I still have a couple of chairs like that. LOL. Did they go away?
Lgr
August 28, 2018 9:03 am
I like the idea, but sad to say, we never used a webbing lawn chair as a strike zone for wiffle ball, as lads.
It was pitch until a batter swings…either a hit or an out. No balls and strikes, Or walks.
More popular in my youth was ‘fast pitch’ as we called it.
My best friend as kids…just the 2 of us, when the baseball itch needed to be scratched,
and we couldn’t rustle up enough buds to field ‘teams’.
Using childhood imagination to set up game rules…
-The 2 of us would head over on bikes with 1 bat, to a brick industrial building adjacent to a fenced park.
-It was a wood Hillrich & Bradley Louisville Slugger; never aluminum bat.
-Drew a chalk strike zone on the wall of the building, or used the pitcher’s honesty.
-Pitcher threw a tennis ball from 60 feet or so.
-Pitches bounced back to thrower, off bldg. wall, unless hit by the batter.
-Batter got 3 outs before trading roles. We counted innings, and runs scored. Strikeouts counted.
-Grounders past the pitcher were singles; but if fielded / caught by pitcher, it was an out.
-Line drives that went past pitcher, but hit the 4 ft. high chain link park fence were doubles.
-Line drives above the park fence, but below the power wires that ran above the park fence line: Triples.
-Above the power lines: home runs.
-The foul poles left and right were the utility poles that supported the power line span behind the pitcher.
We would do this for hours in warm months, and have a riot, besides the rivalry.
We never played stickball, like I saw in film, that they played out east.
To us, it seemed silly to bounce the ball off the pavement in front of the batter, when pitched.
That just seemed like a shitty pitcher, who couldn’t get a pitch past the plate.
I will concede it as a challenging game for hitters, to hit with a broomstick, in the way those pitches
were delivered. That probably took considerable skill, with eye-to-hand swing coordination.
Another one was ‘curb ball’.
Our cement streets had rounded curbs.
The ‘hitter’ would throw a tennis ball at the curb to have it rebound out to the ‘fielder’
Low spots on the curb, when hit, would send grounders across the street. If fielded w/out bobbling: Out
If they went past the fielder, it was a single.
Low line drive rebounds off the curb that hit the pavement the other side of the street centerline: Single.
If caught: 1 out.
High line drives past the fielder were hits, depending on what ‘zone’ the ball landed in.
In the lawn space between the sidewalk and curb: that landing zone was a double.
On the sidewalk: a triple
Past the sidewalk and onto the front lawn of the house across the street: home run.
Geez, even when my buddy was busy, I’d take my mitt and a tennis ball, and throw at the 2 cement front porch steps.
The ball would bounce back to me as grounders; it was how I became skilled at fielding them & became a good infielder.
Every so often, the tennis ball would hit the corner face edge of the step, and come back as a line drive.
Funniest was when it would bounce or go past the steps, and hit the lower kick plate of the aluminum front screen door, resulting in a loud bang that would scare the shit out of my Dad, as he tried to relax on the couch after a long work day. He’d yell out and curse an expletive, while I giggled a bit, then resumed play.
If it happened twice in the same session, he got really pissed, and it was game over, for that day. 🙂
Kids don’t do that kind of activity much these days.
With TV, smart phones, video games, and tablets, it’s sitting on their asses and becoming obese.
I drive by parks in my old neighborhood, and they are overrun with weeds, and nobody playing on
the baseball diamonds, climbing the monkey bars, or on swingsets, if they’re still even there, and
not been taken by scrappers. Sad.
The suburban parks w/ diamonds are all organized little league teams.
We participated in that too, Pop Warner organized youth football, floor hockey at a city park gymnasium, etc.
Always doing something ACTIVE.
