What was your favorite childhood activity? / LJWorld.com

Asked at Massachusetts Street on August 12, 2011

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“Horseback riding.”

— Nina Van Schmus, government contracts manager, Lawrence

“Neighborhood games like kick the can and cops and robbers.”

— Brian Van Schmus, dispatcher, Lawrence

“Stacking cups.”

— Rica Salango, student, Topeka

“The sandbox.”

— Gabe Bullard, student, Topeka

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Alceste 2 years, 8 months ago

Ash and I used to make the best of the trailerpark yard. Having no money was never a problem....who needed money when we had a whole neighborhood to explore? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqJMbb...

We preferred Johnny's version over The Hombres.

Aiko 2 years, 8 months ago

shooting handguns at Dad Perry park. Man, that was fun..

tange 2 years, 8 months ago

omg, I just realized the date, adverse anniversary of friday, a year ago, the old swingset epithet.

Napoleon_Dynomite 2 years, 8 months ago

Mostly practicing my skills. You know, like nunchuku skills, bow hunting skills, computer hacking skills... Girls only want boyfriends who have great skills.

Sometimes I spent the summers in Alaska hunting wolverines.

jonas_opines 2 years, 8 months ago

Three stages, I think.

Kickball, soccer, and baseball right up until 7th grade when I blew out a disk in my back and had to stop playing sports.

Shoplifting and smoking from 7th to 9th grade until I got caught.

Being grounded from then until graduation. It had to be my favorite, because it was the only thing I got to do.

autie 2 years, 8 months ago

I wonder how Octoberfest goes with Black Forest Ham on rye.

prospector 2 years, 8 months ago

"labmonkey (anonymous) replies…

You mean it didn't involve Free State Beer?"

I try to not always state the obvious. I will be involved tomorrow with bottles of Octoberfest and fishing. Thanks for asking.

g_rock 2 years, 8 months ago

Eating ice cream. Sleeping.

Not much has changed.....I wish that means that I haven't aged?

CWGOKU 2 years, 8 months ago

Laying in the street and counting mufflers.

Deja Coffin 2 years, 8 months ago

If you asked my sister she would say it was pestering her but I always loved playing house or making some place into my club house. I remember we had this big bush that was somewhat hollow in the middle and that was my favorite place to have a club house. Now I'm a grown stay-at-home mother of 3 and I wonder what I was in such a hurry for. Surely changing diapers and washing dishes didn't sound that exciting.

beatrice 2 years, 8 months ago

Riding my bike, back in the days before helmets.

psycho_theclown 2 years, 8 months ago

I'm just thankful that I didn't go blind.

david_ 2 years, 8 months ago

Going to movies with friends

The_Original_Bob 2 years, 8 months ago

"I can see how watching Andy Griffith reruns would be good for building spiritual character. " My LIfe

While Autie is a character, he has no character. A heathen. Scalliwag. Communist. Lover of brussel sprouts.

autie 2 years, 8 months ago

I wonder...if I emailed Gary Spivey about my Richie Blackmore dream, it he could tell me what that meant.

prospector 2 years, 8 months ago

Nice gust front. I was out walking with a head wind both ways. And who come blowing in on the wind but Hollis. Dude was wearing a wife beater and I could see at least three bullet wounds. We chatted, I bummed a butt and he headed toward Redbud Lane.

My_Life 2 years, 8 months ago

Aunt B never missed church and she made Andy and Olpe go too. And Helen went too. We need more good examples like that on TV today. I bet Olpe is a good God loving man to this day. I can see how watching Andy Griffith reruns would be good for building spiritual character.

Irenaku 2 years, 8 months ago

Spending summer days at the swimming pool, going to the fair and flirting with boys, riding my bike, playing cowboys and Indians (which I know now is offensive, but we did not understand it at the time), smoking cigarettes in the bushes by the church, BBQ's and ice cream!

autie 2 years, 8 months ago

"Reading the Bible"

I think I get more out of watching Andy Griffith reruns.

