What’s your most Gen X memory? Something that could have only happened in our youth.
Posted by Expensive-System-762@reddit | GenX | View on Reddit | 831 comments
When I was 18 me and my best friend bought a cheap van and hit the road Jack Kerouac style. We slept on beaches, picked up other hitchhiking road kids, accidentally went to 3 Phish shows, a rainbow gathering, a rave in the mountains of Oregon and stayed at Tim Armstrong’s house while he was on tour (still not sure if the guy that invited us was really his house sitter).
It all feels unfathomable today. What’s your “it could only happen to Gen X story?”
butterflygardyn@reddit
Riding in the back of pickup trucks. We'd just pile as many people as possible and go to the beach.
Ok-Pizza8966@reddit
I rode for two hours on the interstate in the back of a truck on the way home from visiting a cousin. It was the middle of summer in Alabama, and I was about 12. I was staying with my dad at the time, and he didn't brush my very long now tangled and matted hair out immediately...so a couple of days later my grandmother finally did. I'm sure I looked homeless, but no one seemed to care!
Annual_Duty_764@reddit
I can still feel that sun and wind burn on my thighs because sunscreen was nothing more than a beach towel draped over me.
ONROSREPUS@reddit
Hmmm weird my dad just told my friend group to put googles or safety glasses on and get out of his garage.
Ted_Denslow@reddit
Ashtrays in the waiting room at the doctor's office.
jagger129@reddit
In high school, my parents allowed me to walk over to an unmarried male teacher’s house and spend time there. Frequently. He eventually took me for long car rides and took me to his home town 3 hours away to show me around.
I was really lucky he didn’t do anything inappropriate. But what the hell lol
CollectivePress@reddit
That’s the thing. None of us would ever harm kids. I love having friendships with them! I don’t have kids myself, and their parents need a break! I hate how it’s soooooo taboo to be an adult with kid friends. We’re in our 40’s and even brought our neighbor kids to my parents’ house and had a sleepover with over after fun in the big city. Kids are the BEST.
Dyno198@reddit
Standing in line to see the Star wars movies all three of them
Ok-Pizza8966@reddit
I saw A New Hope at the drive in!
tuenthe463@reddit
I wrote about this a few days ago on another sub. It was October 1977. It was freezing cold I was about 4.5 years old. It's one of my earliest memories. My mom was trying to keep us warm inside of her coat in the line. There were people dressed as Darth Chewie and C3PO walking around on top of the marquee waving to us in line below. My mind was blown. I remember where I saw return of the Jedi because when we walked in in the theater I ran into a bunch of kids that I went to church with. Life back then, early '80s, was very compartmentalized. Like people I knew from church only existed at church. So when we sat down in the row right behind a couple of a year older than me in Sunday school My mind couldn't figure it out. No recollection of Empire in the theaters.
These-Educator-1959@reddit
When I was in the 7th grade, we scheduled a multi-school day trip (via air) to Washington DC. When I arrived at the airport I found nobody from my school had signed up. Each of the respective schools were gathered in groups and when we arrived in DC via Bus from the airport they told the group leaders where to be for our pickup time and otherwise the groups were free to explore DC. I realized I was not in a group and just left for the Smithsonian and then Lincoln Memorial. I ate at the Capitol and at the end of the day returned to the bus pickup and flight home. I had wandered about DC for about 6-8 hours alone at age 12. Nobody said a word or noticed and I was in my thirties before I mentioned it to my parents. It was only later that I realized that could not happen in these times. At the time I thought it was great because I only went where I wanted to go and hated the idea of being in a group of kids I didn’t know.
BuffsBourbon@reddit
I was in 1st grade (1981) and I went to a super small private school (more like a hippie commune). It was Columbus Day, I told my parents I had the day off, they didn’t believe me, and dropped me off at school and pulled out of the parking lot before I could get to the school entrance to find it locked.
Obviously no cell phone or any other way to call them. So I sat on the curb and just cried. Eventually a girl riding her bike on the way to class at the University in town saw me and stopped. We walked back to her apartment where she and her roommate made me cookies. And the only thing I knew was the hospital where my my mom was a nurse and my dad was a doctor - so looked up some random number in the phone book, and eventually hours later were able to get a hold of my parents (roughly the time school would have been over).
Ok-Pizza8966@reddit
This happened to me when I was 4 in preschool (1977). My mom dropped me off, and it was closed for the day. I am told I went next door and told someone where my mom worked, and they called her to pick me up. I think about this often when I question my parenting choices, and it makes me feel better by comparison.
Arielist@reddit
Hearing the BOOM of Mount St Helens erupting while I was outside with my dad assembling my first bike. (We were safely 175mi away... but that's how loud it was!)
CollectivePress@reddit
I didn’t hear the boom but remember ash falling from the sky in Rapid City, South Dakota!
WileyCoyote7@reddit
I remember that too! We were about the same distance away, and on the way to church. Sounded like a huge shotgun had went off in the distance. We arrived for service and everyone was asking each other what the hell it was.
krneki534@reddit
I was 7 when I went to buy cigarettes and beer for my pa.
No one bat an eye and I got everything I needed to make pa happy.
BMisterGenX@reddit
Finding abandoned cars with bullet holes, dirty magazines, and record albums deep in the woods or swamp
BMisterGenX@reddit
I worked for a year saving money and living at home. At 25 I moved hundreds of miles away and asked a friend who had moved near to where I wanted to move if I could sleep on his couch unti I found a place.
I found roomates by looking through ads in the newspaper and was off my friends couch in only weeks. I lived off my savings from my year of working for about 4 months then got a job through a temp agency. Though not great pay, it was overall a great job and rents were cheap enough that it paid my rent. In todays society and economy I can't see many people being able to just leave home with some saved money and no real plan and be ok. I know a lot of people with similar stories.
Pleasant_Garlic8088@reddit
I remember a grocery store in the town where my dad lived that had a self-serve salad bar with every kind of vegetable and pickled thing you could want, and... an ashtray at each end of it, lol.
ChaplainSD@reddit
My little league coach picked me up along with half the team and we all rode in the back of his pick up truck to practice. 8 boys sliding around in the bed of a pick up going to play some summer baseball. Great times!
lainiezensane@reddit
I grew up on a farm, and after we would move livestock in the trailer, my cousins and I would ride in it back to the barn. We would open up the back doors, climb up and grab/ hang off of the roof struts, and dare each other to swing out the back, over the road, going 60 mph.
Traditional_Owl9320@reddit
When I was 9 my parents sent me to Ireland for the summer with a family my Dad knew a bit from work. Literally he knew the lady for a couple of months. It was great. We stayed at the woman's brother's house which was an old farmhouse without indoor bathrooms. I learned to wean calves, thresh wheat with a scythe and fell off the back of a cow. It was amazing.
sobrie01@reddit
I was 8 getting ready for a swim race. I bent over at the start of the race and he slapped my ass and said hey look it’s the crisco kid- you know fat in the can. They (adults)all laughed nothing else was said.
surrealisticpill@reddit
Had a sleepover at my summer swim team coach’s house. The team was co-ed and included ages 8 and under all the way up to 18! I was 8 at the time. We all played in the pool and slept in sleeping bags on the floor. My parents weren’t worried at all.
limited_instincts@reddit
At age 15 we had a rock band. A friend of one of the band mates brother had an old van and was old enough to drive. He would roadie for us and we would gig all over the country in pubs, clubs and venues. Nobody GAF that we were only 15 they'd offer us all the drugs. I'd just tell my parents "off to a gig!" and come back 3 days later. They had no clue where, why or how and they were great parents.
AT FIFTEEN. Totally normal for the time.
tuenthe463@reddit
Where? US? Sounds like the first few chapters of Dave grohl's autobiography
limited_instincts@reddit
UK.
RandallC1212@reddit
I remember building this massive BMX jump out of leftover wood for my buddies dad‘s garage.
We were trying to jump over 10 aluminum trash cans.
My first attempt I missed and landed on the curb and cut my knee so bad that I still have the 8 inch long scar to this day 40 years later.
I Didn’t even go to the emergency room and never told my parents. I just put Band-Aids on it and hid it from them for weeks.
They still don’t know it happened.😂😂
tuenthe463@reddit
My family had an above ground pool. It was pretty big, like the biggest one you could buy. My dad bought me a fishing rod in advance of a scouts trip and I decided to go out back and try casting. And like a dummy I tied on an actual lure with a hook. There was a high spot in the middle, pool ladder holding up the pool cover in the middle like a volcano. As I reeled in my hook of course got stuck in the cover. Since I was a dumb kid I never thought to just break the fishing line and take the rod inside so I conspired with my sisters to try to build a "walkway" across the pool with inner tubes and 2x6s. We decided that my older sister would be the one to try to go out and rescue the hook so I wouldn't get in trouble. We hoisted her over the side, she got on the boards, went maybe halfway miraculously staying out of the water but then rolling off the board into the cold, leafy muck. She totally panicked but luckily was able to get to the edge where we dragged her out. She got undressed out of her wet gross clothes but none of us knew how to use the washing machine. So we put her clothes in a plastic bag and when my mom went out that night, but my dad was still home, we managed to figure out how to use the dryer and dried her clothes without my oblivious dad ever knowing. What a fun dopey adventure 40+ years ago
Fantastic-Archer-864@reddit
Mom caught me play smoking a cigarette butt when I was about 5 and made me smoke until I was sick.
tuenthe463@reddit
Both of my parents were smokers but my mom quit probably when I was maybe 10 or 12. I remember we used to fight with my dad about trying to get him to quit. He almost never got mad at us but would get very mad if we would hide the pack, matches, lighters. I took two cigarettes out of his pack as a preteen and went up behind the hospital in our neighborhood. Lit one, took a drag, coughed enough that I felt like I was going to die, smashed them into the ground. He died from pancreatic cancer when he was 67 having quit <> 15 years earlier
Legitimate-Dot9908@reddit
Getting picked up off at a Muni stop in SF by a limo driver, falling over drunk, and riding around with him, picking up his passengers. Got dropped off at home safe and sound a few hours later.
Taking Polaroids in a motel room and drinking canned mudslides with a rando and my BFF at 18. Actually several other hotel adventures with young gentlemen that only exist in my memories, not preserved anywhere. 😂
tuenthe463@reddit
Interesting_Bill_456@reddit
Sing it with me now.......We are the world
D_sham99@reddit
We are the children....
eggs_erroneous@reddit
sha lingra
eggs_erroneous@reddit
sha la
YouKilledTheFreeNet@reddit
Fridsy night before we went shooting. At 12, driving 2 miles down the road to the little market/gas station out in rural California. Buying 10 gallons of gas, .22 bullets, and a carton of cigarettes because my dad just worked like 12 hours and was tired. I did have to have a note for the cigarettes.
mattwallace24@reddit
We used to play “war”. It was my street against the one a block over. We were all around age 10 and fought with bb and pellet guns. I’m surprised we all still have both eyes.
introvertednurse75@reddit
My best friend and I walked to the corner convenience store and bought a 6 pack of jolt cola and brought it back to her house. We popped on our favorite cassette tapes in her boom box and drank the jolt. All 6 of them.
Another time she and I went to the mall to get dresses for the Jr high formal dance. I found this pink satin strapless dress and had no money, so called my grandmother from a pay phone in the mall, she came abs bought it for me. My dad and step mom were so mad at me.
Bflatclar1981@reddit
Your grandma was so dang happy to get you that awesome dress for the dance!! So glad you called her, too😇💝💖
introvertednurse75@reddit
She loved doing stuff for her grandkids. And I adored her. I miss her so much. But yeah, my dad and step mom would tell me "not to bother your nana" with stuff. When she got older and they were worried about her ailing heart, they said I shouldn't share any news that might make her upset. So I wasn't allowed to vent to her about anything.
nchemungguy@reddit
First thing that comes to mind is hearing “Smells Like Teen Spirit” on the radio for the first time. I was driving home from work and it absolutely blew my mind.
Quick_Temperature_87@reddit
Same. I was so shocked because I had never given anything like that the light of day!
alegna12@reddit
I’m like that for “Welcome to the Jungle”
thirddownloud@reddit
I remember exactly where I was when i heard it the first time.
Melissaschwart@reddit
I use to lay out in the sun using butter on top of my roof.my grandma would have beat my ass if she knew that.especially wasting the butter.lol
alegna12@reddit
We used baby oil + iodine
Melissaschwart@reddit
I did that a few times as well
Mainesqueeze76@reddit
I love this on so many levels!!!
Pookarina@reddit
We took my senior trip (1995) in Cancun. Flew there from the US with no passports. Didn’t need passports at the Canadian border either. Good times.
oldfarmjoy@reddit
At night, my dad would step out the front door and whistle. We had about 30 seconds to appear out of the dark and be in the front door or we were in serious trouble. We would run from across the street or down the block. We could be anywhere; we just had to be within earshot of the whistle. 🤣
Plant-Lady-6@reddit
We had a neighbor that would bang on a pot with a wooden spoon to all the kids it was time to come in!
grannieham66@reddit
My mom put a wall- mounted bell on the front porch so she didn’t need to yell😆
StonedGhoster@reddit
My mother shouting "Dinner!!!" from the front porch, and hearing it echo down the valley. We could have been anywhere up in those hills. Man, those were good days.
momdabombdiggity@reddit
Camping out overnight for U2 tickets! My friend had one of those ginormous station wagons (with the wood-grain siding, of course) and we slept in that and used the bathroom at the Perkins across the street from the mall.
moon_of_blindness@reddit
I camped out for U2 tickets with a friend as well. We just stood or sat outside in n a big city. I remember getting proposed to by one of the homeless guys who would always buy tickets to resell. Success, though, 2nd row tickets!!
momdabombdiggity@reddit
Joshua Tree tour!
Bayler@reddit
Dad received a single concert ticket in exchange for some work he did for the fairgrounds where the concert was.
It was him and mom's league bowling night and they never missed a week.
He gave me the ticket, a $5 bill and a quarter to call home with after the show.
The artist was Joan Jett and the Blackhearts. I was 9 years old.
Lab214@reddit
That’s bad ass. Geez what a time to be alive . I envy you at that age 😝
gemma-digger@reddit
9??!!! But amazing!
LetThem_1972@reddit
Wow! Did you have a good time?
Bayler@reddit
I fucking fell in love, is how good it was
SoylentGreenIsCreepl@reddit
That's actually really cool!
Key_Hat_5721@reddit
Getting a call on a landline from someone in jail, and going through their roladex and calling people to try to get someone to pay the bail
Zerofuksyall@reddit
Still a uniquely American experience
newfound-lake@reddit
Or calling your dad collect from a pay phone for a ride home after practice. “Will you accept a call from ‘Come pick me up!’?”
alegna12@reddit
One of the moms that picked us up from halfday kindergarten had a wood-paneled station wagon. She folded the backseat down so us four kids could sit in the back in a circle.
Garden_Tinker78@reddit
I remember around age 4-5 walking to the store through the woods because I wasn’t allowed on the road, to get some buckle candy. I had older step brothers who were supposed to be watching me but didn’t and nobody ever knew I went by myself.
Melissaschwart@reddit
When I was a child I would go to the creek and catch crawl dads.
cyberdriven@reddit
My day kicking me out the house at 18. Best thing he ever did. Today’s parents should do the same. We’d have a lot less spoiled brats in the world.
Zerofuksyall@reddit
Love the downvotes from parents too enmeshed with their own kids, and probably grandkids now. Remember how your parents had lives outside of parenting? Yeah, more of that please.
GypsyRN9@reddit
Going down to the corner store to buy my Mom’s cigarettes as a ten year old.
ghost_suburbia@reddit
Memory unlocked. Unfiltered Pall Mall for mom, and filtered L&M for dad. My hand barely reaching over the counter with the money. No one blinks, transaction made. Usually a follow up offer of a mint from the candy dish or if I want to use change for the lotto. I was raised right, that extra dollar got me a lottery ticket.
Fantastic-Archer-864@reddit
Winston for my dad, and our corner store was on the side of a major highway. No kid was going to DARE go back to their parents in the 70s with an open pack of cigarettes.
kcsews@reddit
I think I was 7!
nottodayautoimmune@reddit
Our babysitter used to roll joints in front of us. The same babysitter let me watch Nightmare on Elm Street way past my bedtime. I was super young. Barely slept for a week.
Zerofuksyall@reddit
It was the Lost Boys for me
Fantastic-Archer-864@reddit
Wow, when we babysat, we would put the kids to bed about 8pm and party. Those poor hungover parents had kids waking up at 6am lol
Adventurous_Bad_3421@reddit
Babysitters letting us watch horror movies is right up there with our moms letting us read her Stephen King novels. Way way way too young for either.
bananapants72@reddit
Telling my mom I was sleeping at my best friend’s house on a Wednesday (and she did the same), driving four hours to see U2’s The Joshua Tree tour and to this day, my parents still don’t know! We drove four hours back home, slept for a couple of hours in her car outside our high school, then went to classes. My mom was a worrywart and didn’t think ladies should be alone at concerts.
Melissaschwart@reddit
I kissed Vince Neil of Motley Crue after his Halloween show at Billy bobs in Texas
Still-Syrup-438@reddit
My sister was kidnapped while she was playing outside by herself when she was about 7 years old. The woman who took her had my sister take a bath, put on a nice dress, gave her birthday cake, and then turned herself in to police. I was told she did it because her daughter died the year before and my sister looked very similar to her. No one accused my mother of neglect or endagerment and none of it was reported by the local news stations.
Zerofuksyall@reddit
How incredibly strange, and sad!! Wow
Exciting_Pass_6344@reddit
I lived in a neighborhood that was about 10 miles outside of the main city by us. My friend and I would ride our bikes (at age 12) the 10 miles into town to hit the arcade at the mall. Then ride home. Our parents had no idea we were doing this.
Jackpot777@reddit
Concerts and raves where people are just singing and dancing. Getting in for under £20. I saw everyone from David Bowie to Meat Beat Manifesto, Happy Mondays to Suzanne Vega live.
jennbouk@reddit
It had been a hot summer in rural SC and my brother and I were bored. This was 1984 and I had just turned 16. My parents gave us a wad of cash and the keys to her K car at noon on Friday and told us we could drive to Charleston for the weekend. She had already made a reservation at a Motel 8 (big spenders) and told us to be home by dark Sunday. No other rules, just have fun and don't wreck. Fwiw, Charleston was 120 miles away.
jennbouk@reddit
One other one. My second semester of high school, I was accepted as a US House Page and was allowed to move at 16, into a "dorm" with about 100 other kids and live and work on Capitol Hill from January until May. We had no adult supervision, beyond checking in every few hours and going to school on the 3rd floor of the Library of Congress. We saw politicians at every turn, even got hit on by a few, and attended the State of the Union. It was glorious as I came from a one caution light town of 300 people.
lazygerm@reddit
I bunked a week of school and no one noticed until I tried it for the second week.
I walked or went by bus everywhere I desired in the middle of the day. Apparently I was really good at evading the truant officers. No one cared and no one approached me.
EstimateAgitated224@reddit
Driving to NYC to see the Christmas tree in HS. Hey ma I am going to the movies. No way to track us no follow up questions, just bye.
Sloth_grl@reddit
I used to ride my bike 3 miles to a campground where my parents parked their camper. I would spend the day running in the wood, playing video games and swimming in a pond with no lifeguard. In the evening ing my parents would come and we’d have a bonfire and dinner. At the end of the evening, my dad would throw my bike into the back of his pickup truck and I would sleep on the way home.
Jrzgrl1119@reddit
I remember going to California for the first time, I'm originally from the East Coast. My parents took us to go visit my father's cousin and we spent the night. During the night a 7.4 earthquake hit. I had never been through an earthquake.
The next morning my parents told my brother and I that they were going to be going out for the day with my dad's cousin. That we shouldn't go into the house due to aftershocks so to just stay in the driveway with these new second cousins that we did not know. The whole day, we hung out with no parental supervision in the driveway
asscheese2000@reddit
That’s one step above being leashed up in the yard. Grown ups got shit to do!
RugbyGuy65@reddit
Growing up in the Chicago suburbs, my best friend’s family owned 80 acres of forested land on the Chippewa flowage. As soon as we turned 16 we’d drive the 6 hours north, camp out, and fish our brains out for two weeks. Local tavern let us cook our fish and sold us Old Styles. We’d check in with our moms every few days calling collect from a pay phone. It was glorious.
ONROSREPUS@reddit
After reading most of these, I can say I had a very boring childhood. I did the BB gun fights, played on the rail road tracks and did some ding dong ditching but that was about it.
MrPBoy@reddit
Very sick with chicken pox. Puking in a bucket by the couch. Watched the challenger explode that morning.
Rude_Pangolin6136@reddit
lol make this in to the perfect Gen X haiku please!!!!
MrPBoy@reddit
Sick with Chicken Pox Puking guts in a bucket Challenger goes BOOM!
Rude_Pangolin6136@reddit
fantastic!
fizzymangolollypop@reddit
We're you alone? If yes, this is the most Gen X thing on here. It really is amazing to me what we all went through.
ifeelnumb@reddit
I recall my dad yelling at the neighbor kids for using our shed as bb gun target practice.
ZakanrnEggeater@reddit
I recall my mom being livid about the tiny bruise on my thigh cased by a bb gun.
oldfarmjoy@reddit
Did we all have bb guns?! The dangerous ones were the model with the cocking handle where you could cock up the pressure. We were always told that those could go through your skin. We also had an absolute, no exceptions, NEVER POINT THE GUN AT A PERSON OR ANIMAL rule. Obv we weren't a hunting family. Just hooligans in the suburbs. 🤣
socgrandinq@reddit
My friend’s mom was giving me a ride back to my house and she brought her cocktail in the car with her and sipped it as she drove. Nothing like making a choice to drink and drive and with a child in the car (in the front seat as well).
momdabombdiggity@reddit
Lol my dad would sometimes bring his beer with him if he had to take us somewhere on short notice 🤦🏼♀️
oneangrywaiter@reddit
It’s called a road soda.
