Terrifying childhood story?

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Cranks_No_Start@reddit

After seeing Evel Knievel doing some stunts on TV - you know where this is going. We sent up a ramp aka a piece of plywood on 2 cinder blocks and decided to jump on our bikes.

Well since that was boring, we had to amp it up. Got some of my father's cologne, liberally sprayed it on the rear tire of my bike (Schwinn Stingray of course) lit it on fire and rode over the ramp while my brother took pictures with an instamatic.

Simone-Ramone@reddit

Plenty of good ideas there for the nursing home

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RegrettableBiscuit@reddit

Heh, fire is always good. We set little green army men on fire using alcohol fuel. One day, while doing that, a friend of mine poured more alcohol on the fire, the bottle was almost empty, the lit on fire, and spewed out a huge flame, burning his whole leg.

We carried him to his mom and told her he fell of the bike and scratched his leg on the asphalt.

She probably knew that wasn't true, but didn't gave enough of a fuck to figure out what really happened, and what we were doing.

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stopcallingmeSteve_@reddit (OP)

We had the GI Joes with parachutes and stuck firecrackers inside them. Throw em up, arms pop off as they come down.

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positivityseeker@reddit

We used to light everything on fire! Is this a generational thing?? My cousin and I would take hairspray and light the entire toilet bowl on fire. It was the best.

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stopcallingmeSteve_@reddit (OP)

OMG the hairspray/WD40 flame thrower! Absolutely.

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raerae1991@reddit

I had a group of friends who would sing “every thing is flammable, in its own way…”to the tune of “everything is beautiful” by Ray Stevens. It’s been 30 years and I still sing it in my head whenever I see fire.

Absolutely true story. I was 8th grade, skipped school with another girl. We decided to walk to a different high school. Stopped at a convenience store and mt friend started talking to a man in a car. I thought she knew him. He said he would give us a ride. After we got in he came up with excuses not to go directly to the other school. At some point I got pissed. When stopped at another convenience store he gave me some money to go buy snacks. I said, “Comeon Rachel” and got out. I thought she got out after me. She didn’t. He took off out of the parking lot squeezing tires. I was shocked, didnt know what to do so I sat on the curb. They passed by once and my friend was laughing so I thought it was a joke. Then they disappeared for about an hour or so, I was worried. He drives back into the parking lot and Rachel gets out screaming before the car even stopprd. She tells me he took her out to the desert and tried to rape her but couldn’t get hard so he brutalized her. And we had to walk back to our school. I remember thinking I don’t know what to do I’m only a kid.

Later on the man was arrested and put in prison. After he got out he started killing. He turned into a serial killer and last I knew was on death row. I still hate myself for not making sure she got out with me. I was pissed and she was liking the attention he gave her. She had never met him even though their initial conversation lead me to believe she knew him.

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DishpitDoggo@reddit

Who was he? God that is horrible.

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Bobby_Globule@reddit

That's insane. That's like something from Investigation Discovery. You can't blame yourself, you were just a kid.

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Av8Xx@reddit

Posting this got me thinking about it. I just downloaded a true crime tv episode of him. “Deaths in the Desert” from the series Mark of a killer. Haven’t watched it yet. But read his wiki this morning. His MO was exactly what happened to us. Thankfully our encounter was in 1980 so he hadnt started killing yet that they knew. We were 14 or 15.

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reflibman@reddit

So I’m guessing the person was Ted Bunion.

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Jerkrollatex@reddit

I wanted to study theater in college. My mom refused to give me the information to get financial aid and tried to get me to go to clown college instead, BECAUSE IT'S FREE. Yeah, so I didn't go to college.

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kimberletto@reddit

I assume you did not go to clown college? If that's correct, be glad; you dodged a bullet.
As someone who married a professional clown, I can assure you it's as embarrassing as you imagine it would be! He had a regular day job as well, so I thought his interest was a little odd, but harmless. Nope. Turns out I HATED it.

It was mostly embarrassment and cleaning oil make up out of sweaty plaid pants and polka dot jackets. And those clown shoes? They hold a LOT of stink. He was hooked on the attention and having an audience. There is a reason people don't like clowns. The second -hand mortification was real and intense. Didn't end well.

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ABSOFRKINLUTELY@reddit

Wow. There's a novel in there somewhere.

Or a riveting documentary.