BABBOY 2 years, 8 months ago

I am assuming you mean before I hit teenage years.

So, I am going to say baseball or being outside.

Teenage years it was all football and partying

(I would take a different approach if I could turn back time and just focus on the football and would have tried to get into some place like West Point of the other military colleges and play football, get a law degree on your taxes, and become a general -- man that would be cool because being a general has got to have perks)

RETICENT_IRREVERENT 2 years, 8 months ago

Stuff. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=...

milkman_dan 2 years, 8 months ago

There was nothing like the parties at Warren Jeffs house.

prospector 2 years, 8 months ago

Getting outside. I'm gonna be a kid tomorrow.

My_Life 2 years, 8 months ago

Reading the Bible.

Flap Doodle 2 years, 8 months ago

Watching the Quetzalcoatlus getting frisky during their rutting season.

somedude20 2 years, 8 months ago

I rather enjoyed building treehouses and forts that had my best porno mags and some smokes stored there (and a girly every once and again). Had a fireplace (god that was unsafe) and use to burn plastic and watch the flames drip (do not get it on your skin) Riding my bike all over the place but the best was old Melissa P's house which had a pool. I was a suave 12 year old. Walking through the woods to old MP's house with a sixer of coke under my arm and a couple smokes so that I could go swimming with Joanna S and get my first real kiss from her (an a few other things). My parents found out I was in the game and gave me a pop-up book about the birds and bees and had me sit by my self and read it, fun times. "Back in the days when I was young I'm not a kid anymore but some days I sit and wish I was a kid again."

wmathews 2 years, 8 months ago

Swim team and building sweet creations out of Legos.

betteratKU_law 2 years, 8 months ago

swimming, sports, hide and seek, and bikes!

autie 2 years, 8 months ago

Damn Hollis, that chick in the dress dancing by herself is my Momma. I forgot Billy Gibbons was there too.

Royals 2 years, 8 months ago

Home Run Derby.

HollisBrown 2 years, 8 months ago

Boy, somebody doesn't have a sense of humor today. Fine, the liquor store opens in 56 minutes, and at least I know I'll be welcome at the Shenago Lounge. I'll leave you with this video, which I was gonna say some funny stuff about but now I can't, except that Autie is the guy in black. I hope you corpses have a pleasant, boring day without me. Good Day! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-2U9V...

Gandalf 2 years, 8 months ago

I think it was Hollis.

autie 2 years, 8 months ago

I don't know. I put the trash out and went to the parts store to pick up my new bed mat and drove through some downpours...got here and he bingo.

The_Original_Bob 2 years, 8 months ago

"Walking to and from school five miles up hill each way" Roed

If you was smartish, you would have known you could have walked downhill both ways.

Who keeps getting disaperepepreperereed? It is too early for Spacehog to be up.

Norma Jeane Baker 2 years, 8 months ago

Leaving snarky comments to OTS questions in the LJW.

Although, maybe that was my favorite SECOND childhood activity. Hard to tell.

HollisBrown 2 years, 8 months ago

This comment was removed by the site staff for violation of the usage agreement.

Gandalf 2 years, 8 months ago

Ring around the rosie pocket full of posie ashes, ashes all fall down!

tange 2 years, 8 months ago

Hollis was the kid from the other side of the tracks. We'd all ride up on our bikes, but he couldn't be coaxed to cross them. Some deathly fear of a "third rail." Actually there were four rails, but he was sure they were numbered 1 3 3 1; so we nicknamed him Pascal. We'd ride our bikes back and forth across them, but still he wouldn't budge, convinced that our tires were insulating us from certain death. (Once I even made the mistake of reaching down to touch one on a July afternoon—just to show him—burning the shhh out of my hand. That was all it took; he was never gonna cross those rails.)