ONROSREPUS@reddit
Barley pop.
JBeeWX@reddit
When I was underage, getting “ rolled in” by someone older at a club. Where you lick the stamp, then the ink transfers to your hand. Different meaning now!
Express_Towel47@reddit
I wasn’t allowed to get Like A Virgin so I borrowed a copy from a friend. I had a Cabbage Patch Kid tape player and a clock radio with recording option. In the middle of the night I played the album on one and recorded it on the other.
railworx@reddit
Lol my mom wouldn't let me buy Samantha Fox's "I Wanna Have Some Fun" 🤣🤣
spencesmom@reddit
I wasn't allowed to watch Dirty Dancing 😂😂
Express_Towel47@reddit
Still haven’t seen it!
railworx@reddit
Weird. My mom rented it for me, it was so boring for the first hour I never finished it 🤣🤣
TheMerc_@reddit
We used to make bike jumps in the woods and on the back side of the jumps we would dig a pit, dump in gasoline and light it on fire and jump through it on our bikes.
ONROSREPUS@reddit
That would still be fun today but you can't afford it anymore.
Western-Poet-1239@reddit
The absolute fucking best of times!!!
bored2death2@reddit
BBQ gun war. \~10-11 years old.
No goggles. No pads. Just us, the BBQ guns, firecrackers (how I never had a shortage of these yet they were banned from sale in the early 1970s when I hadn't even started school yet?)
daysdncnfusd@reddit
I'm gonna go out on a limb and ask if you meant BB gun instead of BBQ gun. I've never heard of a BBQ gun, but if it's a thing then I want one
bored2death2@reddit
shit...you are correct...
SkipSpenceIsGod@reddit
My dad had a BBQ gun. He bought a Super Soaker to shoot out the grease fires in the gas grill. 🤣🤷🏾
daysdncnfusd@reddit
Cuz water + grease fire is awesome
Tree_killer_76@reddit
Nah, they agot each other on the…ribs.
mcfandrew@reddit
My friend got sick of his mom and stepfather, got on his bike with a backpack, and rode from a Chicago suburb to Milwaukee to live with his dad.
Equal_Trash6023@reddit
I was was a kid whe moved half way across the country, Northern Michigan to South Texas riding buses. They didnt catch me until I was in Chicago. I was 7!
Skipping school with friends to go see Duran Duran in Austin. We told all of our parents were staying at different peoples houses.
Cruising on Friday nights!
Any-Video4464@reddit
Michael Jackson’s hair catching on fire. Or maybe challenger blowing up live in front of every kid in the nation with every teacher all geeked up about it because a teacher was on board. Or maybe MTV launching and then crushing it for a while. Berlin Wall coming down, we all might die of AIDS…well it’s probably one of those things. Let’s watch the Cosby Show. Seinfeld and friends. Cheers.
irish_mom@reddit
Our Drama/Psych teacher was one of the top three that they chose from. He looked like a ghost that day. We had wheeled the TV into watch. I tell you, he was shaken, had to leave the classroom. All the other teachers were in the hall talking to him. It was a crazy day.
Any-Video4464@reddit
Interesting. I actually always wondered about that. There are always alternatives and plan Bs for everyone going on the mission. And they all want to go really badly! must be crazy when something like this happens and you "bad luck" saves your life.
kimvy@reddit
Being yeeted outside for hours without any kind of supervision except come back at dinner time. Then being yeeted outside again & told to come back when it gets dark so 10ish in the summer.
I was 6-10 years old. Now it kind of horrifies me because anything could have happened & none the wiser many hours later.
I think that’s why we have a different mindset than other generations as well as a level of self sufficiency that I don’t see amongst the younger generations. Not a slam. Just an observation.
Due_Asparagus_3203@reddit
My bff (and next door neighbor) had to be in when the streetlights came on. I only had to check in and stay in the neighborhood
kimvy@reddit
Hahaha at least yours had a check in. Mine were good peace& quiet.
Has it affected yo or your mindset at all?
Due_Asparagus_3203@reddit
I don't really know what you mean. Could you explain?
kimvy@reddit
No check in here or stay in the neighborhood. It kind of made me a little more cautious earlier in life than other generations, maybe.
gemma-digger@reddit
My 10 yo plays outside with his pack of boys like this. Been doing it since he was probably 6 or 7. Some of the kids have smart watches and we (the parents) can track them down, but sometimes I legit don’t know where he is. I think he’s so lucky.
hb1219@reddit
I grew up in Vegas. In the early 70s, we were those typical feral outdoor kids. My older brothers (who, I suppose are not Gen X being born in '61 and '62) would ride all over town on their bmx bikes with their little posse of friends. They made a few hits on the big fountain in front of the Tropicana Hotel by riding up to it, jumping in with dust pans and scooping up as much coin as possible before the valet dudes chased them off.
bdreamer642@reddit
When I was in high school, we all worked at a paintball field as a weekend job. Through this, we had access to discounts for paint and guns etc. We used to play in an old abandoned amusement park that had an empty pool area, a rides area, and the groves that were in the forest. We would play either in the same area, or a game over the entire area. Really good times and since we all worked at the fields and were extra about safety, everyone had goggles and the necessary equipment.
When drive-ins still existed, my parents had one of those hi top vans with the TV in it. We'd would pack that thing full of people and beer and have drive in parties.
Parties in the woods with kegs and red solo cups on top of the coal banks. The strongest football player kids carried the kegs up the hill on their backs.
I could go on and on
ConstructionOdd7318@reddit
Routinely spent the night at my (female) 3rd grade teacher’s house while I was a student in her class and then for years afterwards. We’d go to museums and the mall. So much fun. Nothing untoward, ever. Can’t imagine how that first invitation convo went between my mom and her but my mom still thinks she was the greatest! (I do too).
FlufferBearDog@reddit
My friends and I getting addicted to powder and crack cocaine circa 1985 to 1987. We were all latch key kids, victims of divorce.
Commercial-Novel-786@reddit
Found a dirty magazine in the woods while I was exploring and riding bikes with a friend.
Moxielilly@reddit
I grew up in the suburbs in a townhouse at the top of a large wooded hillside that sloped down into basically a big gulley. At the bottom of the hill was a small creek. I used to see boys from my class go in and out of the woods after school on a regular basis. I asked some of them why they were always in the woods, and they all said they were catching crawdads in the creek. OK. Except one day, my much more outdoorsy best friend and I decided to go down into the woods and explore the creek. What did we find next to the creek but a treehouse! Fun! Adventure! So of course we climb up to it, and it is full of porn magazines and nothing else. Turns out, boys had been leaving community porn in the tree house for years, and pretty much all of the local boys knew about it. And then I grew up and had conversations with grown men around my age, and no matter where they grew up, they all have some sort of “found porn in the woods” story. It seems to be universal. I’m pretty sure the porn tree house counts as early internet.
hemibearcuda@reddit
Spending weekends like they did in the movie stand by me.
Packing a backpack with snacks and a sleeping bag, some cub scout canteens full of water and disappearing for a couple days.
PomegranatePlus6526@reddit
We would pack up the truck with food and a tent. My dad would take the four of us camping. He only had room up front for two. So two had to ride in the bed of the truck. That was a lot of fun. We never got stopped by the fuzz in the three hour drive either way. He did that twice when I was eight and nine.
jagger129@reddit
Haven’t heard the term “the fuzz” in decades. Love it
Disastrous-Play-3301@reddit
There were 5 of us who all lived on the same street. When we were 12-14 years old, we used to throw some sandwiches into our backpacks, get on our bikes, ride about 25 miles to the mall, see a movie and eat our sandwiches, then ride back home. Nobody thought anything about that. Our parents were happy we were outside getting exercise.
will23188@reddit
I grew up in south Florida during the 70s, and we would make bike ramps at the edge of a canal, tie empty milk gallon jugs to our handlebars and jump into the canal. The bikes would float, we'd pull them out, rinse and repeat. Aliigators and Moccassins be damned.
2ndChanceAtLife@reddit
In Highschool, I spent the night at a classmate’s house with a cool dad that dropped us off at 6 Flags that evening to watch a Night Ranger concert. Two adult males that we didn’t know allowed us to sit on their shoulders to see the band better. It was an awesome night!
2ndChanceAtLife@reddit
1986?
JediRebel79@reddit
Stole my grandparents car at 13 😬
Majestic-Ticket-3668@reddit
Same!
JediRebel79@reddit
Hahaha they were waiting for me when i got home at 3am. Instead of the regulation whack, my grandmother cried... ngl, that hit me different 😔
Annual_Duty_764@reddit
Not me, but someone I know. He was 19, decided to get married, and wants a bachelor party. He and his buddies were too young for night clubs and the strip club was 21+, so they had a “party” in a mall parking lot. Cops came by and poured out their alcohol. No arrests, no citations, no breathalyzer tests. Just dumped it and left.
Komaisnotsalty@reddit
I was left alone a lot, and pretty much raised myself in a typical way that us latchkey kids did back in the seventies and eighties.
It was summer time and school was out, so of course I was alone. I got bored and walked down the block, through an entire forest at the back of a empty lot and then probably at about another half a mile to one of my friend's places.
I knocked on the door and her dad answered. He told me that she was at her mom's and therefore she wasn't home.
I asked if I could come in anyways and just to play with her Barbies and he said sure. And so I went downstairs into this hinky dim basement that we used to play in, and spent about an hour or so there playing.
Just him and me in the house.
After a while he brought me a glass of water and a sandwich and we played cards and then I got up and left and went home.
No harm done. No one knew where I was.
That would absolutely not fly today without a police report happening of some variety.
ungapatchka@reddit
Only because you would’ve carried 32 ounces of your own water with you in a stainless steel bottle.
Komaisnotsalty@reddit
And a cell phone that could be tracked by parents who'd freak if they knew you just went down into a basement of some guy's house you'd never met.
OldMisery@reddit
Sitting in the back of a station wagon, in the rear facing seat, looking at the drivers of all the cars behind us. Why did they make rear facing seats?
Beth_Pleasant@reddit
We used to fight over that seat! In the summers, my dad used to put the tailgate down and we'd sit with our legs dangling while he drove us home from swim practice.
Open-Theme-1348@reddit
One summer I was playing with the hose in the backyard and tried to do a TMNT jump kick, slipped on the wet grass, and sprained my ankle. I still love TMNT (went to the limited viewings of both og movies recently) but do not try the kicks anymore.
OraDr8@reddit
My walkman chewed up my favorite mix tape that I spent weeks compiling from the Top 40 show that was on the radio on Sunday nights.
Aggravating-Scene548@reddit
Aw that was a shame
shan68ok01@reddit
Two young girls went missing from the OK State Fair in 1981. It's still a cold case and the girls have never been found. My school still took busses to the fair, dropped us off, and gave us a time and place to meet up and bus back home. My parents still let me, a very young girl, go with just a "be extra careful".
Azerafael@reddit
Not sure if this counts but on the 2nd night of a school excursion, to a small town in the middle of nowhere, all of us slept on the floor of the local school.
About midnight, 7 or 8 of us snuck out and walked the few miles to the one-road town to check it out. We then explored around the forest nearby and came across a sort of park with kid rides, swings etc and spent a few hours there just chatting and smoking under the moonlight since none of us had a torchlight.
Thinking back, it was the perfect setting for a horror movie where some psycho killer would hunt us all down as a gentle mist drifted over everything, while the yellow halogen streetlights casted ominous shadows among the bushes.
Feral childhood.
Careless-Site1002@reddit
My step mom’s house was near a drive in theatre. We would watch movies on the roof of the garage. I remember seeing Grease. We would build a small fire in the woods and fry bologna.
hogfish79@reddit
Mom pregnant with brother. Got home from school lock the door do what I am supposed to do. (Follow the rules) seven comes, then eight then eight thirty. Phone rings it is my mom and stepdad’s friend from church telling me my mom went into labor and they are coming to get me to stay the night. No call from parents no trip to the hospital. Two nights at their house me still going home from school. Friends come get me later in the evening. They came home and that was it. Back to normal. I was in third grade.
LizTruth@reddit
I have a very similar experience. My mom's friend came to pick me up from school and I stayed at her place overnight for no apparent readon. I later found out my brother's appendix ruptured and he had to have an emergency appendectomy.
hogfish79@reddit
Wow. Craziness
mortalkondek@reddit
Tripping on acid at Lollapalooza
Emotional_Newspaper5@reddit
This, down to the green pen, but the teacher was the JV football coach who always wore polyester coach shorts in school colors (green and gold) and a whistle hung around his neck like a stethoscope. Generic social studies class, probably civics.
MNConcerto@reddit
Wandering around the Calagary stampede midway or games/rides area during the evening/night with my 14 year old cousin, I was 15. We were traveling through Canada on a family road trip.
Our parents were like have fun.
No phones, no check in,no concerns we could get into trouble by ourselves.
I look back as a parent and think holy shit, we could have disappeared and our parents wouldn't have a clue what happened to us.
Clear-Tradition-3607@reddit
I would regularly hitchhike all over new England usually with a surfboard and backpack only. On major highways, thru tunnels, can't believe I am still here
Regular-Ant-5955@reddit
Riding in the back of a pickup truck from Huntsville to Austin Halloween night.
allmykitlets@reddit
That's a bit of a drive. Were there beverages?
Regular-Ant-5955@reddit
Weed
Status_Iron_3706@reddit
Bell bottoms and a bike chain
Oxjrnine@reddit
Getting jumped while leaving the Thompson Twins and OMD concert by a bunch of heavy metal vomit kids. The two heavy metal vomit guys we’re really scrawny and weak so I didn’t engage with them. I just let them punch my shoulders and it didn’t hurt at all, but the three heavy metal vomit girls were dragging my niece across the grass and kicking her.
Luckily, my mother arrived right at that very moment to pick us up, and she ploughed right into the two guys with her brand new Brown 1985 Mercury Topaz, screaming at them with swear words that would make a sailor blush. And this wasn’t in the parking lot. She drove over the sidewalk and over two separate sections of lawn trying to hit them a second time.
I had never been more proud of that woman in my life.
socgrandinq@reddit
Wow! Shows we weren’t always abandoned by parents!
parkaman@reddit
The good side : Sneaking to the city aged just 13 to see The Smiths. We slept at the bus station, putting our school uniforms on in the bathroom before getting the bus home. Then going to school when we got back.
The bad side: getting the shit kicked out of me, by a Christian brother, after I feel asleep in school after above gig. Totally worth it.
kcsews@reddit
Piling as many lids as we could into an old boat, trunkfull of beers and went to the drive inn in Wellington Circle! I was 16!
avinagigglemate@reddit
Being chased by a German Shepherd on our bikes, and just peddling like fuck
baby_smurfette@reddit
watching challenger explosion live in class
Many-Role-4271@reddit
I watched it live outside my school (father worked at KSC). Shattered our world.
small-gestures@reddit
I was 5-17, walked home from school with my friends in the neighborhood, found the house key in the garage, let myself in to the house while my parents were still at work, made myself a snack, watched 3 stooges or mchales navy or I love Lucy or bewitched or I dream of Jeanie or hogans heroes or Andy griffin then put on my toughskins and went out to play until the street lights went on or supper was ready.
artificerone@reddit
Finding wet porn in the forest in a box randomly and then smoking stolen cigarettes at an abandoned cattle ramp nearby.
ThisWorldIsOnFire@reddit
When we had to go to the music venue and stand in line in a lottery system to buy concert tickets. So much heavy metal, big hair, ripped jeans and band shirts.
sfdsquid@reddit
I could tell some stories. But I'll stick to one.
The first thing that came to mind is going on a mini tour with Mojo Nixon to promote Rock the Vote in 1990. I wasn't old enough to drink yet but I was allowed to be in a few 21+ venues because I introduced him and did the VOTE spiel, and I got served.
chemicallunchbox@reddit
Lied to my mom about moving to Dallas for a nursing job(fresh out of LPN school 19/F) headed to El Paso to buy some X and acid and work the rave scene. 2nd night there we(me, my bf and some friends) stayed up all night doing special k. Woke up the next morning to hear that Jerry Garcia died, so we hit the road head to San Francisco. Went to his memorial at the Golden Gate Polo Field, barefooted(absolute imbecile). Stepped on a bee... got stung. Some old hippie showed me how to use loose tobacco from a cig to draw out the sting.
What a long strange trip it has been indeed.
durzo_the_mediocre@reddit
all day bike rides...would be an Amber alert now lol
birdmarty@reddit
Spent a summer at my aunt's house near San Jose, California during my college years. Just bumming around with a part-time low paying job, spending time at the beach, having a great time. Bought a beat up VW Bug as part of my plan to drive back to Indiana to get back to school at the end of the summer. Car broke down in Idaho and I was befriended by a nice man who helped me get going again. I had no phone, no credit card, just a little bit of cash for gas and food - (what was I thinking?). It was a great adventure that could've gone so wrong. (I made it back in time for school.)
wieldymouse@reddit
We were outside playing in the babysitter's yard when a scruffy looking dude rode by on a bike carry an uzi.
MK_ULTRA2point0@reddit
3 friends that I barely knew, and I packed all our things I to a u haul on California and moved to New Orleans with very little money and no plan. We got there, parked the van in a pay by day parking lot and started hoofing it around to local places trying to find jobs. After 3 or 4 days, money was really tight and we had just about enough to get back to California. We were getting ready to tuck our tails and leave when I saw a couple people maybe a few years older on a balcony nearby. I talked that I liked their tiki lights and they asked if we wanted to come up and take showers (the answer was omg yes very very much). We went up and started chatting. They heard our story and called their landlord who had a 2bdrm shotgun apartment for rent in his garden district house for pretty much what we had left available right then. We moved in less than an hour later.
If the tiki light people see this, thank you.
chutesandladders892@reddit
Two things.
We used to go to the airport to watch planes take off and land. On the roof! Nobody cared, or well, we never got caught. Exhilarating.
Also, our weekly Sunday morning ritual with friends was rollerskating through the neighborhood, of course unsupervised, listening to Casey Kasem's top 40 hits on our walkman, or boom box! I was a rollerskating fool!! Fun times.
vertigocin@reddit
We went to the nearby Air Force base to watch the pilots practice landings and takeoffs. Touch and go. Awesome to watch!
wutwutsugabutt@reddit
One time for the 4th of July I told my parents I was going to be at a weekend house party on Long Island all weekend. I was only there one night, after going to a Tom Petty concert on Jones Beach. Amazing. The next day my friend dropped me off back in Brooklyn, at a drop point essentially since this was before cell phones, where I got picked up by another friend who took me to upstate NY where I got to ride in my crush’s souped up Pontiac Thunderbird T top all over upstate NY at very fast speeds for a couple days.
NotMyCircus47@reddit
Hanging off the back off the milko’s truck. With roller skates on.
-SQB-@reddit
Getting up on Saturdays and Sundays and watch cartoons all morning.
chaosrulz0310@reddit
So much because we were not monitored, surveilled or had a camera on us at all times.
Possumcucumber@reddit
There really are waaaaay too many to choose from but here’s one I thought of the other day:
The videos of the dead crowd at coachella reminded me and my bff of how we were down the front of the pit at The Prodigy at a festival (both of us small women) going completely bananas in a giant heaving mass of humanity and consequently I had to go to my ridiculous temp job at a pseudo arty nudie magazine the next day with a giant bruise on my face which I had no memory of acquiring but also gave no fucks about.
StillC5sdad@reddit
A guy in a van lured me in with candy
RF-Guye@reddit
Full size or fun size? I mean...
StillC5sdad@reddit
You think I'd get in a van with a clown for a fun size Twix? Full bars.
Grand_Home_4839@reddit
Talking about candy, right?
ksewell68@reddit
It has razors in it- didn’t it?
stabbingrabbit@reddit
BB guns and bottle rocket wars. Tree houses from found scrap wood. Just being gone all day.
69swamper@reddit
South Louisiana we have the Spillway between the Mississippi river and Lake Pontchartrain most of the year it is used to as a sand pit, so there are roads all over. We used to load the trucks up with beer, sleeping bags and a tent and meet our friends out there for bonfire and drinking all night.
FelixTook@reddit
In high school, Friday night got off work at the pizza place, southern Orange County CA. Friend and I drive a half an hour to Disneyland, spend a couple hours there until it closes. We ran into a couple girls he knew, we decide to drive down to Mexico. Cross the border, go to some bars and a club until early morning. Cross back, get breakfast at Denny’s in San Diego, drive up to northern OC, dropping the girls off at home, then back down to go straight in to open the pizza place, now Saturday morning.
HeyDugeeeee@reddit
We did something similar - borrowed an ex British Gas van, threw a mattress, tent and some plastic garden chairs (?) in the back and set off for the west country. Drank a lot of cider, got thrown out of a village pub, chased by cows, chased girls and lounged around on beaches. Tried our best to get into mischief with very little success. Still, the feeling of freedom feels like it was a different world.
Historical_Project86@reddit
I'm struggling to think of anything remotely as interesting in my past. I had lots of laughs growing up, but all within certain confines. I mean I did try smoking when I was 10 over at the local park, after being offered a cigarette by someone I know on the estate who was 11 lol.
LithiuMart@reddit
My friends and I got on our bikes and cycled five miles to this tower, then climbed in through the side window (now thankfully sealed) and made our way up the broken spiral staircase to sit on the edge at the top.