Curb ball! I’ve shown that game to so many people and nobody I’ve ever met had heard of it. We also played a variation of your baseball above, but we did it in the front yard using yard to yard driveways and wiffle balls, with 6 or 7 balls and my street hockey net as a backstop (no strike zone, only swinging strikes). Then one Christmas the kid that lived behind me who I played with got a sweet little backstop with a strike zone on it!
There was also a BMX track in the woods nearby that the local kids built and maintained. Many a brutal wipe-out occurred back there, especially on the 4 foot table top…ahh good times. There was a creek back there so kids would, when forced to bring their younger siblings, set the kids too small to ride off with a bucket to catch crayfish. There was also a little family market a short ride from the trail so we’d roll over there and buy candy bars for $0.35 each or 3 for a dollar (for the full sized fuckers that cost over a dollar now) and 16 ounce glass bottle Cokes. We’d also play army: bang bang…I got you!! No you didn’t!! Then there were the nights in the summer when all the kids in the neighborhood would come out after dark and get a game of kick-the-can going with as many as 20 players – over the can on Lgr!
I don’t see kids doing any of this shit anymore…well maybe eating candy bars and drinking sodas
BobM, your childhood sounds like mine. We used to jump metal garbage cans using a wooden ramp. My brother was a daredevil and would come home all scraped up because we did it on the paved road. The first time I tried it, my brother didn’t tell me you’re supposed to pull up on the handle bars so you land on the back tire. I somersaulted with the bike. At least I was in someone’s backyard that time and not on the road. Painful but memorable. As I mentioned before, I was definitely a tomboy. At least until junior high school when I noticed boys as a girl rather than a tomboy.
I just love hearing people’s memories of their childhood and the way they entertained themselves. Because, let’s admit it, besides TV, you had to come up with your own fun the majority of the time. If you didn’t have a lot of money, like us, you didn’t have the toys and trinkets to entertain you. This current generation could the most spoiled, especially with technology.
Grew up on a real single family farm. Every summer’s day was a new adventure, especially when my city slicker cousins came from the big city (Sikeston) for a couple of weeks. We built tree houses and forts and had all sorts of wars between the girl cousins and the boy cousins. Sometimes, we had a bunch of them over for campfires at night to roast marshmallows and sing (no kidding) folk songs.
And, then, we got to go to the city to ride bicycles along paved roads and wowsa! Was that exciting!
See what I mean? Every story is unique, but kids were having fun and inventing their own fun. That is real. That is history. Granted not ancient history, but it’s the history of this nation and should be respected and heard about. This is why I love history so much. It’s the history of the individual and their families and their struggles and their good times.
I encourage everyone here to write a journal or diary to pass down to their future generations. 200 years from now, people could be reading your story. Primary sources, like diaries and journals, are respected history. You lived it. You were there. Tell your story to your future generations. You hopes, your dreams, you disappointments, your hates, how you dealt with life. Give the future a glimpse of your perspective on life in America in this generation.
I wish I had encourage my older family members to do that, but they had died or were old before I even thought about.
(Sorry for the lecture. I’m just passionate about history and continuing the thread for future generations.)
We didn’t get snow like that often, but when we did, we did not let it go to waste. First light, bundle up and start building the fort… and then hope and pray school got cancelled, which, if the snow packed that well, it usually did.
I always get Sikeston and Skidmore confused and I think about the Skidmore murder. It has always fascinated me. It’s worth a post on it’s own, don’t you think?
Now why was this post down voted? I don’t understand that. She’s giving her history, nothing more.
Edit: This post is in reference to Maggie’s post on her childhood.
Don’t you remember junior high, vv? When the “mean girls” have to poke fun at everything some bullied gal does, wears and says because they got nothing?
Well, it is kind of like that here, except for one thing. I’m not in junior high and I don’t bully easily.
So, I will minimize my comments so the little girlies can find them a safe space to pout.
Uber, yes to the BMX track, too. We all had Schwinn’s, with banana seats back then. It was a small field of undeveloped property, right next to the building we used for pitch back games. Trails, small bumps, and trees that are unforgiving to those who lost control. Frequently saw snakes, rabbits, and pheasants kicked up as we went through there.
