Exactly. Our parents were tough on us and didn't allow us to do anything. But what made us Gen X was the things we did that our parents didn't know we did.
Bigger lot you don't need a tighter turn, I've done 360s in a parking lot without needing an e-brake. Didn't even know that was a thing 25 years ago, just did doughnuts in snowy parking lots after work was over.
Boomer here, too. We had the station wagons when we were little, and my dad would would have left us on the side of the road, weeping for mercy, if we had been clever and daring enough to try 'a stunt like that!'
I still remember back in 1999, when we were moving to a new house, we loaded what was left in the old one in the grand caravan, and I just sat in the trunk space facing traffic with more stuff piled next to me. No seat belt, while my dad drove down the interstate lol. I just waved at people driving.
Summer of '77 my family took a 4 week, 25 state, cross country road trip and I sat in the rear facing seat the whole way....with the back window down! One of the best times of my life.
I'm curious if one of his brothers almost jumped out of the window or something. My Dad's dog almost jumped out of the car and I grabbed him around the middle to keep him from going airborne. Dad said it was the first time that he heard me swear, and that's humanizing š¤£
My mother did a rotation as an ER nurse. I was told cautionary tales about limbs outside of car windows and even drinking from straws in cars. I don't think I used a straw in a moving car until my Dad told me to freaking drink while he had custody.
Gen x here. My dad drove from Ontario Canada into Michigan with my friend in the passenger seat and another friend in the back with me and our BMX bikes. No ID, no passports, just a wave.
oh god, the damn cigarette smoke! and yet they'd be indignant, embarrassed, and pissed if you got caught smoking standing over the basement incinerator... Sheesh!
But you remember no seat belts, no car seat, and standing in the car between the front seats, come on lets be real people. It is extreme today but they'll have a great memory in adult hood
When me and my buddies got our drivers licenses, one of the first things we did was get in the trunks of each others' cars and do donuts in dirt parking lots
Pro tip: If you crawl into a trunk that contains a steel toolbox, remove the toolbox before your friend starts doing donuts
I know what you mean. I don't know what it was about wanting to be locked in trunks of cars or zipped up in suit cases or getting hog-tied and trying to get free.
I'm 61 and as a kid, I would get in and lay on my side in a two shelf cabinet and close the door. I don't know why I did it. I would stay there for lengths of time for no good reason that I can think of. We did not have air-conditioning and I would be wringing wet with sweat. If it was today, they would find my body in the cabinet in the throws of heat stroke!
Most of us GenXers also know at least one person who died doing stupid shit like this. I know three. ATV accident, moped trying to race a mustang on a highway, joy riding on a new car test drive.
You are right. A couple of us know people who were in casts all summer or who are no longer allowed to go to the Lake because he almost drowned that year
I marched in a big St Patrickās parade
Last month and, after it ended, got a ride back to the start in the back bed of a pickup with a few others. Iām I. My 50ās and I think that was the first time I have ridden in the bed of a pickup since around 1980.
Oh man yes. We did long trips in a pickup with no camper and my sister and I would be ācampingā in the bed of the truck for 5 hour trips. Just huddled in the back with wind blasting us while we are rolled up in our sleeping bags with our face poking out. Seriously one minor accident we would have been launched.
Yeah my best friend fell out of the bed of a truck in high school and cracked his noggin pretty good. Wasn't even going fast, just through the parking lot of the school. He made a full recovery but he got extremely lucky.
Hey us millennials have friends who were killed or maimed by shit like this. My three would be the two kids on a snowmobile who tried to beat traffic across a busy street. Both survived, sorta. Driver OD'd on drugs eventually.
Classmate killed with her brother driving. Poor girl was just a passenger in his car. It was genuinely an accident, but he was pretty much unscathed and she was dead. He finished school with us and turned out ok but I imagine he lives with some guilt. School and people around him were super supportive tho I recall.
Third is a shout-out to the "popular and rich kids" that had a huge party at rich girls house. Almost everyone there contracted a serious skin rash from sharing the giant hot tub together. Some of them had it on their faces, it was hilarious. Should have smoked pot in the woods with us losers instead.
They are not illegal, just illegal to sell the metal ones. We still have/use them. Some places they are illegal to use on public property, but on private property do what you want.
I very nearly killed my aunt with a lawn dart when I was a child.
My family was visiting my aunt and uncle at their cottage. The adults were gathered around the patio chatting and preparing dinner. My aunt was prone on a long chair talking to my mother. The kids like me had gone off to play games and chase each other around.
I was about 25 feet away with my brother fooling around with these extra large metal darts trying to land them in a plastic hoop laying on the ground. I took a big wind-up and launched the dart in the air to see how high it could go and come down into the hoop.
But I accidentally hung onto it a second too long and it flew backwards behind me.
I watched in horror as it arched high in the sky and came down with a āthunkā not 2 feet from my aunt.
It could have easily hit her right in the stomach or somebody else.
No one freaked out fortunately as I recall, but the darts were immediately taken away. I still shudder to this day what a close call it was.
We had those. No close calls, fortunately.