All with our parents thinking we were cycling around our village just minutes away from home should anything go wrong.
sandtomyneck@reddit
Very similar experience for me. We were exploring the woods and found the local abandoned drive in theater. The next step was to break the lock off the door and we climbed the ladder inside the screen scaffolding and opened the trap door to the roof. We spent the day hanging out behind the big letters. We also started taking out the long fluorescent light bulbs and throwing them like javelins from the roof.
jpetersell@reddit
West of HWY 6 in Houston was mostly just farmland. There was what we called “the hill”. You’d get in your car with friends and gun it and come flying off the top all Dukes of Hazzard style. Get to the end, turn around and do it again. Day time, night time, no one drove this rode. I once broke the bottom flood barrier part of my grand parents’ car, but pulled it off and stored it in the bookstore storeroom where I worked and we went back at it. Few years later I’m home from college for the summer and the store I closing. Boss (who hired me originally) finds the car part in storage and I break down laughing. Have to tell him the story. Also my family no longer owns that car. Into the trash heap.
It’s just one of those “no consequences” thing. No cell phones. No cameras. No social media. Just laughs and stories to tell over two dozen Taco Cabana tortillas and a quart of queso on their open all night patio restaurant. None of that exists either anymore. I can’t just roll up and order x number of tortillas and x amount of queso and sit there till 1 am.
But again. No cell phones. No cameras. No social media.
Did it ever really happen? Only we know.
Available-Ad-5670@reddit
Seeing Nirvana live right before Nevermind dropped
sandtomyneck@reddit
I saw them in Cleveland about two weeks before Nevermind dropped. The flier that advertised the show categorized it as a metal show. When I saw them, I didn't know what to think because it was so different than the metal shows that I would regularly go to.
SkipSpenceIsGod@reddit
I understand the feeling; I saw The White Stripes maybe a dozen times before ‘White Blood Cells’ hit.
Fantastic-Archer-864@reddit
I went to driver's ed after knocking back a couple of beers. Not the driving part.
Simply_Jeff@reddit
While in college we had to use payphones for off campus calls. In order to save a quarter I would call a friend who I knew was working in an office on campus. I would ask him to use the phone's 3rd party connect feature to connect me to the person I wanted to call. All to save $0.25 lol
SharonCoxPurpleFox@reddit
The big thing in rural NH was to go out to the abandoned granite quarry-turned sand pits, get your shitty Chevy Cavalier or Caprice Classic stuck, and then spend hours getting it un-stuck. Good times.
DcubedWY@reddit
My parents borrowed a Winnebago and took me and a friend to Disney World. We would go to the park on trams by ourselves and not return to the RV until dinner. Just 2 9-10 year olds alone in Disney all day long.
mothraegg@reddit
On Saturday mornings my best friend and I would jump on our ponies and we wouldn't have to be home until 5:00 pm. We rode the ponies everywhere and our parents had no clue where we were. We were 9 years old and we had so much fun!
My mom is kind of horrified that she just let us go out on our own, but it was the 70s, that's what you did.
5um-n3m0@reddit
I was chatting with a friend around midnight who lived in Palo Alto (I was in L.A.). I didn't want to rack up the long distance charges on the phone, and I also wanted to smoke a cigarette. (I kept my smoking habit from my parents) So I told my friend that I'd call her back. I drove to a pay phone in front of the local high school parking lot, pulled out my Toyota corolla ashtray, which was full of change, and called her back. I talked to her for about a little over an hour more, on the payphone, smoking camel lights, in an empty high school parking lot, after midnight.
jezevicek@reddit
I can picture this so clearly.
uruiamme@reddit
I went with my Dad on a business trip to England. He placed me in the house of a friend who lived in London. They had two kids about my age. They lived in a very nice home that included a swimming pool.
Well, they went on a little excursion ... to a foreign country... and brought me along, lol. We were returning from France and got caught by the U.K. immigration. I think they had to make sure I wasn't being trafficked or something, because the officials had to call my dad in a meeting and have him explain why I was traveling with some British people and a Norwegian who were all unrelated to me - three different county's passports. (It was me, the mom and her two kids, and her mother.)
I guess they should have had a note from my dad or something.
Anyway, it was ok after some time in one of those "booths" while they investigated us. You know, the old "smuggling American teens" racket, I guess. I was about 13 or so.
This was back before the Chunnel, so we had leisurely traveled to and from France on a ferry for a day. It was August.
I'd imagine that the only thing they asked me was "do you have your passport?" and away we went.
VioletSea13@reddit
When I was 7, I was staying the weekend with a friend.
They were a large family…8 kids.
The mom and dad loaded up all the kids, including me, and took us to the drive in to catch a movie.
The movie was a “women in prison” exploitation flick.
I was extremely confused and embarrassed.
UnfairTea6176@reddit
Either riding in the back of my step-grandpas pickup on the wheel well through town, OR maybe throwing a paper route to help the family finances at 14 yrs old before school.
tpt75@reddit
Not unfathomable but hooning around on my BMX, doing jumps, pancakes, endo's and side kicks and if there was an unfathomable bit, it'd be getting into fights at the BMX track where everyone used to hang out. Normally I'd lose the fights.
Magliene@reddit
Making my tongue raw by eating too many pixi stix
Parkourkoen@reddit
Drove the pick up with the Bois and gals in the back to the closed fishing harbour to dip and smoke J's... Shitt man. I still remember the summer air and that girl flashing tony for a beer .. holy buzzer i got so much love from the world and ppl back then...
Old mann Johnson came one time and we was sure we was gonna get a whooping but the fucker just had a 6 pack and more love for the night.. damn
Bratbabylestrange@reddit
My mother worked in a bank. I loved drawing everything I could think of, so she would bring home the used dot matrix paper for me to draw on. Came in handy while home alone after school.
Come to think of it, several aspects of that are pretty uniquely Gen X haha!
Apart_Culture_3564@reddit
When my dad had to go into work on the weekends he would give me and my sister the strips with the holes from the ends of the dot mactrix printer paper and we would run around the empty cafeteria with them streaming behind us.
Downtown_Anteater_38@reddit
When my sister and I were kids we received light up drawing desks for Christmas one year. Mine was Micky Mouse, and hers was Holly Hobby:
When I was 16 my parents flow to Washington State for a week to see if they wanted to move there. My sisters stayed with friends, and I stayed home alone. What does that have to do with these light board things?
The year before I had established a routing with notes for school. I had my father sign one note excusing an absence. I wrote the note, and had him sign it, then I turned it in at school. Before I turned it in I used the light board to trace a perfect copy of his signature in pencil - then I went over it in pen, From that point on I only asked my mother to write me notes. If I wanted to get out of school I would write myself a note, and then use the light board to trace his signature.
The week before they went to Washington, I wrote myself a note excusing myself from school for the week as I would be accompanying my parents on a trip to Washington. Then I used the light board to sign my father's signature on it. I had confirmed that the office only called the house about absences if they didn't receive a note in advance. If they had a note, they didn't call to confirm.
Thus, in April of 1986 my parents went out of town for a week, and I stayed home alone, and didn't go to school that whole week.
To this day they don't know that I didn't go to school that week, or about the light board. We did move to Washington, and in my senior year I used the light board to write a note from my father authorizing me to write my own notes from that point on.
What a handy xmas gift that turned out to be
SarahJaneB17@reddit
I did something similar. My friend had really good adult looking handwriting. She wrote all of the notes when I ditched school and signed them as my dad. All of the legit ones were written by my mom. Never got caught.
Practical_Weather_54@reddit
I always had a friend forge notes as my dad too! They didn't have even have his real signature on file.
SarahJaneB17@reddit
Exactly. They had never seen his, so had nothing to compare it to.
SavoirFaire2Middling@reddit
I had a friend with great adult writing, too. He wrote so many of my notes that, whenever I had a legitimate note from my parents, I would throw it away and have Dave write me one instead, for consistency.
chzplz@reddit
At my school, they sent home a form at the beginning of the year which confirmed who had authorization to sign for absences. That was what they used if they ever had to confirm valid signatures.
I signed it myself.
nvr2manydogs@reddit
Wow! I am so impressed!! I don't think even my little brother would have thought of that one.
Zealousideal_Draw_94@reddit
All the guys skipping school, going to one guy house to drink/smoke and play the latest video games.
That or guys selling crack outside of school.
i_need_another_scarf@reddit
Running in to the Milk Bar (Australian version of a bodega) and buying packs of smokes for my Aunt and Dad, as a 5 year-old.
DaddyOhMy@reddit
Using the three adjoining backyards as both baseball & football fields. And the family in one of the houses only had toddlers which meant her kids weren't part of the games but were fine with it anyway.
MeLlamoMariaLuisa@reddit
When I was 6 years old, I was walking home from school alone because my sister had been in the hospital. I saw three boys, take a cat, hang from a tree and take turns hitting it with a baseball bat. I stopped and they said if I didn’t leave I’d be next.
SympathyFun2179@reddit
Fuck. Was really enjoying this thread till I got to this.
Kind_Worry_9836@reddit
My friend and I were walking the trolley tracks when we saw a decapitated cat. I'm not sure if the trolley caused the decapitation or if someone just dumped it there.
ElectricalMolasses91@reddit
Went to Hilton Head for spring break. We were broke so we stayed with my friend's aunt. Met some college guys playing putt putt, hung out with them all day. They invited us over for dinner. We went because we were young and stupid. They were in the biggest house I have, to this day, ever seen. The whole side of the house facing the ocean was mostly glass and looked over their private beach. They had domestic help, a cook, butler etc. I turned to the one guy and asked what his dad did for a living? He said he was in the trash business in NYC. Huh, must be pretty lucrative. Had a great time. Later I learned what the trash business actually was, but pre-Internet I had no idea...
Sithstress_@reddit
Is that a code word for the mob? Lol.
ElectricalMolasses91@reddit
Yes, they were mafia LOL
Sithstress_@reddit
That makes a lot of sense. What an awesome night!
PizzaWhole9323@reddit
Smoking pot and skinny dipping at sabino canyon while getting drunk on Boone's farm strawberry.
wyohman@reddit
Four 12 year old boys walking down the road with a collection of rifles and shotguns going to the pond to shoot some cans
NefariousnessOther28@reddit
Those (cocaine) band mirrors you could win at the local carnival
Coup-de-Glass@reddit
Oooh! And those stretch bottles! 🤘🏾
roytheodd@reddit
Me at 10 years old, with my friends at 10 and 9, all walked a mile in our bare feet to the municipal swimming pool. For no more than $2, we all swam and then bought ice cream from the ice cream truck. The 9 year old took a bite of his ice cream, didn't like it, and threw it into an open car window, onto someone's purse. We then walked home.
Sophrosyne1@reddit
One summer mom got us pool passes instead of a babysitter. It opened at noon so everyday that summer we got up, walked half a mile to the pool, swam til dinner time, walked home, ate and passed out.
roytheodd@reddit
Sounds like a great summer (-:
goatsnotvotes@reddit
Said I was staying at a friend’s house and friend said she was staying at a different friend’s house and meanwhile we ran wild all weekend.
vodeodeo55@reddit
Hey bestie! The weekend I lost my virginity went just as you described.
goatsnotvotes@reddit
I always think “thank goodness we had no cell phones!” Other than a disposable camera at the end of the school year or school picture day…..I would have been in trouble with my mom ( and probably the law 🤷♀️) to this day 😂
akillerofjoy@reddit
Does riding a tank through the center of Moscow and witnessing the fall of communism count?
Antique_Row7245@reddit
I shall let it slide just this once. Unless you still have the tank. If you still have the tank then you may carry on as you wish.
biffbobfred@reddit
Did you play that Scorpions song?
Ok_Albatross_3887@reddit
Elaborate please!
OpulentMountains@reddit
That’s all you are going to tell?!? Tell the rest!
Pinkbeans1@reddit
Yes
DrEnter@reddit
When my brother and I were young and we had BB gun fights... on motorcycles.
We weren't completely reckless. We wore shop glasses.
Trike117@reddit
I’ve got a couple.
One is a cross-country road trip in the summer of 1984 similar to yours. We were gone for over a month, getting odd jobs along the way. Stayed with friends on New Mexico, Texas and North Carolina. Got a cheap motel in New Orleans, slept on the beach in Pensacola. We checked in every few days by calling collect person-to-person, asking for someone who didn’t live there. Parents would deny the charge but would know we were okay. The operators were totally in on it and would let us get in a sentence before disconnecting by asking, “Sir, where are you calling from?” And we’d say something like, “Arlington, Texas, since last night,” or “The Edmunds Motel in Myrtle Beach.”
Another is speech class in 1980: for the Demonstration Speech two of the boys brought in rifles and showed how to clean them. I can’t even imagine that happening today, but we didn’t think anything of it. They carried the guns around between classes, too.
stableos@reddit
Timing pressing the play and record buttons together at the right moment to tape a song playing on the radio while hoping the DJ would not speak over the music this time.
JohnSnowsPump@reddit
Getting the cops called on you because you're playing laser tag in an apartment complex.
Getting the cops called on you because you're hanging out on a rural highway (selling onions) but start playing with your Uzi squirt gun. "We got a call that there's a kid shooting a rifle at cars."
Lickford@reddit
I used to walk to the store and buy my mom smokes.
NefariousnessOther28@reddit
Buying cigarettes from a pharmacy at 10 years old saying they we're for my mom
johnonymous1973@reddit
Same.
Ok_Industry3016@reddit
Riding my bike across busy streets and parents not giving a sshit.
NefariousnessOther28@reddit
Smoking cigarettes with our babysitter
Gold-Band3830@reddit
My brother and I would take dad's Trans Am out (without permission) cruising Metrocenter (huge mall in Phoenix) to pick up girls. Raced other cars, cranked the tunes, did burnouts, a total blast.
NefariousnessOther28@reddit
Lawn darts, nothing like throwing metal spikes in the air
Lab214@reddit
Camping out overnight to buy Journey tickets in the morning. Riding all day on my BMX bike miles from home. No phone for mom to reach me.
Bratbabylestrange@reddit
We camped out by the Ticket Bus on the 16th St Mall in Denver overnight for Monsters of Rock tickets
murderbook@reddit
I took the Greyhound bus from LA to Las Vegas at 9 years old, my neighbor who went with me was 12.
Lab214@reddit
Seriously WTF…. I’m all about freedom but goddam. That’s a trip in itself
CitizenjaneEast@reddit
Being hungry because my parents were out late. Eating peanut butter from the jar / circa 1985
ajbadabing@reddit
Roman Candle fights on 4th of July.
Slablanc@reddit
Played on rusty monkey bats over concrete.
btach1323@reddit
Dang. Y’all didn’t even have tan bark?
Slablanc@reddit
Nah, we were an inner city school. Couldn’t afford gravel let alone bark.
Certain-Criticism-51@reddit
Hey, me, too.
djr650@reddit
This reminds me when at Intermediate School in New Zealand (equivalent to late US middle school). Seeing a fellow student fall off what must have been close to a 30ft tall rope swing onto tarmac, and manage to push his forearm through the skin of his elbow.
Safety rules would never allow a contraption like that in schools today!
gldngrlee@reddit
Riding on a back of a pickup with your other little cousins going down the highway
lovemesomezombie@reddit
To the dump
Few_Network5779@reddit
I LOVED going to the dump!
borkborkbork99@reddit
Always begged my grandpa to let us ride in the back of his truck like that, but he’d only do it around the farm, at a snail’s pace when we were in the back.
Probably knew my grandma was watching from the kitchen window and would have skinned him alive if he went any faster. 😂
Legitimate_Finger_76@reddit
That was the best, everyone would be thrown under the jail now and DFACS called
BarnacleGooseIsLoose@reddit
I didn't do any Phish shows (though we did pick up some acid in a parking lot of a Dead show). Didn't have a van.
Otherwise, pretty much did the exact same things as you. The RG was outside of Roseburg. The rave was outside of Eugene.
dcknifeguy@reddit
Woodstock...
'94
UltraMud@reddit
Nine inch Nails looking like they just crawled out of a grave
dcknifeguy@reddit
Everyone there looked like that
Adventurous-Gain485@reddit
Playing BB gun tag
BrilliantAd4857@reddit
Started an acorn fight between me and like three other friends, it proceeded through our appointment complex, picking up kids on the way. The war grew to about thirty kids. We got board and wandered off right before the cops showed up and chased everyone away.
Tried to get my dad's ram charger airborne.by hitting a speed bump going as fast as I could. Succeeded. Realized breaks don't work in the air. Bounced a couple times, drove off unhurt. Still surprised I didn't wreck anything our hurt anyone with that stunt.
therealhdan@reddit
Biking over to the local office park and dumpster diving for cool pieces of Styrofoam packaging to make space stations for our Star Wars figures feels pretty "Gen-X, Suburban Middle School Edition".
CartographerTall1967@reddit
My friends and i would find styrofoam and then put a mast and sail (stick and leaf in it) then set it afloat in a stream, if it got caught up on something we would throw rocks behind it to dislodge it. Adventure on little trash craft!
therealhdan@reddit
We'd do that in our drainage ditches after a hard rain!
Where I lived (on the gulf coast), it rained furiously, frequently, but not very long in the summertime - a half-hour deluge, then time to play in the puddles and runoff.
Accomplished_Exit_30@reddit
Spending my summer driving a John Deere tractor for my dad long before I had a driver's license.
Glittering_Word9081@reddit
Everything I did as a latchkey kid. My parents left for work before I left for school and got home after 5. They took it on faith I guess that I would be alive when they got home. Did I come straight home and do my chores and homework? Did inside my bike to the creek behind the junior college to catch tadpoles? Did I try to see if I could balance my bike on the railroad tracks (spoiler: no, I could not)? Did I hitchhike to the mall? Did I break into an abandoned house and climb into the attic and play ouija board with my friends?
They will never know. But if anyone asks, yeah, I came straight home and did chores and homework.
Grey_eyes_witch@reddit
Went to work at Yellowstone for the summer, that summer I ended up at the Dead show in Eugene and rainbow gathering in Wyoming.
ChatnNaked@reddit
Parents were gone by 6am and wouldn’t be home till 6-7pm(with almost no way to get ahold of them)Me in 3rd grade had to get me and 1st grade brother out the door and on the bus every morning. Mom would have a note everyday of chores to be done…. We vacuumed every god damn day!! Make sure some kind of meat was out thawing, dishes, laundry, don’t go outside(this rule was broken without thinking about it).
sbfb1@reddit
We played in a sink hole in a field until after the street lights came home and as we were walking down the street our parents called the cops to find us. Not report us missing, to just find us
Accomplished_Exit_30@reddit
Every summer the city would pile gravel for the seal coating in the west side dirt parking lot of the high school. I would ride my.bike there and play on the gravel piles.
barkinbeagle@reddit
Went to Memphis for a concert, ended up rained out, decide to cross the bridge, drove through the middle of no where Arkansas, took a photo near a live bait vending machine, looped back around to the delta in Mississippi winding the very long ass way home…don’t think we got home till 4 or 5 am. Good tunes and good memories on that trip. Still got a folded up road map we grabbed at a gas station along the way. 🤣
Plenty-Run-9575@reddit
Taking the library babysitting course at 12 YEARS OLD and being hired to watch infants and young children for $5 an hour.
Practical_Weather_54@reddit
I never took that class and I babysat a toddler in 5th grade and didn't even get paid! I think my mom pimped me out.
DaisyPK@reddit
I once asked for $5 for 2 kids (it was normally $2.50 an hour) and my mom made me give half back.
Practical_Weather_54@reddit
Rude!! I remember getting paid $3 an hr. for two kids and feeling so rich!
Open_Confidence_9349@reddit
My first babysitting gig I was 9, best friend was 11, and we were watching her 4 year old little sister. You would have thought the 11 year old was in charge, but I was more trustworthy, so we both got paid the same.
My first solo babysitting gig I was 10, watching a 5 year old. By 11, I was watching infants and toddlers.
1HorseWithNoName@reddit
My friend and I took off on our bikes when we were 12 or 13 and rode to the next town over from ours to visit his parents at their store. About 20 miles there and of course 20 miles back. My mom did not even know.
Top-List-1411@reddit
Fitting ten teens into a car
rdnkgrrl18@reddit
And I drove a geo metro hatchback, two door 😆 in college we did the same thing with packing people in a shower
irish_mom@reddit
We had 10 in the car and three in the trunk. 77 Duster. Then Randy decided to jum the railroad tracks and the 3 in the trunk decided to walk back. I am laughing so hard again thinking of their faces when they got out of the trunk rubbing their heads.
allmykitlets@reddit
OP, your GenX life was way more interesting than mine, that's for sure, and mine wasn't particularly boring.
bishpa@reddit
Drinking Fresca or 50/50 and eating air-popped popcorn while watching Love Boat and Fantasy Island on Saturday night.
rdnkgrrl18@reddit
I love Fresca!
Upnatom617@reddit
Skip the fresca but everything else!
ChatnNaked@reddit
This thread sums up Gen-X so perfectly!! Remember things I forgot, that I would never let my Millennial kids do!🤣💕
Wide_Breadfruit_2217@reddit
The smell of clove cigarettes and shopping at army surplus stores.
rdnkgrrl18@reddit
To this very day I can smell that smell! I dunno if you smoked back then but camel made honey roasted cigs and mannnn
Crafty-Bass-3434@reddit
Jumping my Schwinn scrambler over a ramp of a board on number of bricks only to come up short and totally Endo and eat shit. Only because some older kid in the neighborhood moved the landing ramp while I was around the corner to get enough speed.
Or maybe bombing hills on roller skates directly into a busy street of traffic.
??