It was a somewhat isolated area that I traveled through at times, as a shortcut on the way to school, and organized sport activities beyond it. Amazingly, there were no abductions or crimes back then that I knew of, and wouldn’t ever let a kid wander through alone nowadays. Safer times back then.
Later on, the fun bikes got upgraded to larger Schwinn workhorses for use on a paper route, for the early days of good work ethics, capitalism, earning spending money, typically for candy = cavities.
Mind you, the same area, where the brick building, the wooded bike course, and the fenced park…they all were backed up by of all things…a railroad storage yard, with 2 tracks for trains coming and going, and multiple side tracks as a depot for putting idled freight cars when not in use.
It was another area where danger was a constant, and fortunately, none of us befell any horrific accidents. Something about standing close to a freight train roaring past. Amazing feeling of slight danger, with an adrenaline respect for the vast power you can feel in that moment.
With bikes, it’s amazing I can still walk, run, and move effectively, after some of the crashes I experienced. Multiple stories there; some funny, some painful, but, I’ll leave it at that for now.
Lgr, I love that story of your childhood. The idea of using the building’s brick wall as a catcher is great.
I used to play tennis by myself on our carport. Hit the ball into the brick wall, which was the living room wall inside, and it would come back to me as if someone was hitting back. But my mom didn’t appreciate the rattling of mirrors and pictures on the living room wall so I usually did it while she was at work. 🙂 I spent hours doing that. So fun. Sometimes you just have to come up with ways to entertain yourself.
Thx, VeeVee…Now that you mention it, I used to do the tennis ball hitting with a raquet against a wall, with a chalk line about the same height as the top of a normal tennis court net.
-Against a school wall adjacent to a parking lot. Really shitty hitters would send balls up onto the roof.
I remember climbing onto the top of an annex, using the door from top ledge as handholds, and the hinge pivots as footholds, then shimmying up a drain pipe to get to the higher roof top of the building where errant tennis balls could sometimes be found. Amazing, that I never got caught for trespassing, or slipped and fell. That building was about 2 stories high, or at least 30 feet. It was a high ceiling indoor swimming pool, at a public school.
Damn. Even more memories.
Re: bouncing balls indoors, yeah, Mom & Dad frowned upon that at my crib, too.
Another sign of the times, in those early, carefree years:
Mom used to do laundry down in the basement, where she could sneak a ciggy, out of view from us kids.
We’d play and do all kinds of games down there.
One time, she was down there, and I told her I was a good shot with my brother’s Daisy BB rifle.
I stood up a thick black magic marker on a small table against the wall across the basement, and with her watching, I took it out from across the floor on the 1st try. She howled with laughter, instead of warning about shooting my eye out with a BB gun without safety glasses.
…more innocent times, when the safety rules were a little more relaxed.
Hey, lgr… today I visit the wound dude and maybe, just maybe, get cleared for a nice cold one. Hoping your contribution shows up soon. I still have your coffee beans, both ground and whole, but I really HAVE been that ill for that long.
Don’t read into the downvote if it shows on Quinny’s site…I fat fingered that one with an errant mouse click.
Edit: I re-clicked up vote, and it corrected the error. Me likey that plug in, if that’s the correct terminology for a hat tip to TMWNN.
Also have been away from my duties and obligations, and am in catch up mode.
I will make your request a priority…I did write myself a note, to git ‘er done, but, alas,
I’ve been like a one legged man in an ass kickin’ contest the last 10 days.
Tahred, boss. Dog tired. But, still workin’.
So, hang in there…it’s not en route yet. ASAP, friend. ASAP. Feel better soon.
Cheers.
I am in no hurry, bless you. But my son heads to Maryland today and so will not be here to taste it and I wanted to impress him now that he’s graduated from college and realizes there really is more to beer than a kegger.