Thing practically names itself-

The Troubled Wives of Clowns

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kimberletto@reddit

You know, maybe I should write it. So much fascinating info:

-Clown X's balloon animals were derivative and unoriginal. Clown Y's patter was too friendly and lacked that comedic snarkiness that everyone loves. Sponge nose or latex nose?

My brother, his friend and I did this one night in our backyard. As these often go, the light, runner and BB all converged at the same time, unfortunately at the runners balls.

Predictably, he freaked out in pain, running around screaming and crying, while my brother and I were trying to calm him down, and shut him up so no one got in trouble. He ran onto our deck and kicked out a section of lattice along the railing in pain.

He went home. His mom, a nurse, found out about his injury and was pissed because he did something so stupid. Our parents found out and were pissed too. Only because the lattice on the deck was broken.

Our punishment was to fix the lattice. Our parents weren’t mad we did something so stupid, or that we shot someone with a BB gun, or that we were doing something so terribly dangerous, or that we may have injured someone long term. They were only upset about the damage to the deck.

Reported a circling car around our bus stop. Next day a girl got kidnapped maybe 20ish miles away. Too coincidental I think

Old perfume & cologne in the tub and lighting that on fire

Baby oil & iodine suntan lotion.

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DarkSideNurse@reddit

I’ve received concerning looks from some of my millennial coworkers before by mentioning that when I was in first grade, I had a hell of a problem sitting still in class—constantly getting up to get a Kleenex, sharpen my pencil, gotta throw away the Kleenex now, etc., so one day my teacher had had enough and tied me to my chair using a skein of yarn wrapped around me multiple times.

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NoeTellusom@reddit

My 10th birthday slumber party was broken up by a SWAT team.

Honestly, it was a big adventure, especially when we all ended up at the police station. :D

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DarkSideNurse@reddit

Oh c’mon—you’re going to drop a couple of lines like THAT and not tell us what happened??

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MareOfDalmatia@reddit

When I was 11 or 12, in the very early eighties, my friend and I were walking around downtown Boston. Back then there was a section called “The Combat Zone”, which consisted of strip clubs, X-rated movie houses, peep shows, prostitutes, you get the picture. My friend dared me to walk through it. I was hesitant, but it was daytime so I took the dare. So we’re walking through and I hear a voice behind us say, “What are you little girls doing here?” I turn around and there’s a creepy man walking behind us. We ignored him and continued walking. I turn around several moments later, and he’s right behind us with his hand out about to grab us. I took off like a shot across the street, and my friend took off straight ahead. I ran into an adult bookstore, and a lady that worked there asked what was wrong. I told her a guy was about to grab me and my friend, and now I don’t know where my friend or the guy is. The lady had the young man working behind the counter walk me down to the next block where there’s typically a police cruiser parked. As we’re walking I’m looking for my friend but can’t find her. The young man leaves me at the cop car, and I tell the cop what happened, and he could not have cared less. He wasn’t taking me seriously and doesn’t do anything. I continue to walk around for like an hour, but can’t find my friend. I give up and get on the subway to go home. All I can think of is, what am I going to tell her mother. I’m crying and terrified. I get to my subway stop and step onto the platform. I look to my left and there’s my friend stepping off the train car in front of me. We run to each and hug. I said, “I thought he got you and I thought you were dead!” She said, “I thought the same thing of you!” Then she said, “All I could think of was what was I gonna tell your mother!” And I said, “I thought the same thing!” I was never so relieved in my life. We were stupid kids.

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modfish1@reddit

True. Love me some Local H.

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Aggressive_Battle264@reddit

What good is confidence?

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sbfcqb@reddit

Did he? If so, was it better?

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philly-buck@reddit

Much better. Weird thing is that my sister who was 3 years older already was enrolled there. For some reason he thought it would be a growing experience for me to go to the other school.

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Tinawebmom@reddit

In west Covina (LA county) there was a creek, trees animals, everything you'd expect.

Every year me and my 2 little brothers would go play there. They liked to catch the bullfrogs and I just enjoyed wading through the water.

And every year they got poison ivy (oak?) but I didn't. Finally they brought home every leave they passed so mother could tell them which one was the bad one.

Turns out it was the one they had the most leaves of.

Mother had them pin me down and rub the leaves all over me.

Joke was on them. It's one of the few things I'm not allergic to.