Flux_Inverter@reddit
My mother was 5'0" and could not reach the pedals of the LTD wagon. She sat on a phone book to see over the dashboard.
mbadolato@reddit
From 13 or 14 years old onward, friends and I would take the bus to the Wonderland train station (a few towns/cities away), then hop on the train and go into Boston to spend the day wandering around the city and Cambridge, then home. Got home, parents would ask what we did all day, having no idea where we were or what was up. Got nothing more than "Did you have fun?" 🤣
Full_Security7780@reddit
Crossing state lines to go to a redneck country bar and using fake ID to get in the door.
BigLoudWorld74@reddit
From 8th to 10 grade on Friday and Saturday I'd skateboard in downtown Clearwater fl. till 3 or 4 in the morning, crash on a buddies couch and finally go back home 10pm on Sunday night and no one even questioned where I was. Good Times.
forklobotomy@reddit
When I was about 8 we lived in an apartment complex with a swimming pool. We were not supposed to get in the pool without an adult, but we did it all the time. One day I was by myself and I thought putting inflatable "water wings" on my legs would allow me to "walk" on water. It was the opposite, your legs floated and made your upper body stay under water. I tried to get the floats off but they were stuck, as hard as I kicked and paddled, I could not get my head up to take a breath. I really thought I would drown. I eventually got myself over to the stairs and could walk up them with my hands. I had spent many hours in the pool being bored, so I would try to see how long I could stay under or how many laps I could swim without coming up for air. Breaking the rules many times probably saved me from breaking them once.
SanchoPliskin@reddit
Riding my bike to the “Video-Rama” movie rental. And sneaking a peak in the curtained off section.
MoreCowbellllll@reddit
Wearing parachute pants to a JV dance.
Gazas_trip@reddit
Looked at buying a pair for an 80s party not that long ago. Should have kept mine, not that I would fit in them anymore.
MoreCowbellllll@reddit
Man, wish i would’ve kept mine. They were awesomely hilarious.
Rude_Pangolin6136@reddit
In Alabama: My brother was 11 and I was 18. My parents didn’t feel like watching my brother and I wasn’t around. My little brother would wake up late, dress and feed himself and then go walk along “the gutter highway” behind all of our houses in our housing development until he got to his friend Johnny’s house. He stayed at Johnny’s house all day — ate lunch and dinner there — and would come back at 8pm just in time to watch a movie on hbo with us and my parents could have cared less where he was.
rammer-jammer71@reddit
Would hang outside the Elbo Room and cop beers off of spring breakers. I was 14 lol. Or not lol.
TranslatorDazzling30@reddit
I’m one of those borderline between boomer and Gen X. I used to call myself ex boomer until I heard the term GEN JONES. (Born ‘61). Anyway, I remember having an until 486 PC and about 1993 and I would used a 24.4K whatever baud modem, it had a creative labs. I don’t remember what they called it, but the competitor to sound blaster card and it had a 250 Megs (wow) Colorado Tape backup cartridge thing in it. It took So Long to log onto Prodigy and AOL services through the telephone line and I thought that was cool. Oh yeah, and I was always getting mailed those AOL CDs in the mail. I used them as coasters for beer cans. hah! 😂
GladCauliflower6331@reddit
I ripped my Rick Springfield t shirt when it got caught on a doorknob, while I was rushing to the boom box to turn up the volume on “Electric Avenue”. True story,
SharbugBravo@reddit
How are you not getting upvotes ? This is like. John Hughes scene
Boon_Hogganbeck@reddit
And then we'll take it higher...
AdventureSphere@reddit
Can't lie, that's pretty good
Gazas_trip@reddit
Winning a feathered roach clip or a Van Halen mirror at the local fair.
ethottly@reddit
Listening in awe and admiration as my 15 year old friend (with braces!) airily described how she preferred to date men between the ages of 28 and 35. Her current boyfriend, Bob, was 31. She got her braces after they started going out and she was afraid he'd be turned off when he saw them. Well...he wasn't. 😦
It seems incredible now, but at the time this friend seemed so sophisticated and cool to me. Kind of like the Phoebe Cates character in Fast Times at Ridgmont High.
nasw500@reddit
Yeah… I remember quite a few notable age gaps among relationshipped people when I was a kid, too. Rarely as divergent as the one you describe, though! I remember a college roommate who was 24, and was practically engaged to a girl who I think was still 17. The rest of us thought that was “maybe” a bit weird… until she came to visit (during a high school break). The two of them were so evenly-matched in maturity, that it seemed “meant to be” after that.
cascadebeyond@reddit
I watch Kirk Cobain pass out and fall off a chair in the middle of a set during their In Utero tour. 11/08/93. Kurt Died the following April. Not super unique all in all but very Gen X.
TuesGirl@reddit
Damn. I saw him in late October of 1993. Same tour.
FreeToBeYouandMe14@reddit
I was a latchkey kid from age 10 onward. I watched my 7 year old sister and a neighbor kid every day for hours after school. My dad would leave us and the dog in the car when he ran errands. He always had an open can of beer and the dog would drink out of it. We would never tell our dad and then he’d drink out of the same can. We thought it was hilarious. I drove my 13 and 6 year old sisters from Kansas City to Arkansas to visit family when I was 16. We only got lost once.
Infinite-Lychee-182@reddit
Action Park
Grand_Home_4839@reddit
Loved the documentary - Class Action Park
Cptnmisfortune@reddit
Drove my mom’s car all around the neighbourhood. I was 13 and took my 11 year old sister with me. That’s how I learned to drive standard. Was not a rural area.
djak@reddit
Nicking 70 cents from my mom's purse to buy cigarettes out of the machine at the bowling alley when I was 13-14 years old.
Propping open the door at the movie theater so that a bunch of my friends could all sneak in to watch The Shining for the umpteenth time.
Setting up quarters on the Space Invaders machine to hold my place in line lol.
Gazas_trip@reddit
Bowling alley cigarette machines. Ca-chunk!
Human_Management8541@reddit
My little sister and I used to hitchike to daycamp... it was 12 miles away. I was maybe 10, she was 8...
CSILalaAnn@reddit
When I was about 10 or so, my sisters, neighborhood kids and I went exploring and found a hobo camp near the train tracks about a mile from our house. I remember being amazed and humored by the note we found written with white crayon on cardboard that said they went north to find snow. There were snowflakes drawn on it.
Billie_Hollandaise@reddit
I had my first panic attack at a rave in 1997. Everyone was high as a kite on ecstasy and chugging bottled water. People kept trying to grind on me, including a dude that looked like Santa Claus with a beard full of glow sticks. I just knew that place was violating fire codes and the rapey vibes were off the charts. It was sensory overload and I noped the fuck out. Years later my kids ask me about raves. They want to hear how cool they were in the 90s. I tell them my story. My teenage daughter looks at my son and says, “I think mom was just born old.” 😑
savedbytheblood72@reddit
6th grade My mom letting me sip her beer.
The bar she would go to every Sunday to play pool at was a place that played A lot of Tom Petty and Country . the bartenders and people there were the " just look the other way" types
They thought I was cute so the woman there would teach me to play pool. Over hearing all their conversations about the men they partied with and the people they work with . I felt like Kevin Arnold walked into Road house .
Miss those day thou
FreeToBeYouandMe14@reddit
My dad would regularly give us beer at home when we were kids. He would take us to the bar, but there we had to have soda and BBQ potato chips.
Salvador_daddy@reddit
Dead tours
TheodoreDonald@reddit
AoHell
No-Hour-1075@reddit
I was almost kidnapped, or assaulted but I never told my parents. It happened on a weekday. I had Confirmation classes after school every week . So I guess I was about 12 when this all happened, 1981? I got off the bus by my house and then road my green banana seat bicycle to these Confirmation classes at my church. My parents were still at work. After class, I would ride back home. There was a big hill that I couldn’t make it up (no gears on a banana seat bike!) This time a big gold car sidled up to me and a guy with stringy dirty blonde, shoulder length hair and no shirt asked me directions to the airport. I knew the way, because my grandparents lived by the airport. So, I told him. He didn’t listen, but instead said “get in the car and show me”. I totally freaked out and picked up my bike and carried it up this steep front yard to the front porch of this random house that I was beside. I rang the doorbell, but no one answered. So, I just opened the door. Of course it was unlocked. No one was home. So, I just stood there with my bike, in their hall until the guy left-about 15 minutes. I went home on my bike-and no one was home there either. My parents finally got home around 6:30. They ask me how school was. “Fine”. Asked me how class was “Fine”. Right when I was going to tell them about the guy, the phone rang, and my Dad took the call on the yellow phone in the kitchen, but it was important, so he stretched the cord all the way into the next room and sat down to talk. By the time he got off, it was bedtime, so, I just went to bed. I think about it ALL the time
LuckyElis13@reddit
Wow, this exactly what my mom always told me to do if someone tried to get me in their car. Go up to any random house and just walk inside. It’s amazing to me that you had the presence of mind to do that, and it worked! Nobody home, and the guy left. You must have been terrified going home!
CrystalLilBinewski@reddit
I had a few things happen like this with men. I never told my parents either. I’m sorry this happened to you. I’m sorry you’re still living with it. What a shitty shitty thing. Take care.
holdmypurse@reddit
This story is so amazing and poignant. It almost sounds like something Garrison Keillor would have read on Prairie Home Companion except it's way too dark for Lake Wobegon. And you never told your parents even after you grew up?
Grouchy_Vet@reddit
Thank God that door was unlocked. That must’ve been terrifying
Punkinsmom@reddit
Spending the entire summer outside, swimming in an inland lake and Lake Superior, walking EVERYWHERE because one of my friends didn't have a bike at the time. Rowing a boat forever to get across the bay to my friend's house. Girl's night camping on an uninhabited island, with skinny dipping and wine.
atomic_chippie@reddit
My friend called me and asked if I could cover her paper route for her, which i could not since my aunt and grandma were taking us to Six Flags.
My sister and I would go on one rollercoaster after the other, then drink a big icy lemonade while watching my aunt whistle at sailors on leave, in her cat eye sun glasses, flats, and cigarette pants.
In the extremely shit childhood I had, this one memory stands out like no other, especially because we were extremely poor and this had to have been a big deal, financially.
216life@reddit
Well, since I AM gen x, all of my memories are gen x
Chad_Hooper@reddit
That’s the best way to “whatever” the whole thread, dude.
Metal_Muse@reddit
I spent the night at Perry Farrell's house in Malibu in the mid 90's.
Slitheytove1031@reddit
I need to hear this story...
Metal_Muse@reddit
My bad, it was actually in Venice where we slept. The night started in Malibu at the studio where they were recording Tahitian Moon, but Perry drove us down to Venice later that night and tried to buy crack twice off the street while we were in Venice. I was petrified and played like I was sleeping. The next morning, we had to head out of the Venice house because a photographer for Home and Garden magazine (or something foo foo like that) was coming to shoot his house. We all ended up having breakfast at a diner in Venice with their manager and Stephen Perkins. Then when we headed back up to Malibu the next day, Perry got pulled over for speeding on PCH. One of the more crazy experiences in my life without going into all the details.
Slitheytove1031@reddit
That's absolutely fantastic. I've been a massive fan of Jane's Addiction and Perry since the early 90s. I did see him in Santa Monica once. He was playing skee-ball with his kids at the arcade on the pier.
gemma-digger@reddit
Seeing U2 general admission at a Chicago club, the Aragon Ballroom at ~ 14, my older cousin and her friend took me there were probably 18-19 because I was such a big fan. This was Under a Blood Red Sky tour. I was small and worked my way up to the second or third row of people and lost my cousin and her friend. I didn’t care, awesome show, found them after and to this day the best gift I’ve ever gotten.
someguythatiknow@reddit
Calling my mom (who worked 2nd shift) at work to ask her what temp to set the oven to so I could start dinner. I was 9.
rdnkgrrl18@reddit
The fact that when we were young, someone would say let’s go such and such and we’d go! We didn’t pack a bag, take pillows, make shore we’d be home at a certain time … we’d just go. And we’d sleep anywhere. Could you IMAGINE if we tried that shii today? We’d be in traction if we tried it … and most of us would say we couldn’t go 😆😆
UnregrettablyGrumpy@reddit
I walked into a local tavern/bar, 16 years old, on a Saturday night. Walked to the cooler and got 2 cold six packs. Went to the bar to pay and someone yells from across the bar to the bartender, “put that on my tab.” I look over and it’s my high school wrestling coach smiling at me.” I am now a high school health and PE teacher and when that man died I put one of my coaching whistles in his casket.
Fuzzy_Bare@reddit
I had to buy a roll of quarters to use the pay phone to call my boyfriend who lived in another state because if I called too much from my house, my dad’s head would explode from the big phone bill
Gn-xer75@reddit
Ducking down passing my house in the bed of a 84 F-150, headed for a party with my older neighborhood friends.
baggert99@reddit
Started going to Raves with my high school friends like a week after I turned 16. We would travel across state lines, multiple hours within the state, and spend the night dancing and doing drugs. My parents always thought I was staying with friends just up the street. They never caught me. It was so much fun.
Ok_Permit5610@reddit
Siblings and I, ranging in ages from 6-10, walking to country store about 2 miles from home picking up soda bottles along the roadway. Turned bottles in for 5 cent deposit and used the money to buy as many pieces of 1 cent candy as we had funds to cover. Walked back home and split the spoils. Ate every piece before parents got home from work.
mediathink@reddit
Nirvana at The Rosemont.
HubbDave32@reddit
Nirvana at Axis in Boston the night before Nevermind was released. I thought…”meh”. To go back in time and slap my younger self…
deleted_by_reddit@reddit
[removed]
GenX-ModTeam@reddit
{community_rule_7}
UnregrettablyGrumpy@reddit
Some friends and I were hanging out a couple towns over on a Saturday night in a bar area when we were young and doing dumb stuff. A drunk guy walked out of a bar and handed me his keys and told us he was unable to drive and could I drive him home. Me and two buddies got him in the car and drove him home. After he got out I drove away in the car and we drove around for a few hours. I parked the car two blocks away from my house and drove back and forth to school for a week in the car and parked it across the street from my high school. Friday after school I drove the car to a junk yard where I was given $500 cash and a ride home for a two year old Buick. I was 15 at the time.
Antique_Row7245@reddit
Buying cigarettes and fireworks at 10. Riding BMX in packs of 9 and 10yos literally miles and miles and miles away - everyone carrying huge knives on their belts. Being allowed to travel into dowtown (hours away on a bus) and running around all day on our own at barely 11yo. Shooting bullets (big ones) with an air rifle in suburban back yards at 11yo. Pipe bombs. Riding skateboards around deserted carparks at 11yo until very late in the evening. Hitchhiking at 14. Living in a house full of teenagers with no adult supervision at 15. Absolutely no adult supervision anywhere from the age of 8 or 9. I don't think I even met half of my friends' parents. Did they even have any? No idea....
Metalpausequeen@reddit
Post Hurricane Gloria, 1985. Wandering the streets of our small city with my friends (we all had parent permission) to scope out the damage. My 16 yr old boyfriend stops in a local package store without power and buys whatever we can afford. Yes, Boones Farm was present. Fun times!
paramarine@reddit
I was 14 years old then and Hurricane Gloria gave me the best surfing of my life.
medisamurai@reddit
the mavs were so shitty in the 90s you could get tix for less than 20$ sit in the upper deck and take some one hits off a one hitter because there were about 30 people in the upper deck (maybe less) unless it was a really good team. Then in the second half they would invite you to the lower bowl, assumingly for TV, because it too was about half full.
TinaLovesVince68@reddit
At 10, I would come home from school, walk to the local Publix to catch a bus to downtown West Palm Beach, FL. Walk from that bus stop to the courthouse. Go up to my mom’s office so she could take me to a dentist appointment after work. In the summer, I’d go to work with her, walk to the downtown Public library and hang out until lunch time. Walk back to the courthouse to have lunch with Mom. Back to the library and then back to the courthouse before she got off work. Loved doing this because the basement of the library was a huge children’s section with bean bags and I could read to my heart’s content.
ennuiismymiddlename@reddit
The best kind of memories. I’ve recently found out I’m dying of pancreatic cancer, so I’ve been thinking a lot about my youth and trying to remember all the fun times I had.
bkcarr87@reddit
Awesome username, brother. 1969 X’er here, class of ‘87. Sorry for your news, but glad to meet you and I think we’d all love to hear your fun times. Much love to you.
GolDanKar911@reddit
I wish you peace and comfort.
Prestigious_Grape288@reddit
Hugs I am sending you love ❤️
nonstop2nowhere@reddit
Workshopping the right fonts for different states' IDs so we could all make passing fakes to get into clubs for shows. Telling all the parents we were sleeping over at "Amy's house," because Amy's parents would cover if any parents called, then getting into shenanigans. Sometimes for a week at a time. I now have a love/hate relationship with Amy's folks as a grown-up and parent lol.
ShadA612@reddit
Round about 80 or 81 I was 10-11 years old. My friend’s dad owned a bowling alley/bar in SoCal. After the bowling alley closed, the dad let about 10 of us kids have a sleepover. We ate all the food in the place. We were too young to be into alcohol, so we binged on all the soft drinks that you could get from the bar.
BeigeGraffiti@reddit
I worked for my grandfather under the table starting at 10 years old. Some of my first tasks were inventorying cigarettes and snuff so they could be sold in vending machines for bars, social clubs, trucking companies and steel mills.
HenriettaCrump@reddit
Getting up early on summer vacation, driving up to Davis Dam, getting our inner tubes in the water, and floating down the Colorado River for hours! Always a deep shade of pink when we finally got out of the water.
Walking to the hamburger stand with friends and no adults. Then going to the arcade and playing PacMan and Donkey Kong.
aldoraine000@reddit
I’m definitely not as cool as OP. Our high school senior party was absolutely GenX. A big bonfire out in the middle of nowhere and couple of the local college bands that knew us. Lots of moshing, mud, sleeping in tents and cars.
quiltsohard@reddit
Me and my friends did. But in the late 80’s Americans were getting kidnapped and everyone (schools/parents) got super serious about no one going to Mexico. So we had to start stealing liquor from our parents cabinets and having bonfires in the desert.
Josiepaws105@reddit
My cousin and I spent a summer with our aunt in Key West when we were 19. We had no car so we walked all over the island. Partied with the US Navy guys, drank our way up and down Duvall Street, got the best tan of our lives, and generally had a fantastic time! Great memories!
DumberBlonde@reddit
Seven year old me buying cigarettes for my mom. I was so embarrassed. I felt they thought I was smoking them.
temerairevm@reddit
When I was 12 I was deemed old enough to drive to the nearest store and buy cigarettes for the workers on our farm. My dad didn’t want them taking long breaks to do it. The shop owners knew I was 4 years away from a drivers license, but also what all the cigarettes were for.
DumberBlonde@reddit
Do you think we took responsibility more seriously? My mom used to leave me alone to babysit myself at 8-9 from time to time with a 22 rifle mounted on a rack in the living room. I never touched it and neither did my friends.
temerairevm@reddit
I would occasionally sneak a pack for myself into the mix, so I’m not sure I can claim I was responsible. I didn’t wreck the car though.
OtherwiseMechanic322@reddit
I was made to do this from like 5 years old. With a note of course.
I look back and think wtf? Of course if know the many reasons my mother did this, but jeez.
babayagaparenting@reddit
I drove my $500 dodge decommissioned police car two hours to Chicago with my three siblings and two cousins when I was sixteen. I was TOLD TO DO THIS by my mother. I was headed for the Northwest suburbs. I got lost coming off of Lake Shore Drive and wove my way through the city for about an hour until I recognized the street I was on and followed it across town. I probably had $20 in my purse. Four kids in the back seat, no seat belts. With a sixteen year old. I was probably smoking Virginia slims menthol lights the whole way too.
Salt-Elephant8531@reddit
Bringing a knife in my school lunch box so I could cut my apple into slices.
6glough@reddit
riding bikes with neighborhood kids to the old town dump and big field with old tires. the place was crawling with snakes, buddy caught a copperhead in a paper bag, giant spiders and even a black widow with webs spun inside giant old truck tires. add on finding an “abandoned” campsite with some woods porn and it was a memorable weekend.
Metalpausequeen@reddit
Post Hurricane Gloria, 1985. I’m 15 and my friends and I wander about our small city (with parent permission) to survey damage. My 16 yr old boyfriend stops in a local package store whose p
ArthurBea@reddit
Paper route, 12 year old. The AM route. Got hit by a car, I flew through the air into some bushes. The guy actually stopped.
A lady came out, thought a car hit one of her cats. I got up, no broken bones. My bike was fucked up. The guy gave me his number, seemed worried, and took off.
I finished my route. I told my parents. Called the guy every day because he said he’d help me fix up my bike. He never picked up.
And that was it. My parents didn’t care, I had to buy myself a whole new bike, and I was probably injured worse than I seemed, but I walked it off.
quiltsohard@reddit
I got thrown off a horse I was riding, with no supervision, and broke my thumb. No visit to the dr. I’m 55 now and my thumb is fucked
emsleezy@reddit
Getting a fiver from my dad while he was checking out groceries and walking over to the customer service desk to get his Benson & Hedges cigarettes for him. I was 9.
Slitheytove1031@reddit
Staying the night at a friend's house. Both his parents worked graveyard. We would go to the store and buy ice cream cups (with the wooden spoon!) and rent some movies. All paid for with a blank check his mom gave us...
For several years we would go to the state fair in Puyallup, in my dad's pickup. My sisters and I would lie in the back, covered with a tarp. That's about an hour and half trip !
And how has no one mentioned the scrambled Playboy Channel !
whygrowupnow@reddit
Smoking in the student smoking area at the high school, which was by the trash cans. Teachers smoked in the teachers' lounge
quiltsohard@reddit
I lived near the Mexico border. We would all tell our parents we were staying at a friend’s house then drive to El Paso. Get a hotel room (for like 5-10 teenagers) and walk over the border into Juarez. Tequila shots were .25 cents back in the day.