The 60’s vintage lawn chair should be the official symbol of America, tacky, made cheap and folds up in seconds with no real quality but very colorful. The eagle soared high above, the lawn chair collapses.
Larry- The people here (not all but most) are the type that would stand around and debate what color to paint the livingroom while the kitchen is on fire. Jebus H. Krist Larry, nothing short of an empty grocery store will keep them away from the latest Kardashian news flash.
Roids inflamed again Ratty? Moran?? Double, triple dog dare ya to watch RFB , the moon thing starts around 2:40 or there abouts, that phenomenon has been documented for a couple hundred years. Prove it 100% wrong RawDawg and I’ll flip to your side. I’m just the messenger.
Seriously dawg, why is everyone in such a shitty mood?
I already watched the stupid thing; we discussed it a year ago already. I’m not going to discuss it again. You didn’t want to hear counterarguments then, and you don’t now.
Here’s the thing: I want to like you. But you bitch.
You bitch about how stupid everyone is. You bitch about the country. You bitch about how we aren’t as enlightened as yourself. You bitch if you ask a question and don’t get a reply in 8 minutes.
You bitch. And bitch. And bitch. And bitch.
It’s truly a wonder your old lady hasn’t put a pillow over your sour puss while you sleep. You must drive her up the wall with your incessant whining and smugness.
Seriously, how are you still alive?
I was nice the other day….what? It’s my job dawg. Besides you are a grumpy POS yourself. I don’t care if you bitch , we all bitch. This is the bitchiest place on the internet.
Don’t read my comments McDonald if you are so fukkin thin skinned and have such sensitive feewings.
Vargas- That is an old Rdawg trick, that varmint starts a fight then asks ya to send him expensive hooch, it’s not protection…..he is just a free shitter.
I cut the tip of my pinky off in the hinges of one of those when it collapsed.
My mom put the piece and my pinky in the same bag of ice and marched me down the street to a heart surgeons house.
He sewed it back on in his kitchen.
Probably Canada’s first pinky transplant.
LOL. Those chairs could be dangerous as they aged. I know someone that sat down and went straight through the webbing. Not a pretty sight because she was rather large and wearing a dress.
“rather large”…quite courteous and sensitively correct there, babe.
In attempting humor, I’d have said a large barge named Marge tried to drift into port docking and the aft section of the vessel took out the pier, safety strap webbing was faintly heard yelling, from being ripped apart from the force of excessive application of load, to an undersized, low load bearing , light duty class structure.
Or, “some fat ass just wrecked my lounge chair! WTF??”
BTW…Marge is shorthand for Margaret, not Martha. Ahem.
No sir. Clarification disclaimer, that I was not referring to anyone’s ass in particular. Rather, to a generic large Marge on the heels of Vixen’s funny comment.
I wasn’t going to wax funny on the part about the offender wearing a dress during the mishap of the destroyed webbing lawn chair.
It was probably a quite humorous event to witness, putting aside the probable fact that viewing some aspect of the wrecking ball might have required a rinsing of the eyeballs with Chlorox afterwards. Sometimes, repulsive sights cannot be unseen. I’ve had my share, as both offender and as a victim-witness.
Pero, me gusta este lugar. y amigos buenos, tambien.
aw man, I’m with ya. the gals take offense to words at times, even when kidding or humor is the intent. I think someone got a bee in her bonnet when one was describing the perfect breasts, strictly his opinion, and it was deemed insulting to experienced gals who might have nourished their newborn childrens au natural.
Yet, the years and history take their toll on both males and females.
Body part criticism is verbotten, as I learned w/ me gal pal years ago.
They’ll fire back, in no uncertain terms. And I’m no Jack LaLane.
If she wants my ass, there ain’t much there to have; ol skinny lil’ dude that I am.
I do skate, though, which firms it up quite well, as our Canadian buds know.
This caboose is off limits to other bros, though. Nuh-uh. Homey don’t play that.
Worst is rejection; cuts like a knife.
btw…i’m enjoying all the samplings of latino moniker alternates put forth.