I tell this story thinking it funny. The horrified looks I receive and the learning I've done in the past 4 years helps me realize just how abusive my home really was.

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Straxicus2@reddit

Holy shit, man. You ok?

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Tinawebmom@reddit

Nah I need therapy but haven't found someone I connect good with.

I have gone no contact with most of my family.

But guilt got me and mother lives with me. At least now I know the word no and stick with it.

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Straxicus2@reddit

You’re a good kid. Your mom should be proud.

Finding a good therapist can be such a drag, but if possible, I encourage you to keep trying. Especially now that mom is living with you. Sheesh. That must suck.

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KatSull1@reddit

Teletherapy is a start, if you can afford it. Then maybe seeing somebody in person will fall in line. All the best.

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expespuella@reddit

Oak...ivy isn't in CA. I always get them confused though I've been told a million times. Luckily never encountered it myself. Or maybe I have and I'm not [very] allergic? My partner had a TERRIBLE reaction after working out with a buddy - he used dude's bench and turned out dude had briefly sat a backpack on it while unpacking from camping a week before. Took us a few days to figure that one out.

What's extra crazy with your mother is that the siblings definitely had a reaction, and she still had them do it.

I'm with you on the realizing how not-okay things actually were later in life. Hope it's a positive process for you. I've come to kinda enjoy the shock value in sharing with younger colleagues now that I'm in on how bad it genuinely was.

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Sarah_Femme@reddit

I had over protective parents, so the worst for me was falling though the ice down at the creek on a day so cold we were out of school for it. I was about 12-13, my friend a year or two older. We made a clubhouse out of an abandoned building on the other side of the creek (by the abandoned slaughterhouse, that still had lines of meathooks, because why not?)

We assumed the ice was thick enough to walk on due to the temps, but for some reason, (I think a spring may have fed into it there?) a spot wasn't and I fell through up to my waist. Stroke of luck #1, I was still at the edge and not over my head, as I couldn't swim yet.
I still had to get back to my friend's house, about a mile up the road and at the top of a steep hill. By the time I had gotten to the top of the hill, my jeans were frozen solid.
When we got to her house, we had to break out the hair dryer to even get my frozen clothes off me. She was about 2 sizes smaller than me, so I had to wear some really ill-fitting pants while her mom dried my clothes and I triaged my feet, which at this point were ON FIRE.

I somehow did not lose a toe, although several layers of skin turned black and sloughed off my feet. I still do not have sensation in the outside of my big toe or my pinky toe.

And to this day, my mom DOES NOT KNOW AND WILL NOT KNOW as I was forbidden from hanging out there for very obvious reasons, let alone almost falling through the ice and dying of hypothermia, lol

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etzikom@reddit

Holy shit, dude. This is so GenX: that time I almost died but thank god my folks didn't find out. I think we've all got a handful of stories like this. Hard to imagine more recent generations of kids having these experiences.

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Somerset76@reddit

Every-time I tell one if my personal horror stories, people are shocked and ask how I wasn’t traumatized. I tell them I was, but after a lot of trauma therapy, I can laugh about them now.

That’s awesome!

We used to follow the stream at my house for miles and fish/camp our way up on the weekends.

The first night’s camp was always at ‘bear cave’ which was really just a giant stone slab leaning against the cliff wall.

We’d each bring a blanket roll tied around a shoulder, and our provisions usually consisted of stuff like a jar of peanut butter, some hotdogs (that would inevitably leak on someone’s bed roll), and maybe some crackers or cookies. We’d drink from the stream and try and catch fish.

The one time we hiked downstream, we wound up in some grumpy farmer’s field and he shot at us with rock salt. I still have a scar on the back of my thigh from gouging myself on some rusty old barbed wire fencing as we ran to get the hell outta there.

Now it’s a funny story. But I remember being scared as shit he was going to find us, or worse, somehow my parents would find out and then I’d get in REAL TROUBLE!

That’s correct, being shot at by some old coot was not the biggest worry.

Why would my parents be mad at me for accidentally stumbling on some old crank’s land and getting shot at? They wouldn’t have…

My mom was free range and never cared when I got home — until she did. I ran all over the neighborhood all summer (like most of us). I’d come home when everyone else went inside. Usually about 10-ish.

I can’t be the only one who was a patrol kid, right? I went to Catholic school in the middle of a big city where everyone walked to school (some kids up to about a mile and a half each way).