Antique_Row7245@reddit
Hahahaha, oh my god!
windscare@reddit
I spent a summer teaching myself to ride my 10 speed without hands... Then to juggle while riding my 10 speed on back roads.
One day while riding my bike I crashed into a telephone pole guide wire that left the whole side of my neck and half my shoulder scraped and bleeding. Walked the bike to a friend's house, his dad spayed it with some bactine on it and away I went.
Explaining it to Mom was the scary part. 😂
windscare@reddit
Oh, then I rode my bike down to the creek and found a porno mag.
I miss those carefree summers.
deleted_by_reddit@reddit
[removed]
ifulbd@reddit
Reagan’s speech that I’ve never watched
islandbeef@reddit
Annual Halloween egg fights were fun back in the 80s.
EL_overthetransom@reddit
Rode to the other end of town to visit the "bad" candy store that sold candy cigarettes with a sign in the window that said "unattended children WILL be sold as slaves." On the way back passed a car with the bumper sticker "Don't like my driving? Call 1-800-EAT-SHIT."
beccaboo2u@reddit
Cash, grass or ass. Nobody rides for free 🤣🤣
LAARPer@reddit
My neighbor sold me her 1965 Ford Falcon for $50 in 1993.
Substantial-Chip-102@reddit
When I was 17 my BF and I took a road trip to Sun Valley to go to a birthday party at a friend of a friend’s. We were going to stay at his place. The guy was a Vietnam vet with PTSD (before there was a term for that). Several people ate acid. The guy freaked out and started waving a gun around. We left along with a bunch of others. We pooled our money and got a motel room. One guy was 18 and got the single room for one person. We ended up with about 12 people and two dogs staying in the room. It was still a fun trip. We didn’t trash the room. Just a lot of dog hair for housekeeping to vacuum. Parents never found out.
Fresh-Desk9244@reddit
Working at Kmart in, SoCal and getting paid in cash, including coins every Friday. ‘86 -‘87. I was 15-16. 😁
OneeyedPuggernaught@reddit
I washed dishes at a small town steak and chicken type restaurant with a small bar. The owners would close up front of house and give us a key to lock up after we finished the dishes and filtered the fryers. Buddy of mine got me and 3 other friends jobs there, we were 15 to 17. Worked there until I was 19 or so. Beer cooler was in the dish pit, there were no locks on the bar taps or liquor closet. Owners son was an alcoholic, so inventory was loose. We partied with the bus girls and salad bar girls after everyone left, never any mention of missing keg or canned beer. If someone got off early, we would load a case in the garage and haul it out.
They sold smokes at the hostess station but no one stole any of those, they were $1.25 a pack and we stacked quarters on the shelf if we grabbed a pack.
Thisismyusername89@reddit
Got up walked over to watch the parade then headed over to the fall festival at the park with friends. Spent all day walking around town & the park gathering bottles to get money. About 6 pm we walked to the carnival. Was there probably until about 10pm. Met up with my bro & sis and finally walked home. I was 10, my sister 12, and my brother 9. Good times good times! This actually happened a few times lol!!
katiekat214@reddit
Learning to make the perfect martini at age 12 so I could bartend for my grandmother and her best friends. And going to the liquor store to buy the alcohol for them as soon as my best friend turned 16 when I was 14-15.
dumb__fucker@reddit
Buying cigarettes at the donut store out of the cigarette machine, and smoking two of them on the way to school before stashing them in my secret hiding place for pickup after school.
Leaving on my bike to do stupid shit with my buddies at 8:30AM on a typical Summer day, to return at night when the street lights came on.
"Stupid Shit" consisted of riding down in the concrete ditch for miles to the beach (18 miles), having orange fights in the orange groves that were surrounded by, spending hours in arcades with "scammy quarters" which were quarters rigged with a slight piece of scotch tape and thread that you could pull up and down over the credit register, to rack up 30 games on one coin.
Never appreciated those days the way I do now.
toddpackersux@reddit
When I was 14 I ran into my softball coach from the previous year. I was drunk, in a bar with a bunch of my family, and buying cigarettes from the machine.
beepbooponyournose@reddit
I got a black eye from an orange fight with the neighbor boys lol
Small-Instance-3442@reddit
Getting dropped off at the movie theaters on a Friday night, playing in the arcade and running into everyone from school.
MilesAugust74@reddit
God, how I miss those days... 😢
Small-Instance-3442@reddit
So much! So nostalgic
overabbreviator@reddit
Playing Hubcap. We would take an old hubcap and as cars went by, we would throw the hubcap down and yell “Hubcap!” And run and grab it. ideally the driver thinks we are stealing theirs. The entire point was to be chased. We were chased many, many times. Because we knew every crevice and nook in the neighborhood, we were unstoppable.
ancient-military@reddit
Yes, we had a game like that, only throwing snowballs at cars. Building snow walls in the road, throwing snow balls at cop cars. All to get chased, good times.
Multi_task_xxx@reddit
At barely 14 years of age, me and my bestie hopped a bus from our small town, then a train then a subway, to attend a concert in Toronto. Madonna, The Virgin Tour. Our parents were aware and unbothered that their very young daughters were dressed in fishnets and mini skirts, big hair and makeup, roaming the city streets.
BigHeadWeb@reddit
Maple Leaf Gardens?
Multi_task_xxx@reddit
Yep!
JayRexx@reddit
Camping out at the mall for concert tix.
CawlinAlcarz@reddit
Early June, 1989, home for the summer between freshman and sophomore years of college. I was 19. I met a girl (20) in college in Central PA earlier that year who actually lived near me back home in southeastern PA. We had a casual but passionate thing going at college, and connected back at home.
We went to dinner one Friday evening and then to Valley Forge National Park just before closing. I knew the park pretty well. We parked in a place I thought the car would be left alone and walked with a couple blankets to a meadow I knew as the sun was setting.
As darkness fell fully upon us, we made love in that hillside meadow, and fell asleep naked in our blankets.
I can still feel her skin on mine and her soft warm breath on my neck as she lay in my arms under the blanket.
I woke some time later to a nearly full moon with the cool dew of that mid June night settled on the blanket, dampening my face and her long dark hair.
Several dark shapes around us, within as few as 5 yards gradually came into focus in the moonlight and I realized that they were deer, no fewer than a half dozen of of them. Some were close enough that I could hear them breathing as they looked for something to eat. One considered us seemongly calmly as I gently woke the lovely woman in my arms.
She kissed me and scattered the deer as she sat up and straddled me, letting the blanket fall away. I can still see the moonlight shining on her damp skin and breasts as we made love a second time.
Afterwards, we dressed, gathered our blankets and made our way to the car. We were not troubled by any park rangers nor were we locked inside the park behind any sort of gate.
I don't know if any generation after GenX could have gotten away with that, but when I think about how much I mourn the loss of my youth, this is one of the memories that comes to mind, along with that beautiful lover I spent so many nights with until we drifted apart a few years later.
dragonbait-and-the-P@reddit
That was beautifully written! It felt like I was there.
CawlinAlcarz@reddit
Thank you.
I got a little prosy with it because I wanted to convey how sweet the memory is and how exquisite my lover was.
It's all true and the moments and memories roll through my mind a couple times a month as a treat to all my senses.
rewquiop@reddit
That park is so over run with deer its ridiculous. My grandma lived in Wayne PA... visited there quite a bit in my youth.
CawlinAlcarz@reddit
I lived in Skippack.
Yes, the deer were EVERYWHERE in that park. It was still pretty neat to wake up in the middle of a bunch of them naked in some blankets with a beautiful woman in my arms on a summer night.
PumpikAnt58763@reddit
Taking my Orange Julius into the mall's arcade underneath my fake Member's Only jacket to play Q-bert.
Iko87iko@reddit
Ran away with my bud at 15. Hitchhiked from Buffalo to Southern PA, leaving out of NY on Sunday before memorial day, with a bag of clothes on our back.
Got picked up by a state trooper with a half z down my pants 10 miles east of Ithaca on rt 96. Told him we were coming back from a friends in Rochester. He said "hop in boys, ill take you into town" Dropped us off in Town, we said thanks and watched him drive away. We then broke into a trailer at nightfall and got up at 5 am and hit the road again
We ended up getting to my buddies sister the next night. The law & our parents figured out where we were going before we got there. My option was to go back.home in cop cars or catch a hound because i was 15. For whatever reason, my high school gave me detention for the final 2 weeks or school. Crazy
bdouble76@reddit
On 2 occasions I got a call from a friend asking if I wanted to drive across country. I said when, he said tonight. I had 3 or $400 so why not. I quit my job, we left late that night. Similar to OP, one would drive until it got dangerous, then we would switch. If we were all tired we would simply sleep wherever.
These days I'm still fine not getting a hotel, but will most likely pull in to a truck stop and find a spot a little out of the way in the parkinglot. I def have slept on top of and under picnic benches at rest stops. Truck bed tool boxes. Even a big cement culvert somewhere in Kentucky I belive. It was hot and the breeze going thru it was fucking beautiful. Never had a bad experience.
Legitimate-Basket-47@reddit
Delivering phone books for extra cash
arkham1010@reddit
Riding my bike home from a friend's house. Got tired going up a steep hill, so started walking. Pickup truck came by, guy said "want a ride?" I said sure, threw the bike in the back of the truck and rode the next few miles in the back. Banged on the roof when I got to my road, guy pulled over, I hopped off and biked the last bit home.
jollytoes@reddit
I did gas runs from NYC to Colorado. I'm probably the reason we all have to prepay at the pumps now.
starshinesupernova@reddit
Riding behind a mosquito truck on my BIG Wheels while pretending I was She-Ra
OneeyedPuggernaught@reddit
Oh my goodness, my friend and I used to ride our bikes around town chasing the fogger truck. How moronic but we loved it. My friend always wanted to chase it and called it the Footz Fogger, no idea why. He almost choked himself with a belt playing "Hang'Em High" that we had watched on the weekend late movie on TV so he was not bright, just fun lol
CptBronzeBalls@reddit
I got hit on by Allen Ginsberg at a poetry reading where everyone was passing around bottles of gin. I’m a straight dude.
Maybe not the most Gen X thing. But it certainly hasn’t happened to any Gen Z.
railworx@reddit
Sounds like a boomer thing
Gretzi11a@reddit
It’s not.
Tacosweaty@reddit
My best friend and I planned a trip to Disneyland after graduating high school. We drove down from the bay area and once we got to LA. We decided it was lame, so we made a detour to Baja Mexico. Back then there was no need for a passport, so we were able to cross the border using our drivers license. Ended up in Ensenada and partied our asses off. Good times.
Katiecake80@reddit
Went to the local corner store with a note to buy mom cigaretts
Slitheytove1031@reddit
Came here to say this !
ECU_BSN@reddit
Benson and Hedges menthol delux 100’s. In a box. Lmao
WPI94@reddit
Age 11-12 had a paper route. Saved money and bought my own C64 setup.
Certainly gone for 8 hours all day on the weekends. Woods. Bikes. Mall, etc.
Age 13-14 worked "under the table" at the dept store where my Aunt worked. Did lot care, painted fixtures, and helped do the display renovations. Worker once said, I'll prob be the manager one day, haha nah.
Age 16 spent a summer as an auto repossession helper. Towing cars in the middle of the night and driving them to the impound lot. Tried to convince them to let me implement a computerized database system for the company's operations around 1987.
Slitheytove1031@reddit
When I was in high school, my dad had a tow truck operation. He did repos on the side. I have some damn good memories of him waking me up at 4am asking if I wanted to go on a repo. Some dads took their kids fishing. Mine did that but, we did repos too.
moscowramada@reddit
I've got to ask: since you know the field, what's your review of Repo Man?
AbjectHyena1465@reddit
Seriously - I can’t believe I made it to 54; double the “27’s”… the Jim Morrison’s, etc.. Two young girls that could’ve pulled off a Diamond heist I’m convinced back then. We did CRAZY CRAZY stuff and never got caught. Those were some SUPER wild wild free and cool days!!
atx78701@reddit
Came home in the winter after school, about 8 years old. Snow everywhere, very cold
Was locked out
Tried all the doors, all locked
Sometimes the second floor balcony doors weren't locked. Pushed a picnic table on the deck under the balcony, climbed on the table. Could just reach the balcony, pulled myself up and luckily a door was unlocked
Another time I was locked out in the winter I had to pee but had too many layers so ended up peeing myself
jeneral_disarray@reddit
That shit happened to me allllll the time. Our parents did NOT give a fuck.
apoptyGin69@reddit
Two 18yo girls flew to UK, hitch hiked all over; pints, boys, record stores. The best.
Individual_Scale_925@reddit
I wish I would have done this!
Mysterious-Vehicle72@reddit
In 83 my sis (17yo) & me (14yo) drove from San Jose, Ca to Berkeley to see Styx Mr Roboto tour. Stayed late to meet band at buses, got a broken drumstick as a souvenir. Got back to car WAY after midnight, and found out we were locked out of the car. (No cell phones) Sis left me by car to find a pay phone. She met up with another concert goer who helped us get into the car, then we gave him a ride to the BART station. Then home LATE!! Mom didn’t have a clue what was happening with her children. And we thought we were so safe.
TheFightens@reddit
Way too many to count. Most memorable might be spending most of my free time outside without anyone knowing where I was or what I was doing. And my parents never asked.
Cissyhayes@reddit
Would ride on my bike into town, left the bike outside and would play pinball and video games for two hours and then ride home. 20c a game!
ZitRemedy11@reddit
Oh that’s a good one too. My PeeWee hockey team end of year party was in an arcade. FREE games all night. So awesome. We finished TMNT, Joust and Dragons Lair.
CaptMerrillStubing@reddit
Did something similar. Bike didn't disappear for many sessions.
Then one time I came out and.... gone. Not a pleasent lesson.
GolDanKar911@reddit
Oingo Boingo as the house band at a neighboring school’s prom.
StandingDave@reddit
Very LA. I'm old enough to have friends from Pasadena say the same thing about Van Halen
SpinachInquisition@reddit
That’s crazy
chriscab@reddit
being charged by the minute to use the internet.
Affectionate_Pace823@reddit
Egging houses, ding ding ditch. TPing a house was for wimps /s
MrChristopher23@reddit
We had a much more nefarious trick up our sleeves. Powdered milk. I grew up in Florida. Get a few boxes and pour it all over their yard. When either the sprinklers came on or the inevitable rain, it would turn to milk. The Florida summer sun would curdle it in the ground sand stink for days.
Affectionate_Pace823@reddit
Ooof.
Individual_Scale_925@reddit
Convinced my parents I was meeting a boyfriend I met at a church camp of all Places 12 hours from my home and he would meet me at a hotel parking lot. My parent's friends were driving that way (why i don't know?!) so dropped me at the hotel where I met this boy and we were supposed to go to his house with his family which is what we told my parents. Instead we had lied of course and stayed at the hotel for a night then went to his house BUT his parents were on a vacation and had no idea. We stayed together for pronably three days enjoying summer on his boat until his older sister got home early from the trip. She surprised us but i left out a window and we drove to a bus stop where i got on a Greyhound bus by myself (!!) at age 18 to go back home. It took forever on the bus and i don't really recall the details but i was safe. My parents by the time i had gotten home had received a phone call from the boyfriend's parents and were so mad. But shortly after i left for college and really didn't have any consequences that I remember. My dad was a minister so I guess I was the stereotypical crazy ministers daughter. The details are kinda foggy now but I wonder why my parents even let me go in the first place and it's wild they just took my word for it and never called his parents to confirm. Without phones or life 360 they couldn't follow up and just trusted me. 🤦🏼♀️ I feel pretty bad now thinking about this story, took me a minute to even recall it, and what I put them through. Looking back I definitely had some undiagnosed ADHD and was very impulsive. FWIW I do have a good relationship with my parents now but man I did some crazy stuff and they didn't have many rules for me ever.
mc2bit@reddit
Went to real, actual raves. There was no company producing them, it was a couple of local DJs setting up somewhere random (sometimes illegal) with a couple of strings of Christmas lights and insane amounts of psychedelic drugs. You'd find out where the next one would be if you got handed a flyer. No phones, no cameras, no corporate involvement, no safety at all.
StandingDave@reddit
I tell stories like \^ \^ \^ to the yougins when I'm explaining to them why I think the EDM festivals they go to suck. Late 80s, early 90s LA warehouse parties were insane.
stuck_behind_a_truck@reddit
Honest to God, a white Dodge van, yes THAT van, screeched to a stop at a corner, and a man jumped out and came toward me and my two friends as we were walking to school (Van Nuys, CA). We screamed and ran the other direction and he ran back to the van and it took off.
I still don’t remember if we told any adults. I don’t think so. We continued on our way to school.
Lthrr9@reddit
Happened to me too. Same thing but a car The one and only time I walked to school.
JiffyPopTart247@reddit
Dressing up in camouflage pants to go watch Red Dawn and then coming out of the theater pumped up and ready to defend America from the Rooskies with our flea market Chinese stars and Rambo survival knives with a little fishing hooks in the handle.
Creating a variation of tag using frisbees and calling it Tron.
Swapping copied floppy disks fill of C64 games that you had to learn without instructions or an internet to help you.
Everyone bringing our their GI Joe toys and making this huge pile of vehicles and characters that were drafted and played with for hours.
Seeing that movie you really wanted at the video rental place was ina tock but it only had the Beta version and you were disappointed.
Riding bikes to the convenience store with a couple dollars to buy candy before going into the woods to "explore".
Spending hours staring at the screenshots in the back of the videogame boxes to try to figure out what the "best" game to buy was.
OpulentMountains@reddit
Did you have my life? Love all of these.
JiffyPopTart247@reddit
Twinsies!
ZitRemedy11@reddit
10 years old. My friend and I lip synched Money For Nothin’ to our Grade 5 class
Lthrr9@reddit
I grew up with wealthy friends. Many of them had beach houses or condos. We’d go to spring break unsupervised starting at 12 or 13 years old through high school. We’d be gone for the week with no way our parents could reach us. We’d just check in here and there. We had the best time but it’s a miracle we all lived.
notmemeorme@reddit
Parting in the pitts, in the woods, riding my bike some days 20 miles just to visit friends, now I know why I was so skinny. Oh wearing bandana as a belt lol
No_Antelope5022@reddit
Dudes break dancing on flattened cardboard boxes, with a massive boom box blaring.
SuspiciousHeron7945@reddit
Those boom boxes took so many giant batteries
Glum_Season7904@reddit
My feathered haircut, having to remember phone numbers, rotary phones, Pong, stretch Armstrong. Jesus, I could go on for an hour without even really thinking about it.
Jbchristy450@reddit
16 years old living in Pennsylvsnia about half way between Lake Erie and Pittsburgh. Cleveland was less than an hour away. On weekends my dad would let me borrow his car. I had back by 4am Monday morning for him to go to work.
We would skip school after lunch on Friday and hit the road. Back then we didn't need a passport to get into Canada. My friends and I might go to party in Pitt on Friday, wake up and drive to Toronto, then come back to USA on Sunday and head to Cleveland & be back in time for dad to go to work. My dad had no idea how I put thousands of miles on the car every weekend. As long as I returned it with a full tank of gas and changed the oil no questions are asked. My friends parents didn't seem to know or car either.
SuspiciousHeron7945@reddit
My boyfriend and I hitchhiked from Seattle to Los Angeles and back, when we were 17 years old.
Disassociated_Assoc@reddit
Proud to be the generation who owned the Big Hair Days of the ‘80’s. Courtesy of Aqua Net.
Oh, and leg warmers too.
Critical_Seat_1907@reddit
Watching Mike Tyson get knocked out was like watching Superman get beat. Young me thought Iron Mike was literally invincible.
BackyardMangoes@reddit
Hanging out overnight in a drugstore parking lot for Cure concert tickets. Hanging with friends for that ticket counter to open. Skateboards and other parking lot shenanigans m.
Stunning-Ad3888@reddit
My children are absolutely horrified that I camped out overnight outside a box office for concert tickets.
j1knra@reddit
Attempting a road trip to Mexico from New Jersey in less than a week as a brand new driver with a couple hundred bucks bc my mom was out of town. It looked totally doable on the atlas. Made it to South Carolina
Cannoli_724@reddit
14 years old, got a job at a catering hall. By week 2 I was cocktail waitressing. By month 2 I was bartending.
biffbobfred@reddit
Not a youth thing but the gap in between the gulf war and 9/11. I think there was an optimism a “holy shit we got this” feeling I didn’t feel before (Carter Stagflation, Reagan gonna nuke the world) or since (9/11, Great Recession). Not youth, but young and felt the world was gonna be great
Emrhm@reddit
This.
glennotromic@reddit
Andy Warhol and Nina Blackwood judging a Madonna look alike contest in a mall. As Hen X as it gets to me.
Jethro_Pyle@reddit
Worked at a movie theater outside of Doylestown PA and met Abby Hoffman when he came to see Platoon
DMFD_x_Gamer@reddit
Following the paper trail to underground raves 🤘
Smart-Original8629@reddit
Lived on the 8th floor. Had a balcony shared with the neighbor with the metal divider going through from the building wall to the 2 inch railing. My friend (who lived next door) was locked out because he lost his key that day. He climbed up on the railing and walked around the divider to get onto his balcony to get into his apartment. He did not fall 8 stories. We were 9 years old.
magikjaz@reddit
I participated in Hands Across America.
enginerdsean@reddit
Having been 18 my senior year in high school in one of the last states to have 3.2 beer laws, I can tell you I should be dead……3.2 clubs, kegger house parties and woosdsies and dorm bashes, and bars on campus…..yeah, that I think is about as GenX for the early part of our generation.