Lawn chair, and a far superior chair to today’s fold up uncomfortable crap chairs and their damn storage bags. I own 4 of this classic style, One I rescued from a trash pile, all it needed was new webbing, which you can still buy. Someone else trash was my treasure, I sat in this one just last night. Two of the others have a slightly rounded back frame, far more comfortable than the straight back style. If you can find some of those, they are the gold standard.
Sure, this style chair may not pack as small, but who cares, the trade off for not having to mess around with the damn storage bag from the China chair is well worth it. Trips to the river, birthday parties, etc, I toss a couple in the trunk and can be seated at a moments notice, when I’m ready to go, stand up, fold up and I’m on my way. My china crap chairs are hanging in the garage gathering dust and have not been used in years. (Since I came to the conclusion they suck and the webbing chairs are far superior in every way)
I agree, Dan. Still have some myself. Instead of gathering dust, maybe you should sell those China chairs to people who think they are just the right thing for them and earn some dough for yourself.
I didn’t know what wiffle ball was until I got to junior high. We always played hardball in the neighborhood. But in junior high, the gym coach would give us the equipment, tell us to play wiffle ball or basketball or volleyball or kickball or whatever, while she sat on the bleacher and watched. That was gym class in junior high.
I couldn’t hit anything now, I’m sure. But back then, I could hit a curve ball. I was a good hitter and runner but couldn’t catch well. I admit I was too scared of the ball hitting me. But not while batting, only in the field. I guess that’s part of the girl in me.
You’re great nkit. Especially with your gifs. Always look forward to your contributions to the Friday Fail and Sunday Funnies. Especially love the animals.
Lol…and you’re just the man to do it, hombddddre!
(how the hell else can you spell a spoken, trilled R, w/o the squiggly above it? (~)
Me keyboard skills w alt language punctuation is lacking.
Ayudeme por favor.
I concur, Vic. Hope tmwnn can give kit a solution to the .gif obstacle shackling and frustrating him, with the new plug in attributes.
Persistence, kit.
Problems are learning possibilities.
Yet, I can appreciate the discouragement and reluctance to keep trying, with limited success. Persistence anyway.
Love will find a way.
A 2-fer…
Hope nKit checks in here, and can respond to the man’s hilarious comment.
I haven’t dabbled with posting gif files. Maybe I’d better mind my own bidness on this topic, but the Friday Fail fans are legion in their appreciation of good content.
There has been for the last couple of weeks. The new comment plug-in may be better than the old comment plug-in, but at least the old comment plug in accepted 99.9% of all gifs posted. The new comment plug-in? Not so much. It accepts about 55% of the gifs that I post on Friday Fail (You remember that?) It’s nice if I don’t have to plug the URL in a box and then hit “Post Comment”, but if it doesn’t appear, I don’t see that as an approvement. What did you save me? Five seconds for worse technology?I don’t blame you. It really was broken and needed to be fixed.
You know TMWNN. Two weeks ago I posted some gifs on Friday Fail that came up as “awaiting moderation.” No one saw them… They did not post. Today, I went back into the archives, if you will, and looked at Friday Fail from two weeks ago, and the gifs that would not post then are up there now with nary a single vote. I’m a computer idiot, but I find that strange. Why is the new plug-in so touchy? The old plug-in was always ready to accept..anything.
Can’t fix generalities like “55%”. Need a specific example of a single not-working .gif and I’ll try to either fix what’s not working or tell you why it doesn’t work.
When my son said “Could you be a little more specific than my email isn’t working, Mom?,” he said it with that same tone. Rolled his eyes, sat down and fixed it.
Relatable. The IT guru that solves our PC problems at work is pretty cool, but when describing a frustrated attempt at something unfulfilled,
he’ll roll eyes, grin, and utter: “You sure it’s the computer? It’s most likely User Error” Good, knowledgeable troubleshooters are appreciated.