At the main intersections, one or two 7th and 8th graders stood on the corners where kids would cross. We’d march out into the street wearing our hunting-orange patrol belts, sticking our arms out as a signal to drivers. Adult crossing guards were at the three busy intersections closest to the school, but otherwise, 12-year-olds were the ones ensuring the safety of little kids.

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Teacher-Investor@reddit

My parents used to arrange for me to babysit for their friends' younger kids when I was around 11 or 12.

One girl around 6 or 7-y-o got mad at me for something (I don't remember what) and said, "My dad has a gun, and I know where it is, and I'll shoot you." I asked her where it was and she said, "By the window in his bedroom." After the kids went to bed, I peeked in the parents' bedroom, and there was a handgun sitting right on the windowsill.

Another friend of my parents' had gotten divorced and had a job bartending. They arranged for me to babysit one night while she was at work until around 2:30 am. Apparently, she drove home and then walked across the street to get something to eat before coming in the house. I had fallen asleep and didn't know that she was home yet. Some guy she knew from the bar had followed her home and started pounding on the door, shouting, "I know you're in there! Open the door and let me in!" I was terrified and called my dad. He drove over and arrived just as the friend was returning with her food. They all just laughed it off like it was a big misunderstanding, and I went home with my dad, still shaking from the whole thing.

I have plenty of stories that might terrify the younger people today, but they were pretty tame to me. I would disappear for days with my only words, “We’re going camping.” We were kids, 10-12 years old, armed with .22. Rifles, hatchets or cane knives.

We would hike through the woods and shoot game, build campfires eat well and make a lean-to to sleep. We spent days out in acres and acres of woods and fields. We would come home filthy, and tired.

They usually start out by thinking I'm joking.

I'm actually not; not at all.

PBJ-9999@reddit

You win the thread

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RegrettableBiscuit@reddit

There's a pedestrian crossing near where I lived as a kid, where lots of primary school kids go to school. At the start and the end of school day, there's always a woman standing there making sure the kids wait at the red light. I drove through there recently with a friend, and she said something like "kids today can't even cross the street without supervision anymore."

Well, let me tell you a story. There was no woman standing there directing kids when I went to school. One day, an older kid ran across the street on a red light. He was hit by a car. Went to the ER. They saved his life, but his brain was severely damaged from the impact. He could barely talk anymore, and had to use a wheelchair. A few years later, he died.

So the difference between today and the past is not that kids suddenly forgot how to cross streets. The difference is that we also didn't know, and sometimes died.

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Sarah_Femme@reddit

I went to grade school with a little girl who was a twin. Except one summer day when they were little, they weren't in a car seat when their mom was driving down the road, which was just a residential 30 mph area, like a home to the corner store trip. The sister climbed out of the window and fell under the car. Now we have carseat laws, but I don't think that was even a thing then.

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DreadGrrl@reddit

My millennial son has more terrifying stories than I do. He and his friends have NO survival instinct (or common sense).

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Significant-Pick-966@reddit

I still don't think it was wrong but any time I tell this story I get looks of utter shock lol. My father raised rabbits as a side hustle selling them as pets, for the meat, or in some cases people just wanted to try their hands at tanning hides. One of my earliest memories is "helping" my dad butcher rabbits and encouraging him to hit them in the back of the head hard enough to make the eyes protrude/pop out. I was 3 or 4 and thought it was the coolest thing ever and just loved helping him.

To me it was just a part of life, no different than going to the super market and shopping for meat. I guess by today's standards 4 may have been a bit young to be taught how to butcher rabbits, but all my childhood I was loaned out to neighbors and friends of my Dad to help clean hunted critters and fish.

I don't hunt anymore but am always down to help friends butcher clean their kills. I appreciate that my father taught me these things may he rest in peace.

The first time I ever saw my father cry was around that time. His mother had passed and he was trying to explain it to me and when I asked "so Grandma is with the rabbits we butch?" He broke down and started crying and left the room.

Hard to explain the death of a human to a kid like that I guess.

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indigostars43@reddit

I had just started middle school grade 6 , and one of the school bullies decided it was my day to be beaten up.

