! It was so true, we were all FEARLESS back then! Maybe why we are FEARLESS now!
Can we all agree though… good riddance to that putrid olive green / burnt orange / brown plaid motif that was on everything.
I do miss the freedom and trust though.
You just reminded me of my childhood carpet and furniture all over again! Damn you! LOL 😂
Nightmare fuel.
LOL, some are looking around for the designated Safe Place
🤣🤣🤣
I would go back to the 60s and 70s, video games starting in the 80s
2600 and NES still my all time faves!
Got my start with Intellivision. It was basically pixels moving across the screen but it was considered the bomb of video game systems.
Imagine time traveling with a PS5 back to the 80s.
Every time I see these posts my heart aches and yearns for that kind of childhood, community, and country. I was born right when the internet was finally adopted by most, or felt that way. I got glimpses but slowly saw it dying, It felt like me and my friends were the last to run home at night when the lights came on and then we never went out again. Not that the internet ruined it, but what has slowly become of our corrupt nation.
TL;DR: I wish I was born in the 80s.
Well I’m a child of the 50’s and early 60’s and I can heartily attest that those years were the best. I was raising my kid in the 80’s and she had it good, too, but not as good as I had it.
Mainly bc there were a lot less kids (then us Boomers). and moms were working in the 80’s.
We had lots of moms keeping eyes on us in the 50’s. They were a force to reckon with if you got out of hand! My only lonely (adopted) kid had to be shuttled to multiple activities to keep her from sitting in front of the boob tube.
That's also true for anyone who was a kid before the 80's, like me!!
I grew up in the 70s-90s in Los Angeles. Was always terrified. So much for that theory.
Cities are cancer.
Yep. Never again.
I bet the news played a big part in creating that fear. Just like they do today.
In big cities you always hear more ambulances because there are more people. I remember being on edge whenever we visited family in the city. I could barely fall asleep at night. I had one eye open and a night light on.
When I moved to the country/ rural Midwest, it was an adjustment. Quiet. No sirens. Hard to sleep! But now we are a quarter mile from the train and a mile from an airfield....so at least there's that. City natives get used to noise hypnosis and being on edge. I'm nervous if it's too quiet now.
I still get nervous when I am camping and I hear large sticks snapping and breaking.
Ever since that bear wanted my crackerjacks.
They only wanted to decoder ring....no worries
That, or the tattoos. You know, the kind we put on our arms, wet with water, and then slowly peeled off?
I was 8 in 1980, I may be biased but it was a great decade as a kid!
👌👍🙏🏻
60's and 70s even better
We sure did purkiss. That there is a pic of me. Can not count how many times I got some ROAD RASH kek
classic picture. well done. (complete with woodsiding station wagon)
Lol....Yeah, we ALL have "battle scars"....😆😆
70s were waaaaaaay better.
Pretty sure kids in the 70s were the same as us, we just had better cartoons/toys.
In rural Mississippi I don’t believe anyones doors had locks. We had a screen door with a hook latch to keep the wind from blowing the door open but that was about it. That was in the 60s.
I grew up late 60s early 70s. We DIDN'T HAVE a key to our house until we were leaving for 2 weeks vacation in 75. Mom talked Dad into getting one. We didn't have a milk box outside our door, our milkman simply came in the open side door and put it in the fridge. And yes keys were usually left in parked vehicles so they could be moved if needed.
👌👌
Same here, grew up in late 60s and 70s, can't remember ever having a key to the house and it wasn't until the late 70s and 80s that the house was locked when we left. I am lucky enough now to live outside of a small rural community in a rural state and do not lock my doors unless I am leaving for overnight. While at home my keys are all in my vehicles, but I live on a private road with great neighbors, with 3 of 8 properties on the road being Marine Corps vets, we are very aware of who comes and goes.
I agree. I think the 80s/90s were the best times not only for kids, but for everyone.
Money certainly went further in those two decades. We didn't have the internet or these 'smart' phones and yes these sexy flat screen 4k TVs, but we did have enough tech to make life a little easier and fun.
When I was old enough my mom and her husband would take off for the weekend and I'd stay at home with zero supervision. I was able to walk to the local convenience store without a corporate municipal goon a.k.a. the police arresting my mother for letting me walk a 2 mile round trip. I actually walked to school at one place I lived. It was about 1 mile maybe less and there were never any problems.
Plus I'd love for the restaurant smoking bans to be history because having coffee and smokes with friends at Waffle House is as 80/90s as it gets.
Nope.
The 50's and 60's had it made.
Those times were simpler.
Thats absolute crap. I was 14 in 1970 and I lived through the 70s and up and I can tell you the best time was in the 70s. In the 80s things were still good but were starting to take a turn or at least that is what I noticed.
This is still obtainable folks, our kids have made their own ramps, and sometimes it's not just the bicycles but the dirt bikes ramping as well. We HAVE to be the change we want to see; all kids deserve it and all Moms deserve that wagon!
I think that's supposed to be 70's kids. We've had to lock everything up since 80.
Grew up in the late 60's early 70's. Never kept the door unlocked at night, but during the day I knew the back door was always unlocked.
80s kid reporting in. Can confirm
With how many kids end up missing or touched by Pedos, I wouldn't want kids roaming around. You get absent parent vibes.