So we'd go exploring, strolling the length of the tracks. One day, we went far enough to discover that the earth fell sharply from from beneath the tracks, as it crossed a river. This solved the third rail problem, but the only way back and forth was to swim. I wasn't about to get into that water, sure that piranhas were lurking just beneath the surface, but Hollis just splashed across without hesitation. And, from that day onward, we made it a weekly excursion, every Saturday. (it was the beginning of his weekly baths.)

Ah, the fears and recklessness of childhood, often persisting throughout our lifetimes. Some get burned; some get a bath.

HollisBrown 2 years, 8 months ago

This comment was removed by the site staff for violation of the usage agreement.

Gandalf 2 years, 8 months ago

Anyone else go to the lake when it was frozen? We would get some metal legged kitchen chairs and a 1x12 and go whizzing across the lake. Man that was fun!

autie 2 years, 8 months ago

Snap, I would have thought surely you would have been burning ants with a magnifing glass. Ants are the liberal socialist of the insect world.

tange 2 years, 8 months ago

Depending on the season, my brother and I were always heating or cooling the yard, between excursions. There were the group neighborhood prowls, eventually sprouting wheels. I haven't climbed a tree in decades, though I'm pretty sure I lived in one for much of my early life. The best may have been the spins against the gravitational wall, lying flat on my back, cloudcrafting.

autie 2 years, 8 months ago

I woke up with Richie Blackmore screaming in my head. It will either be a smoke on the water day or I will be a highway star. Could be a lazy day.

rockchalker52 2 years, 8 months ago

bike riding, tire swinging, buying pixie sticks at the Bungalow, swimming at the pool, skiing at Lone Star, remembering phone numbers.

bobberboy 2 years, 8 months ago

goin to the swimmin pool.

Flap Doodle 2 years, 8 months ago

Romping, when I got tired of that, cavorting.

RoeDapple 2 years, 8 months ago

Walking to and from school five miles up hill each way, in the blinding snow, barefoot. After cutting a cord of firewood. And milking 40 cows. I sure miss the good old days.

Multidisciplinary 2 years, 8 months ago

What Py said but add Boys! to everything. Not as you might think, I just generally got along with the boys more than most girls. Still do. No frills, hand me an animal, something mechanical, snake, rat, creek critter, weapon and all that.I had a new bow and arrow set in jr high which M N*l broke two of the three arrows to and never cared to replace them. Yes, you a$$ loser sister's boyfriend, I still remember!

Gandalf 2 years, 8 months ago

Thinking back is bringing up lot of fun memories. I fell thru the roof of a chicken house when I was five. My brother put me on a Cushman scooter and let me drive at 5 (didn't tell me where the brakes were tho). Getting pulled on a car hood behind a pickup in the snow, Falling into my dad's dog pen full of German shepherds when I was 6. Cooking a hot dog on the back porch over a pile of leaves (That got my butt blistered)! Riding go-carts on the high school track. Riding in the backs of pickups. Riding my bike into the country to go fishing or hunting. Camping trips with my dad with nothing but bedrolls under the stars. Shopping bags full of candy on Halloween. Weekend movies on the side of a firehouse wall sitting on a blanket eating popcorn. And sleeping on the porch when it was too hot inside.

autie 2 years, 8 months ago

First, none.
Really, fishing of course. Py, didn't you live down the block from me? In fact, Py, are you sister? Do you still have my cap smashing hammer I stole from the vacant house?

Pywacket 2 years, 8 months ago

Climbing trees, playing hide & seek at dusk with all the kids in the neighborhood, cops & robbers, rolling in barrels, lemonade stands, Monopoly, card games, swimming, ice skating, building snow forts, sledding, snowball fights in winter, crabapple fights in summer, hockey, fishing, breaking into vacant houses (oops), spying on guys we had crushes on, playing with fire (usually in burn barrels), poking dead animals with sticks to see if they were really dead, exploring ever farther from our houses, practicing high jumps for track meets, sitting on the sidewalk pounding caps with stones and hammers, reading, drawing, playing pranks, slip & slide, wading in the gutter after gullywashers (and trying to dam the water with sticks & leaves...... I had a varied and fascinating childhood.