I was a very shy petite girl who wouldn’t hurt a fly and on the way home from school she jumped on me from behind, sat on my back and ripped my hair out with her hands. As I was crying in pain her buddy held my arms as the girl punched me in the face a few times. Finally the school crossing guard got her away from me but soon after as I tried to walk home she grabbed me again and punched me right on my cheek bone again. A man at a bus stop told her to cut it out and she finally let me walk home.

When I got home ( it was winter so I had a hat on) my parents started yelling at me because I came home so late. My mom pulled my hat off and bunches of my hair just came falling out, it was terrifying for me. My face hurt from being punched and my dad asked if I fought back, I said no and he continues to yell at me and slam his fist on the counter as he yelled that I was a chicken shit. I remember reaching up to my head and I had two bald spots, one on each side where she ripped my hair out. I could feel my skin and no hair. Thank god I had medium length thick hair that could cover it up a bit until it grew back. I didn’t ever see what happened to my face because I was scared to look in the mirror for days. I went to my room and just cried alone in my bed.

My mom made me go to school the next morning like nothing ever happened.

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igneousink@reddit

Catskill Game Farm. In the 70's. Had a Petting Zoo Part with goats and llamas and other animals just hanging out together. A small fence separated the animals from the people. There were little "vending machines" that dispensed food. My mom put coin after coin into the food meter and then stuffed my pockets, hood, and shoes with it. Then, she lifted me up over the fence and proceeded to laugh hilariously as I got knocked down by goats and swarmed by about 30 animals, pulling at my clothes and hair and everything. She thought it was the funniest thing and I was eventually saved by staff who pulled me out of there. And then we got kicked out. And I got punished for it.

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xenya@reddit

Not even sure where I'd begin. I had a middle aged man try to pull me into his car when I was 16. He would follow me when I was walking to work after school so I had a gang of guys I knew start escorting me.

One day, like 3 years(?) later my mom and I were in the car on the freeway and I was just musing and said to my mom “I wonder what ever happened to Jill?”

My mom goes - deadpan: “yeah, I have been meaning to talk to you about that… you remember her dad John? Well, he shot her in the face.”

Apparently like, execution style. He said it had been an accident while he was checking his gun, the ballistics report said that she had been kneeling on the ground and the gun was discharged at point blank range.

John had gotten in touch with my mom because his court date was coming up and he wanted me to write a letter to the judge. To be a character witness for him.

I wrote the letter y’all. I fucking wrote the goddamned letter.

Anyway. I see a therapist regularly now.

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soapybob@reddit

Used to live in West London on a council estate which was surrounded by fields and undeveloped land. Right at the bottom field ran the tube line for the overground district line. We'd wait until we could hear the rails getting noisy (indicating an oncoming tube), then we would all run across the tracks. How none of us got killed, God only knows.

The same estate was made up of blocks of maisonettes. In the UK, these are rows of two storey houses with another row of two storey houses above . There would be outer stairways at both ends of the blocks and another in the middle of the block. Each block contained about 35-40 properties.

All the estate kids would climb the outer stairwells until we reached the mid way for the top floor,. Then we would climb onto the outer wall then jump down into the field below. Essentially jumping off the top of a house.

One time, i jumped and landed in a crouching position, and my jaw ricochet off my knee. It hurt but I walked it off. Many moons later, I get diagnosed with tmj and an mri found both sides of my jaw were dislocated and one side fractured. Then yesterday, i found a scar under my chin. As I'm typing this, I'm putting it all together.

Tldr. Just discovered that my fractured and dislocated jaw, which was diagnosed in my late 30s, was the result of jumping off a house as a child in the 70s.

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Grand_Elderberry_564@reddit

I'm irish and my fave Gen X story from here is about 2 young lads, aged 10 and 13, mitched from school and took the train out of dublin city and see how far they could go. 2 days later they land in New York! Mad story!

https://www.irishpost.com/news/the-story-of-the-dublin-boys-who-ran-away-to-new-york-195027

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shinyshannon@reddit

I once started a fire in the bathroom at school. 5th grade. Was feeling all the emotions at once I guess (painful childhood), so I took all of the rolls of toilet paper and all of the paper towels and put them in a pile and struck a match.

Minor possession of alcohol and marijuana at 11yo. Went with a brother and his friend to the drive in. So did 200 or so other underage drinkers. Someone called the police and all of us went to jail. My brother was in the back seat of our Dad's 1972 Sedan de Ville with a girl while I was sitting in the driver's seat smoking a joint and having a beer with my brother's friend. A cop tapped on the window next to me and I coughed a huge cloud of pot smoke into his face. That was 1980 and my last arrest.

