We used to "build" cars with cardboard boxes and race around my buddies yard. Our legs would be the tires. My dad would put designs on them with permanent markers.

We'd also play with Legos, GI Joes, and He-Man. Take them to the park in the nieghborhood and get them filled with sand.

I also use to build model planes with my dad. Everything to scale. WW2 P51's, B17's, Messerschmitts (sp)... hung them from the ceiling and made a diarama of sorts of a dogfight. Starched cotton for smoke> Dad used a soldering iron to poke holes in them for bullet holes and we'd paint all the effects. It was a big part of my growing up. So much so in fact that they hung there till the day I got married. Then they came with me to Texas and the lovely military's moving company broke most of them. I hope I have son one day so I can do the same with him...

 

We also used to have fun with refrigerator boxes. When someone in the neighborhood got a new refrigerator, we used to tear the box open so we had a giant piece of cardboard and use it as a slide on a hill.

 

Hours and hours of Hot Wheels, in the dirt, forget that plastic track. Army, Cowboys and Indians in the woods. Climbing trees, catching frogs. Tag, hide and seek, freeze tag, red light green light stop light. Used to play Rock Paper Scissors and the loser would have to give his wrist up for a good smack with the winners licked fingers. Basketball, baseball, football. We lived in a small neighbourhood in Northern Ontario that didn't even have a corner store. We made our own fun and our folks would have to set traps to get us home for supper. Did a bunch of hunting and fishing too, that was fun! No one got hurt (much)

Jim

 

The most fun I ever had as a kid in the "neighborhood kiddie gang" stuff was when I lived in this dinky town about 25 minutes north of where I live now called Garber. There was the girl next door, who was more like a guy really (tomboy). We used to go to the ditch and catch snapping turtles, crawdads, and leeches. In the same ditch when it started to dry out, we would have mudfights. And she also had one of the biggest home vegetable gardens I've ever seen. They grew these really hot peppers.. I specifically remember them because I broke one open and ended up getting the stuff in my eye...

There were other kids, too, but I mostly hung out with her Good times...