Experts have little patience for novices, especially if they remain novices after years of ‘experience’.
I’ve been an impatient hypocritical mentor to novices on some things, but more often I’m the mocked novice for having insufficient expertise at things.
Bottom line: If you don’t know, it’s not a fault. Simply inexperience.
We’re gonna breach the hundy mark yet, on a thread about lawn chairs.
Many twists, turns, and detours, but what the hell. Easily entertained.
The outside world can be much worse.
So, I joined the USAF and literally got engaged to the tallest guy in the class from Boston because he was different than anyone I’d ever met and he talked really weird. We had nothing in common, so, of course, I jumped right in.
Fast forward to parents meet and greet.
His folks were supposed to stay at Sikeston’s Drury complex until we arrived. But, they got there early and asked around and “found” my family farm, which had/has a farmhouse built in 1921 still intact (sort of… remodeled and patched up here there and everywhere). One step up to the “porch.” I had no idea they had invaded my parents home to meet them ahead of the planned meeting.
I had met them. They lived in a small suburb of Lebanon, NH, known as snob hill. ‘nuf said.
After a rainy summer, there was a plethora of reptiles everywhere on that farm, but mostly, there were frogs living and breeding under the front porch, as they always had, all my life. My mother, not prepared to welcome fancy guests (let’s face it…they were fancy), tried her best to keep the cacophony at bay while getting up every few minutes to toss the few little frogs sneaking in under the front porch door (let’s face it… from the front porch!) out into the yard. She told me later she enjoyed their visit, but they could not have picked a worse time to come unexpected.
So, for many years I was embarrassed at my in-laws because they’d “seen” where I’d grown up. They said patronizing things like “you farmers are the salt of the earth” and “why, your mother was just charming!”
Then, I divorced the bastard and realized how very rude the snobs from snob hill were to just drop in on my parents like that without warning and then, later, to mildly poke fun at me for growing up in such a home.
I have a very amusing story to tell about front porches flat on the ground (or slightly elevated) I will tell you when I can. It is actually time to do rounds. I’m being chauffeured around the animal pens to say hello to my little friends.
Mary Christine
August 30, 2018 9:14 am
Shoot, I missed all the fun. Almost 100 comments for a picture of a lawn chair and a question.
I think Nkit and Vix maybe should have got a room last night.
I still have a scar on the back of my calf from one of the chaise type chairs. I sat down on it just perfectly wrong. It folded up and pinched my calf and hurt like hell. I must have been about 9 or 10 at the time.
They were light as a feather, reasonably comfortable and surprisingly durable.
Could this be an example of how more was done with less back in the day?
I still have a couple of chairs like that. LOL. Did they go away?
I like the idea, but sad to say, we never used a webbing lawn chair as a strike zone for wiffle ball, as lads.
It was pitch until a batter swings…either a hit or an out. No balls and strikes, Or walks.
More popular in my youth was ‘fast pitch’ as we called it.
My best friend as kids…just the 2 of us, when the baseball itch needed to be scratched,
and we couldn’t rustle up enough buds to field ‘teams’.
Using childhood imagination to set up game rules…
-The 2 of us would head over on bikes with 1 bat, to a brick industrial building adjacent to a fenced park.
-It was a wood Hillrich & Bradley Louisville Slugger; never aluminum bat.
-Drew a chalk strike zone on the wall of the building, or used the pitcher’s honesty.
-Pitcher threw a tennis ball from 60 feet or so.
-Pitches bounced back to thrower, off bldg. wall, unless hit by the batter.
-Batter got 3 outs before trading roles. We counted innings, and runs scored. Strikeouts counted.
-Grounders past the pitcher were singles; but if fielded / caught by pitcher, it was an out.
-Line drives that went past pitcher, but hit the 4 ft. high chain link park fence were doubles.
-Line drives above the park fence, but below the power wires that ran above the park fence line: Triples.
-Above the power lines: home runs.