Good times.

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Serpephone@reddit

Hilarious that are parents thought taking our kid brothers or sisters with us would keep us from doing stupid shit…

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alto2@reddit

I mean… it was that or try actual parenting, so…

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Bellabird42@reddit

I like that your parents still had hope that you would be a good influence on your siblings

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Undersolo@reddit

Sounds like fun.

I did get lost for one day but made it home by the evening (I was at a public park and about the same age).

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Rabbit2G@reddit

I think it's totally normal.

I grew up in Ohio in the county. We had four wheelers. It snows. Every year we plant the Christmas trees in the yard.

So, we decided on a snow day to tie a rope to the back of the 280 and get on the sled and hold the rope.

So you know, it doesn't work. But we didn't need the sled, the snow suits were done and worked great. But it's boring to just hold on to a rope and slide around.

So we made a game. See how many trees you can hit before you fall off the rope. Now I know what you'll say, that's horrible. But trust me. You got that first tree you learn real quick how to light a tree while being pulled on a rope from a four wheeler. I am proud to say that I can hit 3 trees before I get knocked off.

Also, no idea how we lived through childhood

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nutmegtell@reddit

One of my Girl Scout friends went missing at a park near a creek. Only her bike was found. She never was. Lisa Dickenson. My parents still let me play down there all the time even alone.

Also on her same cul de sac of four homes, the East Bay Rapist / Original Nught Stalker/ Golden State Killer attacked two women a few years later. He also attacked women and girls in my neighborhood

My parents reaction? “Oh he’s not interested in kids your age. Leave the doors unlocked all night no big deal. “

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CharismaTurtle@reddit

I am so sorry

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AnyDamnThingWillDo@reddit

A kid from the next estate tried to hang me. I was about 3 and he was 8 maybe 9. He got the rope around my neck and was hauling me up. Not sure what happened but he let go of the rope and ran.

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333pickup@reddit

OP, I am 53, and the only part of your story that upsets me, is nobody missing you for two days. That wasn't the times - people let you down.

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FindingLovesRetreat@reddit

My parents loved to caravan/camp so we spent many holidays in parks. My sister's boyfriend's (now hisband) family owned one of the parks we went to every Christmas.

They'd hire two lifeguards during holidays to patrol their beach. Young surfer guys, you know the type. They'd come into the park every morning and gather up all the kids and take us down to the beach.

We'd go rock scrambling, swimming and play games, while they did their jobs and kinda kept an eye.

I got a fishing hook in my foot once and they pulled it out. No antiseptic or first aid kit. Went right back to playing.

They would take us out into the waves where we couldn't stand and we'd "jump" waves.

Parents would come out later to lay on the beach, socialise, and not worry about us at all.

We would run around the park at night visiting all the caravans and try not to step on night adders.

Those were good days.

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VioletSea13@reddit

As a kid, I lived on a farm in a rural area. There was a creek that ran through our property. A bunch of us kids (some cousins and kids from other farm families) played in the creek all the time.

There was a section of the creek that made a 90° bend and the outside bank was severely undercut. The creek bottom was also 15-20 feet below ground level. We decided this would be a great place to make our very own smuggler/pirate cave.

We started digging out under the bank and eventually excavated a “cave” that was 10-15 feet under the bank, and 8-10 feet wide…with absolutely no supports of any kind.

We played in our cave all day and only stopped when it began to rain.

My dad had an industrial metal shop and as a child (9, 10) I’d help him run the drill press when he went into work on Saturdays. My job was to squirt the lubricant on drill while it was drilling through sheets of steel. I did this by leaning over the drill press while standing on a stool (I was only about 4’10”!). There would be hot metal fragments flying around, landing on the floor. Were we wearing safety glasses or steel toes boots? Hell no! Half of the time I was wearing shorts and flip flops!

At my dad’s urging I also jumped off of a railway bridge into a river (I was 11!). He would also drive me and my brother around in the back of his pick up truck and take us for rides on the back of his dirt bike (at least we wore helmets!). I was a girl raised by a single dad, so my brother and I didn’t have a mom around saying that maybe these things weren’t the best idea!

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decoparts@reddit

I think the most questionable one for me looking back was a twice-yearly school trip in high school.