Certain_Luck_8266@reddit
Challenger blowing up on the TV carts put there for us to watch the first teacher in space
Tricky-Ad8744@reddit
7th grade art class…
drtyhppi@reddit
Went swimming in the rock quarries when I lived in Bloomington, IN for a short while. Neighborhood kid had a van, scooped a few of us up and we went swimming in this old rock quarry. We had to park off the side of the road, then hike down. We were there all day while our parents were all at work. When we came back to the van it was gone. It had been towed. I have no idea how we figured that out, but I had $200 in my savings account and we somehow got a ride from another friend so I could get the money and help my friend get his van out of impound. All before our parents got home that evening. My Dad still has no idea that happened. I was only there for six months. I didn't know these kids very well. Sometimes I wonder if they remember this story. Also, that dude still owes me $20 from the $200 I let him borrow lol
Prestigious_Grape288@reddit
Omg great story! (Took me straight to a favorite movie - breaking away.)
I love a good Ferris bueller type situation where the parents are none the wiser ;) I bet those guys remember!!
drtyhppi@reddit
Breaking Away was filmed in Bloomington! Such a great movie.
So much could've gone wrong that day and didn't. And what went wrong just allowed us to put our heads together and figure it out before we got in trouble. Story of our youth in here 🤣
dylangaine@reddit
Space shuttle Challenger
Watching Michael Jackson moonwalk for first time
The Wendy's commercial, the Life cereal commercial
crackersncheeseman@reddit
Watching Michael Jackson do the moonwalk for the first time on national television.
Glad_Bunch_3473@reddit
NBC “Breaking News” interrupted a brand new episode of Taxi my family was watching together the night John Lennon was murdered. I was a tween.
mistertireworld@reddit
Howard Cosell announced it on ABC during Mkndah Night Football.
justjenniwestside@reddit
Two separate attempted kidnappings.
Sunlight72@reddit
Whoa, need more details! Did you get either of them?
Legitimate-Basket-47@reddit
Took a minute but this was funny
Ok_Albatross_3887@reddit
When I was 13, my parents left me alone at our new house in a different state for 4 months with a full fridge and a chequebook, so that I could make friends before summer when we’d planned to move there. They were teachers, and they had to finish their school year in our old town. I had to check in 3 times a week with a neighbour, had a weekly phone call with my folks, and they would come once a month to load up the refrigerator, but other than that, I was living alone. I had to show them I was attending school, in a sports programme, and doing homework and all that. The move was at my suggestion, and i must have presented a good case, I didn’t realise how weird it was until I thought back on it in my 30s. I guess they thought I was responsible and reliable, and I was —but holy moly, I was only 13!
railworx@reddit
Youre in a different state but writing "check" in Canadian spelling?
Ok_Albatross_3887@reddit
I grew up mostly in the US, but we moved back to Australia after high school.
PinkyLeopard2922@reddit
I got that treatment the summer between junior and senior year at high school except it was only 6 weeks and no check ins. Every stereotypical bad thing that teenagers could do was done at that house all summer. I still cannot believe my parents allowed that.
gatorgopher@reddit
That is some shockingly next level latch key kid stuff!
CawlinAlcarz@reddit
Parents went away in Sept, 1987 for a week leaving 17 year old me home alone with my 15, almost 16 year old sister. I had concert tickets for U2 Joshua Tree and Pink Floyd Delicate Sound of Thunder shows that week. Tickets were under $30 for each show.
These were both at JFK stadium in Philadelphia, with "seating" on the field, AKA free-for-all.
Saw both shows, made it to school every day on time, made all my soccer practices, and even my job at the restaurant (for the shifts I had not arranged to take off for the concerts).
Cmgalb14@reddit
I saw the Momentary Lapse of Reason show in Indianapolis. We didn’t have tickets, but bought them from a guy who was desperate to get rid of them. The concert had already started so we missed Shine on You Crazy Diamond, but it was an awesome show!
Ok_Peanut_6919@reddit
I forgot how cheap tickets were!
CawlinAlcarz@reddit
So my sister told me that she went to a concert that wasn't sold out, and bought tickets at the gate for around $50 (reasonable inflation for 2025).
They did not have the extra $100 to $200 of fees from the legal scalper services.
mrhenrywinter@reddit
Hey I was at that both those shows! I feel like Bruce Springsteen came out for an encore with U2, and it rained for Pink Floyd. I was almost 17.
CawlinAlcarz@reddit
For sure on Springsteen. Bono had hurt his shoulder falling off stage or something and was in a sling and could not play his guitar. "Who will play my guitar?" Springsteen answered.
I am not sure about the rain for Pink Floyd, but I'd give even odds on it, given my memory of those details is fairly weak.
EmotionalVegetable48@reddit
Stayed at my cousins house. The closest gas station with a an arcade was across I-94 near Chicago.
We ride our bikes to the expressway (through a field) and we crossed 94, played games, bought candy, and came home.
7th or 8th grade
dilithium@reddit
getting those map flip books from AAA for a special route. very fancy, very 1989
Legitimate-Basket-47@reddit
With the thick yellow highlight to show you the way! Triptiks! Do they still make them??
Due_Asparagus_3203@reddit
Don't forget to get travelers checks!
Trolldad_IRL@reddit
Riding my bike everywhere. Day or night.
dixiequick@reddit
Hooky bobbin’. During winter when the snow was packed on the streets, we would grab the rear bumpers of cars passing by and slide our way home that way. And no one ever cared (to be fair, it was a small town).
Cmgalb14@reddit
Never heard it called that. Where I lived we called it poggying. Same idea, grabbing the bumper of a car at a stop sign and riding until you fell off.
cheesusismygod@reddit
Partying in the woods with Zima and Beck.
Absynth421@reddit
At 14 I took a bus over 200 miles by myself to a Pink Floyd concert. Traded some weed for acid on the bus and my friends older sister who somehow happened to be on the same bus going to the same concert gave me a Valium and some more weed.
A couple months later I was walking down the road tripping on acid and a VW microbus pulled up and three French hippies asked me if I wanted to go drop acid amd smoke hash in the dunes and we wandered the beach for 3 days tripping our asses off.
Cowboy_Buddha@reddit
Launching a toy pickup down the middle of the street with model rocket engines in a small town.
Toy pickup was given to me by my babysitter when I was four, as a teenager I still had it. Old school Tonka metal truck.
Model rocket engines were leftover from when I did model rocketry. Taped them in the back of the pickup and set them off. Whoooshh! It launched down the street and a few seconds later started spinning.
My cousins and I got the biggest laugh out of it.
Nearby_Belt9997@reddit
Riding my bike with my friend to the supermarket to look through Bop magazine and tear out pages of cute boys
LazyTree1884@reddit
Fourth grade, stayed with best friend's family for the weekend at Wildwood, NJ. The two of us went to the boardwalk by ourselves for the evening. We rode rides, ate candy, and had a great time. Walked back to the house at 9 or 10pm. Her parents were playing cards at the neighbors. This was 1974, two 10/11 year old girls were unattended. It scares me to think about now.
irishgypsy1960@reddit
This reminds me (I’m gen jones, so a little older) of putting up an ad on the local bulletin board on cape cod, at 11 and 12, and going to babysit for vacationers INFANT. We all took the little babysitting course for free at the library and got our certificates. It was completely normal and everyone did it, hired preteen babysitters.
Legitimate-Basket-47@reddit
Yesss I too babysat actual babies at 11/12 years old. Mostly toddlers though. I retired from babysitting at maybe 14 yo
scarlettskadi@reddit
Yep- didn’t even need a certificate where I was- it was assumed if you were an older kid you could handle it. By older it was 8 and up
Tasty_Context5263@reddit
Parachute pants.
RemotePossibility399@reddit
Riding my hi-rise bike 3 miles to the ball field wearing my uniform and with my glove threaded over the handle bars.
By myself.
For T-ball games.
Salty-Pack-4165@reddit
Marshall Law on Dec 13 1981 in Poland. I was 9 and I still recall quite a bit of what was happening around me even if I didn't understand.
BabadookOfEarl@reddit
Well that’s an unexpectedly different memory. Sounds intense.
Accomplished_Okra645@reddit
I rode the city bus starting in first grade and continued through high school. I got kicked off the bus for being a rowdy kid multiple times through those years. The first time was in second grade. I got told to leave the bus as a six year old in the industrial district of our city. Seven in the morning and a couple miles from school I wandered through the streets doing my best to follow the bus route to my stop. No, it didn’t occur to my child brain to wait for the next one, or that there was even a next one. Simply went into survival mode. And of course being a latchkey kid I made it to school on time.
1982, what are ya gonna do?
jessewalker2@reddit
My mother would send me (10) across Chicago with just my brother (12) in the 1980s with $10 to split (bus fares were $1.50 if I recall correctly) when the murder rate was multiple times what it is now.
Astrochef12@reddit
Same here, blue line from Milwaukee to Jefferson Park then walk to Stanton Hobby, hang out for hours then get back for dinner.
Embarrassed_Catch741@reddit
Whole heartily understand!!
Powerful-Union-7962@reddit
Diving off the stage next to Kurt Cobain and landing on my back when the crowd parted.
I was winded for 5 minutes, great times.
SBG214@reddit
Making frozen strawberry daiquiris for my mom and her friends when I was 11.
jasper_bittergrab@reddit
Cut school for the very first time to see the matinee of Return of the Jedi on opening day with a buddy. We had to take a bus for like 45 minutes to the theater. Chewbacca was there. I hugged him. I was disappointed he wasn’t warm.
Gwarnage@reddit
Me and my friends would ride our bikes around town wearing mixed camo and carrying ultra realistic looking BB guns. I think our only limit was we knew it probably wasn't cool to bring them in stores.
muhmomsbzmnt@reddit
Sitting in the mall food court hanging out with friends SMOKING CIGARETTES. Smoking indoors was awesome.
msbrchckn@reddit
The designated smoking area at your HS. For students.
Wild_Read9062@reddit
(Picks up phone)
Operator: Hi, you have a collect call fr…
(Me and buddies, cutting off the operator with a quick loud burst): Hey, we’re at the mall. Pick us up in front of the food court!
Other party: uh, no. I do not want to accept the call.
Operator (clearly aware of the end run around the system): OK, thanks.
Inattendue@reddit
A pencil and a cassette tape. IYKYK. Gen Jones had 8-track and Millennials had CDs.
Losaj@reddit
Hitchike down PCH from Seattle to LA.
Puckhead1973@reddit
July of 1989 we piled all of our friends (11 kids in all, 4 in front, 5 in back, 2 in the trunk, and drove from West St. Louis County to Downtown STL, so we could watch Tony Hawk at the skateboard competition that was part of the VP Fair (now Fair St. Louis) which is held over 4th of July every year.
KatieMay0101@reddit
At 15 I (f) decided it was a great idea to go with 2 guy, 2 hrs away by bus to a Billy Joel concert in Syracuse NY in January. By the time we got out of the concert it had snowed so hard they closed the bus station. The guys were afraid to call their parents so I called Daddy. This amazing man drove through a snow storm, picked us up, told us we were idiots (while laughing), brought us back to my house, fed us at 4 am and had the guys stay in our game room until morning when he dropped them back home. 35 years later and im still friends with both guys. Damn I miss my Dad!
melty75@reddit
Hitchhiking home from Woodstock '94 probably qualifies.
Grand_Home_4839@reddit
Going to the drive-in movie with a pony keg for 8 people.
Gwarnage@reddit
I graduated right before columbine, and I remember being able to come and as we wished from high school. Still not probably "allowed", but no doors were locked and nobody really kept watch.
jessewalker2@reddit
I remember vividly going to school and seeing friends vehicles that had hunting rifles in the back window because they had gone hunting that morning before school.
Gwarnage@reddit
You know you're a rural school when 1/3 senior class is out for the first day of dear season.
Separate_Primary_686@reddit
Buying cigarettes with a a note from our parents. Can you imagine the little kids today doing that? Lol
Hippie-chick-4ever@reddit
Riding bicycles to the drugstore to buy Bubble Yum and play Donkey Kong and Centipede at the drug store.
Plague_doctor11@reddit
My parents put me on a plane alone when I was 4. Gave me a book and a Coke, the flight attendants looked after me, and my grandma was waiting at the other side.
Cruellas@reddit
Reagan’s inauguration
Electrical-Stable498@reddit
Riding in the bed of the truck ..to the skating rink.
Quaranj@reddit
Buying a $300 muscle car with a for sale sign and a phone number left at a grocery store parking lot for visibility and being able to afford to drive it cross-country multiple times because a tank of gas was $25 to fill.
Embarrassed_Catch741@reddit
$200 Renault at 14 was mine, never a question asked
Sweaty-Bus8079@reddit
Using scrap wood to make bike ramps and having BB gun wars in the orchards.
dilithium@reddit
hell yeah bb gun wars.
thinking about the bike ramps makes me feel that pedal on my shin
Olive_Streamer@reddit
The warez song, my youth minus the incarceration.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Music/s/mIA51580e0
evilpercy@reddit
Seeing Prince at the Joe Lewis arena in 1988.
ambushbug74@reddit
Y mom stood outside Hudson's at Fairlane a few hours to get my big sister tickets. It's not my story, but that's pretty Gen X to me.
evilpercy@reddit
I was in high school and went with a friend's older brothers girlfriend. So me and 3 girls in university. We are Canadian and used the tunnel bus to get to downtown Detroit (fun fact: we have to travel north from Canada to the USA) need less to say US Customs gave me a hard time. I think they thought I was a pimp. (Other fun fact: I'm a Canadian custom officer at the same crissing)
Acceptable_Reality10@reddit
Grandpa gave my brother and I a quarter to go buy him smokes out of the machine at the restaurant we were eating at. Always went out to eat breakfast when my grandparents would come down to see us and we always would ask grandpa to buy him cigarettes because we loved the machine haha. My parents did not smoke.
AardvarkFantastic360@reddit
I walked to school. When I got older I left my car windows rolled down all summer. Went barefoot most the time.
martafoz@reddit
Hanging out at the mall, especially before I was old enough to drive.
ColoradoGray@reddit
Walking by myself to school... through the woods... in the 1st grade.
Leecypoo@reddit
Sent to buy beer at 5 years old.
MindFluffy5906@reddit
And cigarettes!
ML______@reddit
Buying cigarette singles.
Electrical-Stable498@reddit
Back in the day my dad would buy lucky strikes at 5 cents a single. Then years later in the 90’s and 2000th I could go to a small market and buy a single cig for 75 cents to a dollar. I don’t know if they still do that anymore though.
whatsupgrizzlyadams@reddit
Loosies
vodeodeo55@reddit
My mom sent me to buy coffee once and I came home with Postum. She never sent me shopping again.
dilithium@reddit
I remember carrying gas in a paper cup to my VW van after we camped the side of the highway for a night.
waiting for that song to come on the radio so I could record it.
wormee@reddit
My friends talking about getting home to watch these reruns of a show called Star Trek. I was jealous because our tv didn’t get the 3rd channel it was airing on.
Mojos_Pride@reddit
Venemans Music annual May Madness Sale. Slept overnight on the sidewalk to be among the first broke ass musicians to grab discounted guitars and amps. Drank Bacardi 151 all night and woke up dizzy. Still have a beautiful Beyerdynamic “made in West Germany” ribbon vocal mic I stumbled upon that morning. Parents had no real idea where I was.
HanseaticSteez@reddit
When I was in 2nd grade I got in a huge fight with someone and their cousin. I came home with torn up clothes and looking a mess and then my dad beat me for fighting so bad I couldn’t go to school the next day. I used to think this was funny until I had kids and realized how I’d never do that to them.
blondeinabubble@reddit
my gosh i’m sorry to read this. what a gift that your kids didn’t have this cycle repeated though.
SufficientOpening218@reddit
my brother and I age 15 and 17, drove cross country on the I80, alone. on the way, he taught me to drive. we ran out of money, we only had cash money, no credit cards, so we had to sleep in the car at truck stops.
it was cool, though, we called in and left a message on my moms answering machine every night, telling her what city we were in, or near.
AppropriateDark5189@reddit
Car surfing on a 76 Camaro at 45 mph on backroads with Pink Floyd blaring. Four people in the car, 2 on the roof.
Even had a friend's mom let us do some car surfing through the neighborhood and she was deputy major.
Ok_Peanut_6919@reddit
Are you in Michigan? Were we friends?
AppropriateDark5189@reddit
lol. Maybe it was better that we weren’t. Probably be dead now. 🤣
JSA607@reddit
Taking two busses two hours to get to this exciting new thing, a mall a couple of towns over. In 7th grade. No adults anywhere, gone for hours. Cutting school and going to the city, running out of money to get home and combing the street till we found enough change to get our tickets.
RikkiLostMyNumber@reddit
When I was about 17, a friend and I decided to sail my 22' sailboat from the coast of RI to a small island offshore called Block Island. I called my mom from a payphone at the liquor store next to the marina and left a message with my uncle telling my mom to call the Coast Guard if she hadn't heard from me by midnight. No GPS, no cell phone of course. The boat had a VHF radio if we got in a jam, though.
We got in a jam. Due to a minor structural failing, we started taking on water while still about three miles out from the island. It was manageable while under sail using the electric bilge pump, but when the breeze died we fired up the outboard, which changed the angle of the hull to the water and then we really started sinking. So, had to cut the outboard, no wind, drifting, and getting dark.
We finally call the USCG on VHF and issue a Mayday. We had to guess our location as the sun had set at this point. It took the Coast Guard almost two hours to get to us. They took us aboard and towed my boat in, where we went ashore and promptly got drunk (drinking age 21). When I was fishing in my pocket for a quarter to call my mom before midnight, I realized my wallet was on the boat. No money even to pay my bar tab. Had to borrow from my friend and got my mom on the phone just in time.
I wonder whether young people these days do this sort of thing? Or, if their parents would let them?
420EdibleQueen@reddit
Riding in the back of a pickup going down country roads, sliding off the wheel wells on curves, which we got yelled at for, and getting sent a bit airborne on bumps.
Acceptable_Stop2361@reddit
Back of the uncle's truck, he'd watch the rearview and catch one of us not hanging on and not paying attention, he'd then has it and watch as we hit the tailgate.
mossbergcrabgrass@reddit
Yeah my friends group, we would go on roadtrips where it was like 4 of us in a single cab Nissan and 2 people would have to ride in the back the entire time. I rode like 6 hours to Tennessee in the back one time down I-40 lol.
tricialgk@reddit
Back of the pickup truck was the best!
Kilashandra1996@reddit
Dad would speed up to hit the "best" railroad crossing to see how high we could fly!
Beenthere-doneit55@reddit
Going to the Austin Aquafest and having the concert stopped when the lyrics “when I think about you I touch myself” were sung. That was funny.
otchris@reddit
Staying out until 3 am with friends during the summer. We were 9-10 and we’d play hide and seek all night. (It was cooler at night!)
Used-Insect4287@reddit
lolapalooza 1.
Fabriciorodrix@reddit
I went to lalapozoza 1 in Tempe. I was 15. This girl from my New Mexico hometown (just move to this small Arizona town of year before) randomly showed up at my house and asked if I wanted to go. My parents let me go with her. We stayed in Tempe for a week. On the way back through, I informed my parents that I was going to go and stay with her for the summer. Her dad was out of town on the academic trip. So basically I shacked up with a girl that my parents have never met before. It was an insane summer. When I ran out of money, and had nowhere to stay, my parents drove from Arizona to save me a New Mexico once again. We acted like nothing had happened.
Barthle@reddit
Wish I could have seen that one, but I saw 2, 3, and 5. So many great bands
Pieaiaiaiai@reddit
Wearing matching Ghostbusters t-shirts with our costume of the same age, exploring and riding our bikes with huge handlebars all over the neighbourhood and coming home when it got dark.
ragtopangel@reddit
My friends and I at 14 stood outside a liquor store and paid a dude with a playboy air freshener in his car to buy us beer. That's not the bad part. We then got in his car and he drove us back to the party. Yeah, no survival skills at that age. Today's kids are smarter.
AppropriateDark5189@reddit
16 yrs old, went through the liquor store drive thru. The guy driving was a senior in high school. Liquor store owner said it was a big enough order that we would need to help him carry it out to the car. The guy driving had his high school jacket on. Liquor store owner told him to take it off before he got out of the car.
Not sure if it's the same in all areas, but high school jackets had the year you were going to graduate on them :)
Electrical-Stable498@reddit
In Texas there are drive thru liquor barns.
Due-Berry7412@reddit
The dishwasher at the Chinese food place, who just got out of prison, was who would buy us liquor at 13/14. Who knows what he was in prison for 😂😂
BobbyRockPort@reddit
Ahhh, shoulder tapping. We did a lot of that.
viking12344@reddit
There were 2 and it was some of my earliest memories. First one was me stealing my dad's salems and puffing on them. I always had a favination with tobacco. So....he made me light one and smoke it. Yeah,I puked. I must have been 5.
I still smoke btw.
Number 2 was the same situation with schlitz beer. Made me drink a full one. I didn't puke but I'm not a big drinker at 56. In fact I can't remember the last drink I had. Could be decades
Acceptable_Stop2361@reddit
I also used to crib my Dad's Salems. Memories.
Callahan333@reddit
Look up the history of Schlitz if you like odd history. They were the biggest beer maker at one point. Then none beer makers took over.
Kind_Worry_9836@reddit
I and four friends went down the shore on a whim. We drove around looking for a place to stay overnight but everywhere said no vacancy. So we just parked in front of some random house and slept in the minivan.
