Just for fun, Things only people who lived in the decades will remember. The 70's and the 80's

[IU Scott]

7 minutes ago, IUFLA said:

We played slips in Martinsville too. Sometimes 10-15 people only we restricted it to 1 block

It is to bad that kids today does not get to have experiences like this because people are afraid for their safety.  also kids would rather stay in their room and play video games and have no social interaction between people.

[Steubenhoosier]

1 hour ago, IU Scott said:

How about actually going outside and playing with your friends all day long during summer vacation.   We would get up eat breakfast and head out for the day which usually consisted  a bunch of kids coming to my house and playing baseball in my back yard.  We had a huge back yard and one year me and my brother who is 9 year solder than me and  bunch of our friends built a baseball field in our back yard.  Centerfield was almost 300 ft and we built a fence out of 2 x4 and string and we made baselines as well.  Some days we had enough kids to play 9 on 9 baseball and it was so much fun. We played throughout the day until lunch and everyone went home and then came back in the after noon to play more baseball or basketball.

Even after dark we would get together and played hide and seek but we called it slips and we used our whole neighborhood as boundaries.  That was usually about 3 blocks by 3 blocks and we were not afraid to go into the neighbors yard after dark because we knew everyone since it was a very small town.

Today you just don't see kids getting out and playing in some ones back yard or you don't see many kids going to the park and playing pickup basketball like you did back in our time.

We played wiffle ball in my friends back yard. He would steal his mom's flour to make baselines. He played the trumpet in the school band, so of course we would have the National Anthem before we started. Off the garage was in play. On the garage roof was a ground rule double. Over the roof, a home run.

I lived directly across the street from a park. At 6:00 on the nose the "hey batter-batter" chants would start from the Little League games. The park also had a lit softball diamond, so after Little League was done we would ride our bikes over to watch games....sometimes until 10:30 or later. Usually slow pitch, however the Zollner Pistons fast pitch team, very popular up north, sometimes played there.We'd race like hell to get the foul balls and it was a way of being able to one up your friends if you got to return the balls to the umps.

[IU Scott]

37 minutes ago, Steubenhoosier said:

We played wiffle ball in my friends back yard. He would steal his mom's flour to make baselines. He played the trumpet in the school band, so of course we would have the National Anthem before we started. Off the garage was in play. On the garage roof was a ground rule double. Over the roof, a home run.

I lived directly across the street from a park. At 6:00 on the nose the "hey batter-batter" chants would start from the Little League games. The park also had a lit softball diamond, so after Little League was done we would ride our bikes over to watch games....sometimes until 10:30 or later. Usually slow pitch, however the Zollner Pistons fast pitch team, very popular up north, sometimes played there.We'd race like hell to get the foul balls and it was a way of being able to one up your friends if you got to return the balls to the umps.

We played whiffle ball sometimes but most of the time we used a tennis ball or a rubber ball.  If we wanted to play basketball we go up tot he school and there were enough kids where you had to wait to get on the court.

[rico]

42 minutes ago, Steubenhoosier said:

We played wiffle ball in my friends back yard. He would steal his mom's flour to make baselines. He played the trumpet in the school band, so of course we would have the National Anthem before we started. Off the garage was in play. On the garage roof was a ground rule double. Over the roof, a home run.

I lived directly across the street from a park. At 6:00 on the nose the "hey batter-batter" chants would start from the Little League games. The park also had a lit softball diamond, so after Little League was done we would ride our bikes over to watch games....sometimes until 10:30 or later. Usually slow pitch, however the Zollner Pistons fast pitch team, very popular up north, sometimes played there.We'd race like hell to get the foul balls and it was a way of being able to one up your friends if you got to return the balls to the umps.

Love it Steubby.

We had a wiffle ball "league" in the day.  3 different fields.  Brings a tear to my eye.  Damn, I miss those days.

[Steubenhoosier]

2 minutes ago, rico said:

Love it Steubby.

We had a wiffle ball "league" in the day.  3 different fields.  Brings a tear to my eye.  Damn, I miss those days.

No wiffle ball league, but we had a regular group of 6-8 kids who would play. Of course, if you had a Little League game that day, no wiffle ball, no swimming....couldn't get tired out. LOL.

Starting in October or so we turned to playing street hockey. Right next to me was a church parking lot. It was slanted, so that the rain ran off it, and that made the game more challenging. At first we would put rocks out as the goal posts, which led to the inevitable arguments over whether a shot was "inside" the rock. Or whether it was too high. We probably spent as much time arguing over goal or not than we did playing. Eventually, a couple guys made goals and that settled the problem. We got pretty good, and developed a reputation so that kids from other neighborhoods who had their own street hockey would come and play us. I don't think we ever lost. 

Street hockey actually continued until I was a senior in high school. By then, too many kids had jobs or other things going on (girls) and we couldn't find enough kids to play. I think I still have marks on my shins from getting hit by a plastic ball made harder by freezing temperatures!