We'd go into New York for a museum visit, but we'd go early in the morning and we'd get dropped off near the museum and told by the teachers "Meet back here at 2. Sick together with a buddy." And off we'd go, unsupervised through Times Square and Central Park before the Disney cleanup.

I think it started with a bunch of the high school girls and some teachers (all women) wanting to hit the shops, which they did. But hooooo boy did us teenage guys get into some stuff. We'd have been expelled for sure if they ever had done a bag check.

Me and my best friend got mugged sophomore year, but it was only one guy and he had a knife, not a gun. I threw my backpack at him and my friend kicked him in the nuts and we booked it... Lost $60 worth of alcohol, cigs, and porno mags with that backpack, so I guess the mugger got something for his trouble.

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decoparts@reddit

I've got quite a few

Got shot with bird shot by a farmer whose field I liked to cut across with my friend. I still have a piece in my leg.

Got chased by feral dog packs a bunch of times. Got dragged off my bike by a feral German Shepard (lucky just a lone dog) and killed it with a brick. I was eight or nine. Still have the bite and claw scars. My mom patched me up with mercurochrome and at least half a box of band aids, after scrubbing out the wounds with a band new dish brush from under the kitchen counter. Never saw a doctor or got rabies shots, but it was almost 40 years ago so I figure I'm in the clear.

Did a survival challenge with some of the more gung-ho guys in my scout troop over the summer. One of the guys had his older brother drop us out deep in the woods, we each only had shorts, a knife, and moccasins we had made for a leatherwork badge. We went off in different directions and met back 5 days later. We had all told our parents we were going on a camping trip, and none of them ever questioned it or asked where we were going, or wondered why we didn't take food or supplies.

I'll post another separately because I think it deserves it's own reply

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apikoros18@reddit

12 years old. Babysitting for the 9 and 6 year old siblings. Made Bacon. Spilled hot grease all over my hand and my skin melted. Kept it in a bowl full of ice for hours until my parents came home and took me to the ER

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banality_of_ervil@reddit

Not a story, but whenever I bring up the fact that there were multiple known pedophiles in my neighborhood growing up, and our parents just told us to avoid those houses, the younger generation is justifiably disturbed. Like, what the fuck mom and dad?

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Accomplished_Exit_30@reddit

My older brother tied my wagon to the back of his bicycle, put me in the wagon, and pulled me around in it.

Rode in the back of pickup trucks

When police arrived I handed them the child and went back to sleep on my couch.

Didn't remember it even happened until first period the next day.

When that's a forgettable experience, you may just be GenX.

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gianttigerrebellion@reddit

This was the day before 9/11 I was walking in San Francisco and spotted a guy who looked off crossing against me at the light. I told my friend don’t make eye contact because this guy has something wrong with him-as we pass him my friend makes eye contact. I was just about to enter the corner store and the guy suddenly tackles me: gum, chips, cans, soap flying everywhere as I try to retain my balance.

The guys who worked at the store hopped the counter and started ramming this small but dense pole into his ribs so the pain made him let go of me, he’d pulled my shoes off during the struggle and I got my shoes back.

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Stefgrep66@reddit

I lived in a London suburb in 1974-76 and there was a large park nearby which took about half and hour to walk to by normal footpath but could also be accesed by

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jhope71@reddit

I went to a family friend’s Halloween/birthday bonfire party when I was 10. Halloween was also the birthday of the matriarch of the family, so they combined the events into one big party. Her grown sons would dress in rags and wear latex masks, then one by one sneak up and drag children away from the bonfire, into the woods, hold them there for a few minutes, then let them run screaming back to the party. I only knew three of her sons (there were six total), so I never knew which one had grabbed me (it happened three times). If I were a villain, that night would be my origin story. It was terrifying.

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Critical_Seat_1907@reddit

Swam through an underwater cave in a river at night with flashlights (waterproof maglites). I think I was 16.

It was like swimming through ink.

This was the swimming hole we went to regularly and knew everything through and through, but yeah, it was pretty dangerous.

We also caught rattlesnakes by hand using a PVC pipe.

Run a loop of cord out one end and if you get it around the snake's head you can pull it tight and it'll on the snake by the head to the end of the pipe. Put on some leather gloves and you can handle it.

We went out in the summer to the one stretch of asphalt near a river where the snakes would lay out after coming down from the hills to drink.