Disassociated_Assoc@reddit
Star Wars at the theatre 1977. Groundbreaking cinematography and special effects that rocked the world.
mad2274@reddit
Throwing jarts in the air, then dodging them. We were stupid.
bu11fr0g@reddit
jarts vs bocce ball wars! always pick bocce ball cause they were much more reliable and hurt bad.
Active_Unit_9498@reddit
Sipping dad's beer on a Saturday afternoon and then getting on the Big Wheel for some kindergarten DUI shit.
tkingsbu@reddit
Living in Toronto in my college days in the early 90s… going to see live bands play at bars around the city…
Something about that particular time… being young, going out with friends, it was just magical…
SignificantTransient@reddit
When I was 10 and my uncle was 12, we took the snowmobiles (ski-doo 5500 and 7500) up the roads 6 miles to the local hunting lodge where they gave us free hot cocoa.
We were gone 4 hours
This was perfectly normal
Playful_Ad9949@reddit
Hitchhiking all over!
gingerjaybird3@reddit
Lollapalooza 92
OpulentMountains@reddit
My first one. Starlake Amphitheater.
ksewell68@reddit
Same
SamHandwich0@reddit
Welding shop 90 or 91- welding with a cigarette hanging out of your mouth because it was ok to smoke on school grounds if you were over 18....but none of us were, and the teacher never came into the shop.
We also stashed liquor bottles in the scrap metal heap outside the ahop, so some days we did shots.
rottyhorrorshow@reddit
I spent the summer of '92 on Cape Cod. I was 24. After my grandparents passed away, my Mom was able to buy a condominium at Ocean Edge in Brewster. I took a job at Thompson's Clam Bar and lived the beach life for that summer. My best friend's college roommate's parents had a condo there too, so we became good friends. He worked for Ocean Edge as a golf maintenance worker and we were able to play 9 holes for $10.00 a round all summer. One night, we were drinking Murphy's Irish Stout at Land Ho in Orleans and decided to go to the Woodshed in Brewster for last call, since it was close to our condos. We then decided to go to the beach late at night. We got to one of the beach landings and saw that was a party going on in one of the houses right on the water. So being somewhat drunk and bold we walked up and knocked on the door. We told them that we were looking for a party and we thought this was the one and then when we heard they were playing Nirvana on the stereo we said "Oh wow! we love Nirvana." So we parted with these random people on the beach in Brewster in 1992. We listen to Nirvana, Soundgarden, The Pixies, Smashing Pumpkins, 10,000 Maniacs and The Indigo Girls all night long. What an epic memory and so very GenX. 💯
dickhertzfromholdn@reddit
I can never forget the Thompson's Clam Bar song.
OpulentMountains@reddit
Awesome. Thanks for sharing.
ASOM01@reddit
Our reward for good behaviour in grade 6 was being allowed to go to the shop to buy our teacher cigarettes. Peter Stuyvesant Blues.
la_winky@reddit
When I was 11, people paid me to watch their children. One family entrusted me with four of the little monsters.
The kids (not while I was there, just part of “family life”) had punched holes in the dry wall, crayoned the walls, and dad would drive me home, only a few blocks, while absolutely plastered.
longipetiolata@reddit
Packs of kids roaming from house to house to see who was available to play. Going home when the streetlights turned on
OlGusnCuss@reddit
Yep! I you could ID the pack location by the 4-6 bikes in the front yard. "Found 'em!"
spencerjason@reddit
Little League coach driving everyone home after practice. We rode in the back of his pick up truck.
Kind_Worry_9836@reddit
I played lacrosse for a year in highschool. I was of driving age. For a period I couldn't play due to an injury. One day I drove to a game that was being played not too far away in my dad's pickup truck. After the game I drove a bunch of my teammates back to our school. Some of them sat in the bed. No one knew except the coach, who told me it wasn't a good idea and to not do it again.
redstardutch@reddit
In 3rd grade I had a teacher that raised Dobermans and brought one in to class because it had given birth and couldn’t be left alone. She told us all not to touch the dog. She also didn’t even muzzle it.
While she read to us in a group, I crawled over to the dog because I liked dogs. It bit me in the face, less than an inch from my eye. I still have a scar.
I stood up crying and went to the office. The school nurse butterfly bandaged me up and I went back to class.
No lawsuit. No one was fired. Business as usual in 1979.
Acceptable_Stop2361@reddit
Because you were told to leave the dog alone and you did not leave the dog alone. That was a good way to get the end opposite your injured face whooped on back then .
OpulentMountains@reddit
Just shake it off.
Traditional_Match_91@reddit
Carrying a shotgun in my truck at school so I could go dove/quail hunting at lunch break.
wookiedberry@reddit
My chemistry teacher had me go to his truck and bring in his shotgun to clean it. He told me make sure it was unloaded before bringing it into school.
And I walked into school with a shotgun. Past the principal's office and up the stairs.
No one said a word.
This guy also set up a moonshine still in class for a project.
Small town Kentucky
RF-Guye@reddit
"Small town Kentucky", HA yeah no Shit! Lol
OpulentMountains@reddit
Small town WV here. I’m not the least bit surprised.
mrhenrywinter@reddit
When I was 15 in 1985 I had a boyfriend who lived about 35 minutes from me. I had never driven before, but I slowly lifted the garage door after midnight, put my mom's 1983 Chevette in neutral, and pushed/rocked it out of the driveway. Then I couldn't start it, because I left it in neutral, but I didn't know that was why it wouldn't start.
A cop rolled up and asked if I was ok, I said "Oh yeah, it won't start; I'm going inside to get my mom." Cop drove off.
I went inside to get my mom, because the car was in the middle of the street and wouldn't start. She blearily parked it back in the garage, we had a few words, and went to bed.
I did it successfully the next night because she told me I was a dumbass for not putting it in park to start it.
She's 79 and I'm 55 and we've never spoken of this.
ReggaeDawn@reddit
Calling myself out of high school sick (pretending to be my Mom) and then driving to Detroit to watch a Tigers day game with friends. $5 bleacher seats, $1beers and $1hot dogs.
Independent-Dark-955@reddit
My sister and I sitting in the space behind the seats in my uncle’s Triumph Spitfire, our chins resting on our knees, as he drove us and his girlfriend to the beach, rag top down, while he drank a silver bullet.
RF-Guye@reddit
Corvette, but yes same, same.
Uncles Fucking Rule...
dietdewqueen006@reddit
Climbing tv towers to move the rotor.
One_Statement5435@reddit
Back oval school fight,teacher watched for at least a minute. I’m sure he didn’t like the kid getting belted. No one blinked an eyelid.
automator3000@reddit
The friend who got bored at our place and wandered over to the train yards, hopped a train, then called us the next day from two states away saying “hey, can you pick me up?”
tboyn239@reddit
Me and my friends were wicked into Ninjas. We used to bring swords, nunchucks, throwing stars, and knives to school and kept them in our lockers. We never thought about it and no one said anything.
rrhogger@reddit
Totally remember ordering throwing stars out of the back of a magazine.
RF-Guye@reddit
They've got some bitchin ones at the Fair if you ask around...You didn't hear this from me.
MilesAugust74@reddit
It's funny, everyone at school had some kind of weapon on them at all times (I preferred butterfly knives), but the difference is we never used them on anyone or anything. We just liked to dick around with them and act tough.
tboyn239@reddit
I forgot about butterfly knives. We had those too. God help your knuckles if you closed it wrong.
MilesAugust74@reddit
Facts! They were hella fun. The original fidget toy. It's a miracle I didn't cut a finger off.
put_simply@reddit
Running wild through the summers ages 10-13. I had the best friends at that point in life and we grew up in an amazing area full of outdoors stuff to do. We skated and rode bikes everywhere we went. We would fish (poles and hand fishing) and spend entire days at a time on adventures down creeks and through the woods. Somewhere towards the end we all started paying attention to girls and everything got weird after that but thats a different story.
No real responsibilities, summer fun in a world where everyone let things roll off their backs a little more than they do these days.
ST0IC_@reddit
Leaving home at 18 and hitchhiking across the US and Canada.
AlwaysatTechDee@reddit
I grew up in Jersey and got Bon Jovi tickets for their show at Giants Stadium. They were General Admission. I told my friends I would be picking them up at 5am. They were pissed but they were in my car at 5:05am. They opened the gates at noon and we ran across the football field and got to front row.
picturesofponies@reddit
You win!
Vegaprime@reddit
Went to the great full dead, spent tick money on "other" things. Had a life awakening event and became a good teen dad whose now somehow my boss.
Gisselle441@reddit
Being turned loose in NYC on a school trip.
"Be back at the hotel by 8:00" were the only instructions we were given.
Impressive_Crazy_223@reddit
New Orleans, but same.
tg1024@reddit
Yep, New Orleans during a band trip. Also Jacksonville one year.
Bayou13@reddit
Now that I consider it, that was kind of…reckless of the school? We were 14 when our class was let loose in NYC
Gisselle441@reddit
And this was before cell phones, too.
If I remember correctly the group I ended up hanging with had 1 freshman, 2 or 3 sophomores, about 4 juniors, and then me and one other senior. Me and the other girl were both 18 so I guess we were supposed to be the "adults in the group, who knows.
moneyman74@reddit
Getting in trouble for 900 numbers showing up on the phone bill even though you listened for 5 seconds and hung up.
Ok_Peanut_6919@reddit
At age 13-14 (so around ‘83-‘84) me and 4 friends pooled our money together and bought a mid ‘70’s Chevy Vega wagon for $35 in Flint, Michigan. We drove it to our town, about 50 miles away. We hid the car in some sand pits and drove it around for a summer. At the end of summer, we flipped it over and shot the gas tank with different caliber guns to see if we could make it blow up! It didn’t blow up so someone…not me…torched it! Some Gen X dumb shit. Thanks parents for not paying attention!
RF-Guye@reddit
Oddly Dynamite is quite difficult to set off, in fact I've never been successful. Not through any lack of efforts, I was well motivated lol.
I have never been in simultaneous possession of both Blasting caps and a Stick...probably saved my life. Blasting caps and 9 volt batteries to set them off will throw a railroad tie in the air.
GiordanoBruno23@reddit
Going to Yugoslavia
Kind_Worry_9836@reddit
My sister and I went to a private school for a while. Our township bussed us and the kids around us to the school in the other township. We were pucked up first and dropped off last, so the bus driver knew us. One day he drove the bus to the depot with us still inside. Then he drove us home in his personal vehicle. It was a Lincoln Continental. It was like riding on a cloud.
JRemenshneidersHorse@reddit
Visiting San Diego, going across the border into TJ and buying a bull whip. Walking back into the USA whip-cracking said bullwhip like I was Indiana Jones. My mom behind me carrying a velvet Elvis. And next to her my sister who had bought a switchblade for her boyfriend. I think we carried everything onto the plane going home.
SarahJaneB17@reddit
Sneaking out of my window to go back to parties. My parent's room was on the opposite side of mine, but it was not a big house. I'd flush the toilet and run water like I was brushing my teeth. The noise also covered me cranking open the window and taking out the screen. Then out the side gate which I left open. Never got caught.
hawksmarinerz@reddit
I used to sneak out and ride my bike to my boyfriend’s house across town when I was 15. Also never got caught
mrsroperscaftan@reddit
We were 16 and drove to FL for a week, $80 bucks a night and about $100 to spend. I think gas was .76 a gallon but not sure. Somebody will have to confirm it for me.
Livid-Ad-6439@reddit
Me, my friends, my girlfriend, now my ex wife, driving down to Tijuana, Rosarita, San Felipe when it was one bar, mud huts, camping on the beaches, bottle rocket wars with the local kids, drinking flaming coffees on the beach...... Great memories :)
OpulentMountains@reddit
All of these are so great. I will be reading every one for as long as it takes.
Take me back.
red_button_pusher@reddit
Playing war. Also, B-B gun fights, roman candle battles, and smear the qu€€r
spencerjason@reddit
Sling shot fights. We used acorns as ammunition so not complete savages.
SpellCaster_7781@reddit
One time me and three friends went to see a dead body. We nearly got hit by a train, eaten by leaches, and shot by an older kid who looked like a lost boy.
I don’t think you could do that today.
reverievt@reddit
But I bet you’ve never had friends like that again.
mrhenrywinter@reddit
jesus, does anyone?
Aggravating_Cable_32@reddit
In elementary school I brought my grandpa's Japanese sword and a battle-damaged Arisaka rifle he picked up on Saipan during WW2 for show & tell; it was missing the bolt and had bullet holes through the stock so in no way was it functional. Back then a lot of kids used to bring grandpa's old Army or Marines stuff and war trophies like flags, belt buckles & helmets, daggers, etc. Nobody batted an eye, but now they'd confiscate that stuff & arrest kids for doing that.
Then one time in high school we skipped classes to smoke cigarettes bought from a hotel vending machine. Got bored so we mixed a bunch of toilet bowl cleaner and tinfoil in an empty Faygo 2 liter and threw it into the swamp behind our school. In the middle of the day. The whole neighborhood heard the blast and everyone outside for PE saw the mud geyser shoot above the trees. The cops found us about an hour later at the laundromat, smoking and playing cards. They didn't say anything about the kaboom, but threatened to arrest us for underage smoking & charge our parents for truancy; we got our asses beat and handed a two day extended weekend instead. These days we would've been hunted down by the ATF, expelled from school, plastered all over the news, and probably sent to prison. Good times lol.
AmbassadorProper1045@reddit
Actually socializing with other people. Going to parties etc... Remember Rave's?
hawksmarinerz@reddit
Went to Mexico City as an exchange student when I was 17. My parents put me on a plane and basically didn’t know what was happening for 3 months while I lived in a foreign country. Long distance was expensive so we only talked a few times. Seems pretty inconceivable now.
I kinda miss being able to disappear like that.
Bright_Raccoon_3939@reddit
Twelve years old. Both parents at work by 7:30 am. Had a list of chores I had to get done and so did my best grind who lives two doors down. Some would finish the chores at their house then at mine. Then we walked to the neighborhood pool until 4 pm when we headed home to wait for parents to get home. No contact all day. No texts. No tracking apps
imgrendel@reddit
At eleven, taking a motor boat to the other side of a lake to fish by myself. My grand parents had a small cottage on a lake. Didn’t wear a life jacket, but had a seat floatation device.
TRS80487@reddit
Meeting Bill Cosby in Tahoe with 2 young blond women. He was staying across the street from my grandmas house in Zephyr Cove. Years later it dawned on me that the 2 women were not his wife😂
Ok_Peanut_6919@reddit
By “women” you mean victims!
MissKhary@reddit
We had a Dodge Caravan when I was a kid in the 80s. You know, that wine red 1986 Caravan that was EVERYWHERE. My most Gen X memory was when my parents and my aunt/uncle decided to go to one of those car safari zoo places, where you ride your car around and like ostriches stick their head into your car and bite you. So, they had 4 teen boys, and there was me and my brother. 10 people total. No problem, they just removed the 3rd row from the van and shoved all 6 of us kids into the back, no seatbelts or anything. We were all practically sitting on each other. Oh and it was a 2 hour drive on the highway to get there.
Relative_Housing_375@reddit
Hanging out at the back of my high school at the smoking pit.
khInstability@reddit
My dad would occasionally take me in to work with him on evening or night shifts. He worked as a meteorologist in the downtown federal building. I'd race through the empty halls, play on the elevator, tinker on the mainframes' terminals, explore downtown and run back in to the federal building like it was my own house.
When we got a Commodore 64 with a modem, I'd dial directly in to those mainframes from home and "wander" around the main NWS systems, print weather data off, etc. I still remember the login my dad let me use. user: tdu.dll password: dll
Kind_Worry_9836@reddit
That's sensitive information dude! WTF
KhunDavid@reddit
Going to the Imperial Theater during the summer for the Wednesday matinee. The matinee was three hours or so of Disney, a live action movie (think Swiss Family Robinson) several shorts, a snippet from the the Mickey Mouse Club and an animated movie (Pinocchio or Dumbo).
badgko@reddit
So rode our bikes to the river carrying inner tubes. Floated a couple bridges down the river, hitchhiked back to get our bikes or take another trip down the river. Rode in the back of a lot of stranger’s pickups doing this.
--LowBattery--@reddit
I remember stuff like 4 of us kids sitting in inner tubes in the back of a pickup going 80km/h going to the lake.
LayerNo3634@reddit
Walking to the ice house, but stopping at dumpsters on the way, to get "return for deposit" bottles. 1 bottle got a candy bar, 2 a soda, 3 we thought we hit the jackpot. If there was a friend or two and we only found 1 bottle, we split it and only got six let's or Bazooka gum.
notconcernedwriting@reddit
Same here
spencesmom@reddit
Pop Shoppe brand here. My treat would be the paper cones of ice cream (no actual cône though) with the gum ball at the bottom. The one you eat with a wooden padle (no way you could call a spoon). If we were lucky they'd have the strawberry swirl one.
hemidak@reddit
Dad used to drive with a bucket full of beer and ice on the passenger seat floor. The passengers job was to open the beer and hand it to him since he had to drive.
gatorgopher@reddit
1983, 16yo me, my two best friends, also 16, take ones dads regular cargo van, two of us on the floor in back, one driving, for an overnight shopping trip to the Houston Galleria, which was 3 hours away. Stayed in a hotel. All with parental permission. I cannot recall how were got a hotel room, but we did.
Longjumping-Comb3080@reddit
Rolling up at the school farm, second period horticulture class, in the car. Opening the door and it was like you're riding with Cheech and Chong cuz of the pot smoke cloud blasting out. Lol Open campus in 1984 and everyone took their own car to the other side of town to the farm. I used to throw pot seeds under the tables in the greenhouse and the horticulture teacher would let them get 2-3 feet tall and then make me pull the plants up. Lol He knew it was me doing it and I thought I was smart doing it. My dumb ass thought the teacher wouldn't know what it was; he had a masters in horticulture! Lol Kids today would be in so much trouble for any of it!
Hitch29135@reddit
Playing king of the hill on piles of dirt at construction sites
Getting shot at by the neighborhood grump for ding ding ditching and nothing happened
Spending all day in the arcade is
Loadtapchanger@reddit
*King of the Hill ❤️
Common_Purpose_713@reddit
Deer Hunting with my dad when I was 12. We were part of a group of hunters that ran hunting dogs to flush the deer. (don’t judge if you did not grow up in the rural areas of the south). One hunt, I was sitting on top of the dog box (dog kennel mounted in bed of a pick up truck) while my dad was racing truck to cut off the dogs from running out of our hunting area. While cutting across an open field in the truck, he swerved the truck cut onto a farm road instead of the field. The swerve flung me off the dog box shot gun and hand. Dd was in aware and continued on. A member of the of hunting group in another truck saw it happen, stopped, picked me up, dusted me off, put me in his truck and continued on. I had no injuries. He radioed my dad that he ”flung me off the truck and he picked me up”
Justasadgrandma@reddit
Getting drunk at every Bar and Bat Mitzvah, including my own. One time we were all standing on the back of a station wagon with a parent driving and I fell off. Tore up my knees and ripped my pantyhose, but all was good.
just321askin@reddit
A smoker on a packed elevator accidentally burnt my arm with a lit cigarette when I was a kid.
All_Dogs_Love_Me@reddit
We would go spewing. Anyone else ever do this?
Everyone chips in and buys gas station foods of various sorts then hops in the biggest available vehicle to drag the main drag in town on a Friday or Saturday night. At red lights we would take turns and someone would have to make pretend inadvertent eye contact with the car next to us, pretend to be nauseous and then pretend vomit on the road between us. Our "vomit" was really just a bite of a Hostess cupcake, 5 Mike and Ikes, a handful of Doritos, and some Pina Colada Slurpee (or a similar concoction). The gas station foods would all be shared like at a family style Asian restaurant, and the combinations could be soo gross.
I don't know how we ever came up with "spewing". It was like a dare mixed with method acting mixed with special effects oral artistry mixed with a prank, the kind of prank where nobody gets hurt...and it was endlessly hilarious.
We were all high schoolers; the college aged kids who were authentically dragging the main drag would all be stuntin with their bullet bikes or flirting or drinking, sometimes fighting. Plus there would be cop cars interspersed along the way, which made us feel sneaky awesome.
I guess we were sorta making fun of that 3 to 6 year older crowd who were dragging State in a way that didn't feel too mean? We would direct our spew at the ground, never at people or their cars and bikes. Sometimes you'd get shrieks like you truly took someone by surprise and grossed someone out. Sometimes spewing too early in the streetlight cycle made for eye rolls and/or awkward silence before the light turned green...
RowsdowerTheDrifter@reddit
Flying down the highway in the back of a station wagon, no seats or seatbelts, back window down, with my grandfather yelling at us to stop making the horn signal to truckers. The lock was right on the door, too, and we fully controlled when the door could be opened or closed.
Direct-Dish1779@reddit
11 years old buying cigarettes for Mom.
Justasadgrandma@reddit
I was even younger. My mom would sit in the station wagon and wave at the guy so I could get my dad a carton of Marlboro Lights. When I got older, I would steal a pack. The ashtray in my car was usually overflowing but my parents never went in my car.
