Things you used to do as a kid...
What are some of the things you loved to do when you were younger that you can't do now... or haven't done in a really long time?
Baseball. I always loved playing baseball [not softball] with other kids in the neighborhood. I'd have loved to play baseball in high school, but because there was a girls softball team, they wouldn't let me play baseball with the boys. They are different. The school kept saying, "They're the same thing..." They are NOT the same. Not like I couldn't play baseball with people I know now, but not too many people in their 40s and 50s are interested in playing baseball for fun.
Dance lessons. I took dance lessons from age 3 to 14. I mainly did tap dance and "jazz" but sadly my knees had other plans. I bought myself some tap shoes a couple years ago, thinking that it might be a fun way to lose a few lbs.; however, the classes are pretty expensive and the expectation is that anyone in a class is in a recital. Well, I don't want to participate in a recital; I did that for 11 years. I don't want to dress in special or fancy leotards and prance around on stage. I'm not J. Lo. I'd still love to do it for fun.
Roller skating. The last time I went roller skating, it was for my 38th birthday and I made it a point that my kids and I just went because it was what I wanted to do. Somehow I've always been better at roller skating or ice skating than I am at walking on a flat surface. My husband found that out on my daughter's 8th birthday when she had a roller skating party. Sadly, there's only one roller skating rink anywhere near me now and I need new wheels for my Sketchers roller skates.
Climbing trees. I'm too heavy and getting too old to do it anymore. I simply don't have the strength to pull my fat ass up onto a tree branch anymore. As a kid, I climbed this huge oak tree in the field behind my house almost daily. I wanted to feel "big" and I've never been very big or tall... I'm 4'11" and stopped growing at the age of 14. I used to climb everything.
Swimming. Not that I can't swim now. I'm actually a very good swimmer [and I float rather well too... fat floats and my ass has enough of it. It's okay, you can laugh too.]. However, right now, there's no swimming pools open, lakes are far too cold already, and I can't afford a gym membership [besides, I don't think swimming pools are open at gyms right now]. I just don't get the opportunity to swim / play in the water like I would like to anymore.
What about you?
**NO POLITICS**
What's some of the stuff you love(d) to do?
harmless mischief at night that involved get off my lawn seniors and goober cops with authoritarian complexes.
Are you now one of the "get off my lawn seniors"?
hell no. I don't want a burning bag of dog shit or busted halloween pumpkins on my front porch, or the air let out of my car tires, or my mailbox filled with my own past due garden tomatoes, apples, crab apples, or my outdoor xmas light bulbs.
I excluded the fun with bar soap and spray paint. it sucked to be an old fart living next to the vacant lot. I bet that old turd has been dead for 50 years now. he paid a heavy price to be a POS.
I loved to fish and harvest manoomin (wild rice)
Growing up in the Sonoran Desert, this will sound a tad strange but me and my buds went snake catching...
OMG! I would LOVE that!!! Granted, I live in MI where the only poisonous snake is the Mississauga Rattler and those won't kill ya, but living next to a quarry and in front of a huge field that only had train tracks and a steel mill beyond that, every time my mother or father would mow the lawn, all the rat snakes and ribbon snakes and garter snakes would come into the yard where I would gather them up and scare the neighbors with them!
I used to like playing baseball with the neighborhood kids. I was always the pitcher for my side because nobody else could get it across the plate. They started a softball team in school the year after I graduated (pouty face).
Sledding....I live in an area that sees little snow. Actually, I haven't sledded down a hill since I ran into that barbed wire fence.
I liked climbing trees, too, couldn't keep me out of them. Even fell out of one once
Spending so much time in the sun during summer vacation my skin would turn purple.
Purple? I used to get really DARK, but not purple.
Joke. I would get really DARK, too.
I figured.
As an adult, but before I got married, when I used to regularly go body surfing for 2 weeks in Kauai, I would come back very dark and about 20 pounds lighter. Somehow, I seemed to look a lot different to the secretaries around the office...
Waterskiing with my friends at Mountain Creek Lake.
We used to rent a boat at Dallas Naval Air Station---$5 an hour, so we'd all pitch in a few bucks and ski all day long.
Had to stop when we ran over the ski rope! Didn't go back for several months!
LOL!
I tried waterskiing once. I did NOT do well at it.
I got fairly decent at it, but haven't been in some 30 years.
Probably couldn't even do it at all now!
I did well on a jet ski / ski-do, but regular waterskiing not so much.
I miss visiting my Grandparent's home as a kid. It was a small town so my brother and I where free to roam all day. We could play in the creek or walk into town to shop at the Piggly Wiggly and get a snow cone on the way back. Sometimes we would play in the cornfields despite being told not to. Sounds simple but it was the best times.
I loved my Grandma's chicken and dumplings from scratch.
I really miss those days.
I used to go trout fishing a lot in the mountains. I miss that.
Getting into mischief, like carving my initials in our neighbour's freshly paved sidewalk; or accidentally lighting fire to a whole field that was surrounded by people's garages (and ran like hell when the firetrucks came); running away from home; once when mad at my dad, putting sand in his car's gas tank (couldn't sit for days after that one); letting the air out of people's cars tires on the night before Hallowe'en. But the best, maybe when I was 6 or 7, was after being taken by my mother to see Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, I took a hammer and dug the little coloured glass pieces out of the neighbour's stucco wall leaving bare wood patches. How come can't I remember the GOOD things that I did?
OMG! I bet! You were a stinker!
We were gone from early morning till the street lights came on. Playing pick up sports, fishing, building ramps for our bikes, building cabins to hang out in, walking to the penny candy store. What ever neighborhood house you were at is where you ate. It was a close group and I am still in touch with a few of those folks.
Grew up in rural Northern California close to the ocean. Miss ocean walks especially at sunrise/sunset with our dogs. Miss walking or riding my bike all over the apple orchards and narrow backroads without a worry. Miss camping trips (all my parents could afford), all 6 of us sleeping inside an old army tent. As we got older we could sleep outside the tent, early morning cold water washings, always present smell of campfire in our hair and clothes, fishing for dinner.
I still take ocean walks whenever I am close to the ocean, no dogs though. Still camp, but in a trailer, too old to be sleeping on the ground or cot, and I need a bathroom at night! Still do a lot of fishing, mostly catch & release, but occasionally if close enough to home or camp will cook one for breakfast or dinner.
I did the lake "bath" myself. My kids have no idea about those.