-The foul poles left and right were the utility poles that supported the power line span behind the pitcher.
We would do this for hours in warm months, and have a riot, besides the rivalry.
We never played stickball, like I saw in film, that they played out east.
To us, it seemed silly to bounce the ball off the pavement in front of the batter, when pitched.
That just seemed like a shitty pitcher, who couldn’t get a pitch past the plate.
I will concede it as a challenging game for hitters, to hit with a broomstick, in the way those pitches
were delivered. That probably took considerable skill, with eye-to-hand swing coordination.
Another one was ‘curb ball’.
Our cement streets had rounded curbs.
The ‘hitter’ would throw a tennis ball at the curb to have it rebound out to the ‘fielder’
Low spots on the curb, when hit, would send grounders across the street. If fielded w/out bobbling: Out
If they went past the fielder, it was a single.
Low line drive rebounds off the curb that hit the pavement the other side of the street centerline: Single.
If caught: 1 out.
High line drives past the fielder were hits, depending on what ‘zone’ the ball landed in.
In the lawn space between the sidewalk and curb: that landing zone was a double.
On the sidewalk: a triple
Past the sidewalk and onto the front lawn of the house across the street: home run.
Geez, even when my buddy was busy, I’d take my mitt and a tennis ball, and throw at the 2 cement front porch steps.
The ball would bounce back to me as grounders; it was how I became skilled at fielding them & became a good infielder.
Every so often, the tennis ball would hit the corner face edge of the step, and come back as a line drive.
Funniest was when it would bounce or go past the steps, and hit the lower kick plate of the aluminum front screen door, resulting in a loud bang that would scare the shit out of my Dad, as he tried to relax on the couch after a long work day. He’d yell out and curse an expletive, while I giggled a bit, then resumed play.
If it happened twice in the same session, he got really pissed, and it was game over, for that day. 🙂
Kids don’t do that kind of activity much these days.
With TV, smart phones, video games, and tablets, it’s sitting on their asses and becoming obese.
I drive by parks in my old neighborhood, and they are overrun with weeds, and nobody playing on
the baseball diamonds, climbing the monkey bars, or on swingsets, if they’re still even there, and
not been taken by scrappers. Sad.
The suburban parks w/ diamonds are all organized little league teams.
We participated in that too, Pop Warner organized youth football, floor hockey at a city park gymnasium, etc.
Always doing something ACTIVE.
Thanks for the memories revisited, on this post.
Curb ball! I’ve shown that game to so many people and nobody I’ve ever met had heard of it. We also played a variation of your baseball above, but we did it in the front yard using yard to yard driveways and wiffle balls, with 6 or 7 balls and my street hockey net as a backstop (no strike zone, only swinging strikes). Then one Christmas the kid that lived behind me who I played with got a sweet little backstop with a strike zone on it!
There was also a BMX track in the woods nearby that the local kids built and maintained. Many a brutal wipe-out occurred back there, especially on the 4 foot table top…ahh good times. There was a creek back there so kids would, when forced to bring their younger siblings, set the kids too small to ride off with a bucket to catch crayfish. There was also a little family market a short ride from the trail so we’d roll over there and buy candy bars for $0.35 each or 3 for a dollar (for the full sized fuckers that cost over a dollar now) and 16 ounce glass bottle Cokes. We’d also play army: bang bang…I got you!! No you didn’t!! Then there were the nights in the summer when all the kids in the neighborhood would come out after dark and get a game of kick-the-can going with as many as 20 players – over the can on Lgr!
I don’t see kids doing any of this shit anymore…well maybe eating candy bars and drinking sodas
BobM, your childhood sounds like mine. We used to jump metal garbage cans using a wooden ramp. My brother was a daredevil and would come home all scraped up because we did it on the paved road. The first time I tried it, my brother didn’t tell me you’re supposed to pull up on the handle bars so you land on the back tire. I somersaulted with the bike. At least I was in someone’s backyard that time and not on the road. Painful but memorable. As I mentioned before, I was definitely a tomboy. At least until junior high school when I noticed boys as a girl rather than a tomboy.