JoyDVeeve@reddit
Doing skeet shooting as part of gym class
CommodorDLoveless@reddit
We had archery in gym and it was wildly unsupervised in hindsight
Bad-job-dad@reddit
Taking my bike to the mall to buy appetite for destruction on casset tape. I just turned 13.
pickleball_bender@reddit
My younger brother, he would have been 11 or so at the time, wore a GnR t-shirt to school. The one with the girl who had been, ahem, ravaged. Highly inappropriate, and I still don't know how he got it. Anyway, ge wire it to school and my mom received a phone call. She had to drive 30 minutes back home to pick him up and get him a new shirt to wear for the remainder of the day. 😂
Beetso@reddit
I almost got kicked out of my Catholic school because some third grader found the inside sleeve of Lies in my desk. The one with Traci Lords? I got in a lot of trouble!
dysteach-MT@reddit
At age 12- tying a rope to a Big Wheels and then to the back of a motorcycle to get pulled for a ride. It kept flipping so we tied an old tractor seat to the rope. We made it up to 10 mph until Becky hit the cactus. Sorry Becky.
ratherbclever@reddit
The poor Becky I know might have broke her tailbone on the ultra dangerous rocketship play structure in my old neighborhood. As teens we thought It'd be a great idea to soak it with water before sliding down. She was the first and only volunteer. She hit the bottom hard. Sorry Becky.
mounjaro-throwaway@reddit
Our school bus couldn't get us home through flood waters, so the driver gave us the option of walking home 6 miles cross country, around the flooded area, or returning to school to be put up for the night. Of course we chose to walk and ended up in the back of a truck that was driving axle deep (+) through the flood. Great times, how's that for duty of care?
Yummers78@reddit
Sneaking out at night and meeting my little boyfriend in 8th grade. We had to plan this by landline phone (no cellphones then) and then risk sneaking out and walking about half mile away (10 blocks or so, meeting near a crappy neighborhood)
I also snuck out with girlfriends on sleepovers and we would roam my neighborhood causing a little trouble, like we took peoples trash cans & bags and put them all across the street like a barrier so people would have to get out and move them (or HIT THEM) 🤦🏻♀️🤣 Then one time we crossed through someone’s yard and they and their dog came out yelling g and chasing us, I never ran so fast in my life, I was sure I was gonna get bit in the ass by that dog. Somehow we outran them and snuck down the streets hiding behind bushes and trees in people’s yards until we made it back to the house we were sleeping at 🤣🤣. Craziness! I had to have been about 12-13 at the time!
sly-3@reddit
My friend lost his shoes in the pit at a Beastie Boys show and we couldn't go to Denny's afterwards because "no shirt no shoes no service".
Kind_Worry_9836@reddit
A friend and I rode about 10 miles on our bikes and end up at an abandoned barn on the property of some Pagans.
Kate4bait@reddit
When I was 15, I went with a group of kids to Rocky Horror Picture Show, complete with hotdogs and toast, which played midnight to 2:30, then played hide and seek in a cemetery with that same group until 4:00 AM. Home at 4:30...obviously no cell phone. I checked in twice from a pay phone.
Weekly-Batman@reddit
Borrowing vacationing parents car (we were 15), for a quick jaunt to the ski hill 3 hours away.
Apawling_Behavior@reddit
aliceinjam@reddit
My best friend and I “met” a bunch of guys on the interstate and proceeded to follow them home to a party.
No fear. Just promises of booze and fun.
This is one of many stories where I marvel at the fact I wasn’t killed as a stupid teenager.
Merfette410@reddit
OmG we also used to “talk to strangers” and end up at someone’s house hanging out as a group, getting into cars with strangers because “they seem chill”. I met my husband this and that way actually 😂
Ok_Albatross_3887@reddit
The things we did…it blows my mind. Were people just nicer then, or were we just lucky?
aliceinjam@reddit
I think probably a little bit of both, lol, but I definitely think people are meaner and more violent now. I miss the 80s and 90s!
Inner-Confidence99@reddit
Taking off with the bands on their bus to the next city. Security was a lot more relaxed back then.
SouthOrlandoFather@reddit
Open lunch in high school and drinking a beer or two (my glove box held I think 12 beers) on the way to lunch.
Seems crazy that in 2026 so many high schoolers don’t drive and most schools no open lunch.
Independent-Dark-955@reddit
I remember a friend in 6th grade would bring beer in her lunchbox, wrapped in aluminum foil. She was never questioned.
Fair-Wishbone-1190@reddit
We also kept beer cans in our shared locker. At 3rd period our senior year we (my bff and & I) would go to the bathroom. Stop at our locker, grab a can of beer and go into the bathroom to chug it.
SouthOrlandoFather@reddit
Wow. That is impressive.
Fair-Wishbone-1190@reddit
😂 small town Midwestern life got boring.
railworx@reddit
Getting plastered on cheap wine at a great aunt's 80th birthday party, and nobody really giving af
ContentSeat@reddit
My science teacher sharing his affrin with anyone that wanted a hit
gty2269@reddit
Went on a vacation trip that was basically traveling in a truck making our own food and camping in tents traveling from Egypt to Turkey via Jordan and Syria. Still remember being in Turkey opening the tent flap and seeing a bunch of Roman ruins.
Mikethemechanic00@reddit
Winter of 1991. Was at a HS weekend party. Hair bands were playing on the radio. Everyone was wearing neon colors. After sometime. The room fell silent. All of us were bobbing our heads and tapping our feet. We were in a trance. When the song was over. One guy jumps on the table and yells. “ Holy shit! It’s the next Elvis!” The song that played. Nirvanas “In bloom” about 3 months later everyone was wearing plaid. My best friend who was rich wore Guess brand grunge. Every car in the HS parking lot played AIC, Soundgarden or Nirvana way loud. This was in AZ… I have not seen anything so life changing since.
onewomancaravan@reddit
I feel like I had this experience too. It was such a drastic cultural shift that happened around 1991
baudtothebone@reddit
In highschool I cancelled selling my Commodore 64 to a guy because I wanted to race home to watch Miami Vice.
Smedley5@reddit
I vividly remember being about 4 or 5 and getting bundled into the back seat of my mother's 2-door Fiat, then while she was smoking and driving to the grocery store she just pulled up to the front of the store, parked in what would today be a no-parking zone near the front door and then proceeded to go shopping (still carrying the cigarette) - while leaving the top down and the engine running with me and my sister still in the back seat.
Merfette410@reddit
Same!! My best friends Mom would run errands and just leave us in the car, and we preferred it over being dragged around a boring store lol
HappyJoie@reddit
Camping out at the mall so we could buy concertvtickets as soon as Ticket master opened in the morning.
Core memories!
Groovy_Chainsaw@reddit
I managed a video store back in the day. The video store across the street was the Ticket Master. On more than one occasion, I had to bum out some kids who camped out for tickets. " You see that video store over there ? With the line of kids out front ? THAT'S where you want to be."
DreamerofDreams67@reddit
I could make a movie if I had kept notes
FriendRaven1@reddit
Driving, 15 years old (no learners permit or anything), to the liquor store to get my grandfather a bottle of rum. And they sold it to me.
Educational_Seat3201@reddit
Walking through the parking lot at school and seeing shotguns hanging in the rear window of almost almost every pickup truck there during hunting season.
Bayou13@reddit
Sent to buy my mom cigarettes at 9.
davster99@reddit
Did she send you with a note or did the cashier know you by sight?
Bayou13@reddit
Cashier knew me
Genius-Imbecile@reddit
The cashiers new me and who my parents were. Would often be sent to the corner store to get poboys and smokes.
Oldebookworm@reddit
The first couple of times I had a note, but they knew me
Oldebookworm@reddit
I was 7, but yeah. And the best part is that I could have the change left over from the .75 to buy penny candy
I_like_to_know@reddit
I was doing that for my parents at 5
Gretzi11a@reddit
Watergate.
rackfocus@reddit
My Dad made me watch his resignation. Said it was history being made.
Merfette410@reddit
Chain smoking cigarettes with our Moms while playing cards at the kitchen table, being offered alcoholic drinks by the adults at family events & the fact that when our parents asked where we were going, “out” was somehow an acceptable answer. Incredible.
JoeyCalamaro@reddit
My friends and I rode our bikes to the mall one afternoon — which was just over ten miles away. And, of course, we took the highway because it was flat and the most direct route.
No one stopped us or questioned us along the way and none of our parents had any clue where we went (and probably wouldn’t have cared if they did).
Without_Portfolio@reddit
We’d go exploring in the woods near my house. One day my friends and I found a few cases of beer stashed in the creek with rocks on top keeping them under the water. Of course we thought it would be a great idea to create a beer bottle flotilla so we ran along the bank and threw rocks at them. A bunch of teenage boys showed up looking for their beer. We made up some bullshit story and when they went to salvage what they could we hopped on our bikes and high tailed it out of there.
Cavendish30@reddit
Timmy Smith from up the street wrecked dramatically on a borrowed green machine big wheel bike. Timmy was a little chub, and i remember he was wearing a faded Charlie’s angels shirt.
No-Staff-7107@reddit
Sitting in the bed of a pickup truck from Orange County up to Shasta for camping with dad, with several Clark Griswold style side trips.
DAGB_69@reddit
Playing with my new CD player whilst my parents smoked heavily.
Pinkbeans1@reddit
Asked to ride one of the Beach Boys’ horse. He said yes, but had to get it used to a saddle again (pastured horse).
Empath_78@reddit
Buying cigarettes from a vending machine!
rackfocus@reddit
I saw one in a Phoenix bar a couple years ago. Had a laugh.
copperfrog42@reddit
I did the van travel thing after I graduated college. We drove out to California and up the coast, ended up in Oregon, where my dad lived, then wandered back down to Arizona. We spent the winter camping in the desert, and hunted quartz crystals. Then we turned back up in Atlanta in time for the 96 Olympics.
NeiClaw@reddit
My parents took me to see Empire Strikes Back and I remember being completely shocked by the big reveal moment only to look over at my mom who was completely asleep.
Individual_Note_8756@reddit
I was at the drive-in with my dad and grandma watching Pinocchio, I’m 4 or 5. At the most exciting part I look at her & she is sound asleep.
AtomicHurricaneBob@reddit
Falling out of a tree, having my mom wipe the blood off and sending me back outside to play. Only to have my friend's mom call my mom telling her to take me to the emergency room.
Roughly 20 stitches later my mom said i was fine and to get out of the house.
Those were the days!
EnoughEstate7483@reddit
I was a bit of a pyro as an elementary school kid. Some days after school were just a quest to find matches or a lighter to start fires.
An easy way was steal from my parents box of matches in the cupboard because they were both smokers. But when I was risking them noticing too many were missing, my friends and I would take turns walking into different gas stations and taking packs of matches off the repair station counter, which they all had. I'd just tell the guy they were for my parents, they would just shrug and say "OK".
Ahh, the good old days.
PengyLi@reddit
The church youth group that we belonged to, had a van donated to it. The van was an old bread delivery van, with shelves on either side for the trays of loaves. The group used to do camping and various weekend activities with the children, but had previously had to persuade parents to transport the children to the destination. Now, with the "new" van, they were able to get the kids there under their own steam. I recall with great delight, the first trip away in the van, tents and camping gear piled in the middle on the floor, and with us children all lying on the bread shelves on either side. Stacked like bunk beds. No seat belts. We were just lying on the shelves! We would slide off the shelf onto the camping gear every time the van went round the corner to absolute hoots of laughter. It was about a 2 hour journey to the campsite. One of the best childhood memories ever! Late 70's early 80's.
Dakota1228@reddit
Remember how awesome cap guns were? And the smell…ahhmazing
BerryLanky@reddit
My buddy and I were out one Saturday night. A group of girls told us about a party going on and gave us the address. It was a mansion and a huge party. Great hook up with a cute girl, everyone drinking and dancing. Passing out. Waking up the next morning with a great story. It was as close to an 80’s movie we encountered. Still friends with my high school buddy and we reminisce about that night.
saltkjot@reddit
Sitting in the back of a hot rod '71 Buick grand sport driving through the mountains of west va, going too fast while sitting on pillows sliding to and fro with my sister on the back bench seat. Its a good thing cps doesnt read this sub, or all of our folks would be going to jail.
MaximumJones@reddit
That time we all rode our bikes across town and went into the sewer system to kill some scary ass space clown that had eaten our buddy's little brother in a storm drain.
whatsupgrizzlyadams@reddit
My best friend and I at age 16 drove alone from Michigan down to Florida for Spring break. We won tickets to party at the 1st MTV Spring Break. We stayed at her Mother's Cousins condo in Daytona Beach- they were on vacation.
Our parents basically said we arent paying for it and dont do any stupid shit.
We had a blast because neither of us drank so we had front row seats to mass drunken stupidity.
Adventurous-Fee-8158@reddit
Drove my friend’s truck from Yakima to Seattle to pick up 2 friends who hid in the bed of the truck all the way to Enumclaw, WA for Lollapalooza 1 in 1991. I was 18, and it was my first music festival. Moved to Seattle 6 months later with $300 and couch surfed until I found my first apartment. Rent was $275 per month.
Early_Doughnut8295@reddit
Waiting on line for hours at tower records to buy tickets for lalapalooza with friends and drinking beers
aliceinjam@reddit
We bought our tickets at the local Farm Fresh, lol. I still remember the excitement of going into the damn grocery store and coming out with a paper concert ticket.
tricialgk@reddit
Tower Records!!!
sidewaysmotion613@reddit
I was volunteering in my college radio station's vinyl library when the station manager came in and announced that he'd just heard that Kurt Cobain had killed himself.
rfriendselectric@reddit
Walking down the street and running into a girl and chatting with her. And she says, you’re so gen-x. I looked at her with a blank face kinda annoyed and said “ I guess?…. Whatever.” In hindsight…..
Handsome_Chewbacca@reddit
Jumping over my friends on my BMX bike with no helmet while adults were cheering me on drinking beer and smoking cigarettes.
wonderbeen@reddit
At 10ish or so, my mom had me sign her name to anything that needed her signature. Including the paperwork that she as brought home from school. In 9th grade, I missed most of the 1st 6 weeks of the spring semester as excused absences from notes signed by me. It was by the grace of god and some extra work was able to pass that year.
Embarrassed-Pepper-5@reddit
A cousin, friend, and I thought It’d be a great idea to take a shortcut…at night…across I-44 to go to McDonald’s.
Dillenger69@reddit
80-81 We used to go walking down the railroad tracks. Getting pennies squashed, rocks broken. Finding porn in the woods off the tracks. The closest we got to a Stand By Me moment was an abandoned hobo shed. We were probably lucky it was empty.
mossbergcrabgrass@reddit
We had a rock quarry lake close to where I grew up and it had 100 foot cliffs you could jump off into the water. Also had a big flat area where you could tent camp and always had a huge bonfire going 24/7 on weekends and all summer. Weekends it was completely packed with high schoolers underage drinking heavily and all their other activities, hundreds of them at times from all different area schools, jumping off the cliffs into the water and all that. Cops even knew about it and never came down there unless they absolutely had to and even then left as soon as possible without busting up the party or messing with anyone except who they had to 😂.
Not only would this be shutdown in a heartbeat nowadays but the kids themselves are just not as interested in that kind of behavior for various reasons.
Callahan333@reddit
Challenger.
mjh8212@reddit
Dad got pulled over for a dui with me in the car. He was bouncing off curbs and I was laughing so he kept doing it. I went to jail with my dad. I sat at the front desk and grandma came and picked me up and later my dad was released. I had an interesting childhood. I was maybe 7 or 8 years old.
PuzzleheadedBobcat90@reddit
4 of us (girls aged 17 to 18) headed into San Fransico to go to the pier and what not. We ended up meeting two guys in the pier, and we invited them back to our town to hang out.
2 of is climbed in the guys truck, so we could get them back to my friends house because her parents were out of town. My best friends and I rode back with them, we shared a joint, and the ended up staying the night.
No money buisness happened. We all just slept in the living room and went out ot breakfast after cleaning up.
Fun guys too, and we lost touch with them about a year later.
And it wasn't the first time accepting rides with and hanging out with strangers. Young, and dumb!
I would kill my teens if they did that! I had a friend visit and brought a bunch of strangers back to my house. He said it was okay because they were going to sleep in the backyard backyard. Hell, no! Invitation rescinded with a quickness.
BlueSkyValkyrie@reddit
Amazing the things we did and got away with isn't it?
PenPutrid3098@reddit
Going the the pharmacy to buy packs of cigarettes for my mom with $5.
FakeNameSoIcnBhonest@reddit
Having sex with my girlfriend on her parent’s waterbed.
I used to love waterbeds. Do they even make those anymore?
britishink@reddit
1983 - A friend from school and I would tell our parents we were staying at each other's house that weekend. (They never checked) We'd go to the train station, change into the Goth clothes and ride down to London.
Two 15 year olds dancing all night at the Bat Cave in Soho!
Tube back at dawn and a greasy spoon breakfast, back on the train, no one is the wiser ...
afternever@reddit
found Shampoo
britishink@reddit
Nailed it - but two Goth twinks, seeing that early morning walk through London takes me back...
Parking_Exit2297@reddit
Drinking in woods around bonfire , always on lookout for cops
ArcticPangolin3@reddit
Flying down to Florida with my bestie to go on a cruise by ourselves. We were 17 and had a blast.
Plus I earned enough at a minimum wage job the prior summer to pay for it.
ascaffo@reddit
Sitting in the very back of the station wagon in the rear facing seat, and taking turns laying across the back seat and rolling off it and falling into the rear area.
Expensive-System-762@reddit (OP)
I remember my parents removing the middle seat of the mini van and me and my sister just laying on the floor of the backseat playing games on long road trips.
Individual_Check_442@reddit
My dad was my little league coach and there were times when he was driving kids on the team for whatever reason and he had more people in the car then he had seats for, like 2 in the front passenger seat and 4 in the back of a Ford Thunderbird. Short distances only of Course lol
woodspider9@reddit
Babysitting an infant and her assy 4 year old brother at 12.
sp0rkah0lic@reddit
Saw Batman 89 and Beetlejuice at the drive in in a double feature, from the inside of a 1984 Dodge Caravan with wood trim laminate on the side.
MudJumpy1063@reddit
This reminds me of a travel pro tip I learned. Post 2000s, if a border agent asks you why you don't have an initerary on a cross country trip, don't say. "You know, doing the Kerouac thing, America's highways and byways."
Does not go over. And now you know. :)
Bear_Salary6976@reddit
Knowing's half the battle!
ExcentricaGallumbits@reddit
YO JOE!
Rogue_Apostle@reddit
Riding bikes to the video store. Stopping to check the coin return of every pay phone we passed to find enough change to get a Dilly Bar. Stop at the gas station on the way home to buy cigarettes for my dad. Watch our movie sitting in front of the TV eating a TV dinner with fried chicken, corn, and a little brownie. Then making Jiffy Pop and drinking RC Cola.
Good times.
Expensive-System-762@reddit (OP)
Yum, hungry man fried chicken dinner!
xt0rt@reddit
Someone else's story sparked a memory.
Over summer break, when I was 15, I had a friend drive me to Cincinnati so that I could secretly stay with my girlfriend who had recently moved down there(2.5hrs away)
He dropped me off and I hid in her bedroom, and under her bed, and in various other places in her basement for over a week. My buddy Chris came back to pick me up the following weekend and we stopped to watch Judge Dredd on the way home.
And that, kids, is how I lost my virginity.
Pretty damn crazy considering there were no cell phones, or I didn't have one at least, I replied on my buddy to drive back down and get me after a week, and he did!
(I told my mom that I was going camping with another friend)
joeydouchebagodonuts@reddit
Leaving the house on my bike and being gone all day with no one knowing where I was until I came home for dinner.
Kilashandra1996@reddit
My younger brother (10?-ish) and the across the street neighbor kid were playing on a homemade go-cart made from a push lawn mower base. They were "riding" on a recently poured concrete slab that would become the neighbor's garage. Yes, it was cured, but still had rebar sticking up in places.
Guess how the story ends? Yep, hospital ER with stitches on my brother's forehead. I was outside the doctor's room and could hear every stitch that went in as my brother let out a fresh scream. Mom promised me that they used anesthesia, but you sure couldn't tell!
MistressBassKitty@reddit
My parents bought the neighborhoods first VCR and decided it was as good as a babysitter. They rented Poltergeist and Porky’s for our movie night and left me, age 5, and my brothers, 7 &9, home alone to watch them while the went out for dinner…
UneducatedDonkey@reddit
Knowing where the latchkey friend's house key was and letting ourselves in at 11pm to get snacks and nearly getting shot by his dad.
Glass-Nectarine-3282@reddit
Hiring Peter Laird to do artwork for my friend and my super-hero role playing game and then him and Eastman coming over to my dad's kitchen and showing us the Ninja Turtles right before they debuted at a convention in 1984.
FrankParkerNSA@reddit
Two words. Lawn Darts.
CalifGirlDreaming@reddit
Riding on the handlebars while my sister rode her bike and I flew off when she hit a bump. Jumping off one of those really tall swings, over 15’ high.
jnp2346@reddit
Drove to Fairbanks, AK from Dallas, TX with my (still) best friend after we graduated. It was an unforgettable trip.
La_Mano_Cornuta@reddit
Tying up the entire family phone line on my 8800 baud modem.
SomeAreSomeAreNot@reddit
Being dropped off in downtown Tijuana, on a teen tour with 40 other 13yo kids and a “here are your boundaries, don’t go outside of them, and be back in 3 hours”.
R67H@reddit
Shortly after I got my license at 16, I borrowed my dad's Bronco for a few days so my friend and I could drive down to Baja, drink a vast amount of alcohol on Rosarito Beach, crash under the stars and bring a felonious volume of fireworks home (Northern-ish California, for context). Parents 100% co-signed our shenanigans. Or just didn't give a fuck.
theoriginalbabayaga@reddit
Christmas morning with an Original Big Wheel, Smash Up Derby cars, Lego, Lava Light, and a twist-o-flex band for my timex watch.
Away-Equipment4869@reddit
Seeing some of the biggest acts of the year at a state fair! I was able to see New Kids, Tiffany and Donny Osmond in the same year because they were featured as a performers at our state fair!
SoggyManufacturer693@reddit
Space shuttle Challenger explosion