Jumping off railroad trestles into the river.

Dad would have us get in the middle of the car engine on his Chevy to help him. He wanted us to hold onto something because we had small arms and hands and then he would turn on the car to hear if it was still rattling! Sometimes even rev the gas to see if he could hear it.

The good old days where kids futures weren't really certain and were alive now only by luck!

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lynndi0@reddit

My mother took me to her hippie boyfriend's brother's band recording session in San Jose in 1981, when I was 11. Mom subsequently disappeared with her boyfriend in a haze of pot smoke, and I was left to be watched over by the rest of the band overnight as they recorded. I crawled behind a couch and slept there.

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Iknowyaplannedit@reddit

So many…

We lived in a rural country area and spent every minute outside. When we were 11-12, my friend and I almost drowned when after days of nonstop rainstorms we went to see how high the creek was and discovered it had become a raging river. While standing on the big slippery rocks at edge of this churning terrifying body of water, she slipped, grabbed my windbreaker, and pulled us both right into it.

Luck was with us. She never let go of me, and while we were being tossed around like clothes in a washing machine without being able to tell which way was up, somehow the sleeve of my windbreaker snagged on the branches of a tree that had fallen from the river bank. It pulled me to surface, I brought her with me, and used the remaining vestiges of my energy to drag us both along the tree until we reached shore.

Two years before that, further down on this same creek during the dead of winter, I was with my older sister and her friends when they decided to see if the ice covering it was strong enough to hold them if they crossed it. My then 10 year old sister was halfway across when we heard a resounding crack and then the ice just collapsed all around where she was standing and she went completely under. Her friend Melissa was closest and she went down flat in her stomach and reached into the hole where my sister had disappeared. She managed to feel the hood of my sister’s coat and yanked it upwards and brought my sister to the surface.

In the trailer park in this neighborhood there was a section that had a menacing group of teenaged boys who regularly sexually harassed all of us girls on the bus, when we walked to the store, rode bikes, etc. On more than one occasion, we had all been chased by them, sometimes when we were in pairs, sometimes when we were alone. Once I was on my bike and they chased me until in until I had to hide under a bridge, praying the entire time they wouldn’t find me and thankfully they didn’t. I was only about 8 or 9 but I knew what whet they would do to me if they caught me because they told us enough times in graphic detail what it would entail.

So many more like this, and I learned to stop sharing them in mixed company because of the horrified looks I would get when I thought they were just entertaining takes on a childhood everyone experienced (clearly NOT).

My aunts and uncles were Woodstock generation. Imagine an 8 year old in summer pajamas wandering around a keg party at midnight. God it was fun.

My gramma’s big ol house only had one bathroom, so my dad would station me at the door to charge a quarter to those in need at these keg parties. I would make like $10 and then bring my little brother and sister to the five and dime for a pig out the next day.

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AproposOfDiddly@reddit

I lived in a city area of single family homes. All of the neighborhood kids used to love to go and play in “the ditch.” Here’s a Google Maps view of the area where we used to play. It was basically a huge concrete drainage ditch with a slimy stream of neighborhood drainage water. The concrete walls were slanted (think of the drag race scene in Grease, exactly like that), and the only way to get to the bottom of the ditch was to run down that super slanted concrete wall. And of course, we would run down those walls with reckless abandon over and over.

Kids would ride their BMX bikes and skateboards up and down the slanted walls, and sometimes “hide” under the bridge which functioned as a makeshift clubhouse. We would also do things like catch tadpoles with our hands from the stream and put them in glass jars, making them our temporary pets. As an adult, it slightly horrifies me that we put our hands in that toxic sludge of a creek that I am sure was filled with the runoff of lawn chemicals and car fluids waste that were commonly used then but highly illegal now.

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CallingDrDingle@reddit

I remember when I was 8 my parents took me with them to Hawaii. One day my dad rented a boogie board and we got so far away out in the ocean we couldn’t see the shore.

We started trying to get back and my dad’s legs got cut up pretty bad. It took us over an hour to make it to shore due to the current.

I don’t know how we weren’t accosted by a shark, due to my dad bleeding, but we lucked out I guess.

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viewering@reddit

my friend ran away for two weeks and slept in a park. at the time i had to move countries and both together was terrifying.

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nrith@reddit

We drank water from hoses.