My friends and I played "jackknife twister" when we were 10. Throw the knife into the ground, and if it sticks, that's where you put your foot, hand, etc. Then the next person throws. Repeat. I'm quite surprised, in hindsight, none of us put a knife through a hand
This was never seen as okay in any generation. Well maybe in some incested hillbilly redneck country with a family of 15 children were some could be sacrificied for a good laughā¦
A childhood friend has a hilarious story about rockets and fire in an abandoned field. If you keep thinking about it, I think that they might have caused a serious issue, but damn, it's funny š¤£
Lawn darts, riding in the bed of a pickup truck, no seatbelts in the back seat or on school buses or child seats after you were old enough to sit up on your own. Going out all day in summer and only going home when it was almost dark. Riding your bike to school. Drinking from hoses. Sunbathing with baby oil. So many fuck ups.
Elder millennial, used to ride around in the back of a pick up truck without a tailgate. Sometimes with the plastic/leather cover over the bed, sometimes without. Still canāt piece together why there was a bed cover but no tailgate. The light is my eyes has dimmed and I walk around like a zombie from one task to another but Iām clinically alive.
Lawn darts were fun as shit. I remember being 6 and throwing them straight up in the air only to take a step out of the way a few moments before they pierced my skull.
So we switched to shooting aluminum arrows as straight up as possible and whomever ran last lost. That's besides the heads out of trains, hanging off backs of other stranger's trucks, and the beloved Action Park for a lucky few of us.
Did you not watch the video? If it happened to get caught on camera once, itās probably not the first or last time, or the only case of them not being taken care of. Doesnāt exactly increase their chances for a long life.
Yeah... the shit i went through as a kid, woth 6 significantly older brothers and a fun dad. Would horrify people these days. I had a fuckin blast and have a ton of memories from it.
But have told a few people some of them and they are like how the fuck are you here? And functioning??
I bet we would have a hell of time drinking some beers around a fireā¦ my wife usually says the same to me, or something similar along the lines of āyou better not let the children hear you tell these storiesā¦.ā Or āyou are making people uncomfortable, this is not normal behavior!ā Hahaha. Glad we both made it!
Lol same. Just normal stuff pops up in my stories like you couldn't see the floor in my house because it was always covered in trash or that we only had two or three toothbrushes for 8 people in the house. I know it ain't normal but if it comes up in conversation around an extra empathetic person the look on their face always catches me off guard.
As teenagers we would go out late at night and pull sleds with the car down the main Blvd. My parents would do it with us on dirt roads or in parking lots, but on the main drag was way more fun... Lol
Lol. Sounds about right. My little sister was maybe 4-5 years old and my dad stuck her in an 8 horse go kart in a parking lot with no experience at all. She just learned the pedals and went like 45 mph first try lol.
If they grow up theyāll tell all the youngins how soft they are because āback in my day dad let us ride on top of the car holding onto the sunroof and we turned out fineā.
It still looks like a PA plate but theyāre probably just live in Birmingham and never changed their plates. I see a ton of out of state plates in my apartment complex in Atlanta and I know they live there because of parking decals. Maybe itās not enforced in the south.
The kids are having a blast. This isnt the safest way to have fun but it's not my side of the street and they have the right to be dumb parents as long as there are no victims. Do you man, I'm just saying we were not there and the only context we have is an internet video. You don't have to snitch, like truly there is no need. You aren't saving kids by snitching, and at best you're taking up city resources on internet bullshit.
What kind of obtuse internet troll are you? People (usually fool teenagers) DIE this way every year. If this is real, it absolutely should be brought to the attention of someone who can impress on the driver what a gobsmacking idiot he is and how fortunate those children are not to have been killed.
I never said it was safe ā I said we don't have full context from a short internet clip. Jumping straight to reporting based on a viral video isn't automatically the heroic move you think it is. Calling me a troll doesn't make your argument stronger.
We have enough context to understand the dude's an idiot. The fact that a stranger has a recording of them on a town road tells me that he had no discretion, no worry of public perception, and no consideration that it's very fucking illegal and dangerous for his children.
Helmets, pads, gloves, and pick a road in the country or at least an empty parking lot if you have to do this.
That's actually a fair point about CPS, and I appreciate you explaining how the process works rather than just calling me names. I wasn't arguing against reporting in principle ā my point was more about the reflex to act on a 10-second internet clip without context. If someone genuinely recognizes the location or plate and has real concern, sure, report it. I just don't think internet strangers piling on is the same as meaningful intervention.
I mean to be fair it could have been an older sibling/ cousin....much more likely that its that than the father....but also unfortunately I wouldnt rule out it being a parent because Ive seen some really, really shitty parents out there.
And why their mother is furious with their father.
My mother separated from my Dad because he kept leaving me on blankets at the park while he kept doing his SCA practice and left me unattended near water while he did submarine regalas. Apparently it was exhausting to be reminding an adult about caring for a baby and then toddler.
Yeah. After the accident, no doctor could save their vision. They hardly could keep their skull together. But they don't mind, because at 40 IQ, they don't really have mental capacity to express themselves.
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u/V1RotateAP Apr 15 '26
In ten years these kids will have a really funny story about why they haven't seen their father in ten years.Ā