I just love hearing people’s memories of their childhood and the way they entertained themselves. Because, let’s admit it, besides TV, you had to come up with your own fun the majority of the time. If you didn’t have a lot of money, like us, you didn’t have the toys and trinkets to entertain you. This current generation could the most spoiled, especially with technology.
Grew up on a real single family farm. Every summer’s day was a new adventure, especially when my city slicker cousins came from the big city (Sikeston) for a couple of weeks. We built tree houses and forts and had all sorts of wars between the girl cousins and the boy cousins. Sometimes, we had a bunch of them over for campfires at night to roast marshmallows and sing (no kidding) folk songs.
And, then, we got to go to the city to ride bicycles along paved roads and wowsa! Was that exciting!
See what I mean? Every story is unique, but kids were having fun and inventing their own fun. That is real. That is history. Granted not ancient history, but it’s the history of this nation and should be respected and heard about. This is why I love history so much. It’s the history of the individual and their families and their struggles and their good times.
I encourage everyone here to write a journal or diary to pass down to their future generations. 200 years from now, people could be reading your story. Primary sources, like diaries and journals, are respected history. You lived it. You were there. Tell your story to your future generations. You hopes, your dreams, you disappointments, your hates, how you dealt with life. Give the future a glimpse of your perspective on life in America in this generation.
I wish I had encourage my older family members to do that, but they had died or were old before I even thought about.
(Sorry for the lecture. I’m just passionate about history and continuing the thread for future generations.)
omg….forts were the best in childhood days, for imaginative minds.
The best ones were the igloos in the winter. We would stockpile snoball ammo and snacks and hide out inside for surprise strikes. LOL
If we had snow, I probably would have made an igloo. But the most we ever got was an inch or two in most cases.
We didn’t get snow like that often, but when we did, we did not let it go to waste. First light, bundle up and start building the fort… and then hope and pray school got cancelled, which, if the snow packed that well, it usually did.
I always get Sikeston and Skidmore confused and I think about the Skidmore murder. It has always fascinated me. It’s worth a post on it’s own, don’t you think?
Now that sounds intriguing, Mary Christine. Please post something on that and I will happily read.
This is what I’m talking about. Jon Townsend, from Townsends.com, talks about the importance of journals and seeing how people in the past lived.
Now why was this post down voted? I don’t understand that. She’s giving her history, nothing more.
Edit: This post is in reference to Maggie’s post on her childhood.
Don’t you remember junior high, vv? When the “mean girls” have to poke fun at everything some bullied gal does, wears and says because they got nothing?
Well, it is kind of like that here, except for one thing. I’m not in junior high and I don’t bully easily.
So, I will minimize my comments so the little girlies can find them a safe space to pout.
Agree, Maggie, but down voting someone’s childhood history is going a bit far. Some people can just be asses.
Thanks. Let’s just let this one go quietly into that good night. I’ve got healing to focus on.
Uber, yes to the BMX track, too. We all had Schwinn’s, with banana seats back then. It was a small field of undeveloped property, right next to the building we used for pitch back games. Trails, small bumps, and trees that are unforgiving to those who lost control. Frequently saw snakes, rabbits, and pheasants kicked up as we went through there.
It was a somewhat isolated area that I traveled through at times, as a shortcut on the way to school, and organized sport activities beyond it. Amazingly, there were no abductions or crimes back then that I knew of, and wouldn’t ever let a kid wander through alone nowadays. Safer times back then.
Later on, the fun bikes got upgraded to larger Schwinn workhorses for use on a paper route, for the early days of good work ethics, capitalism, earning spending money, typically for candy = cavities.
Mind you, the same area, where the brick building, the wooded bike course, and the fenced park…they all were backed up by of all things…a railroad storage yard, with 2 tracks for trains coming and going, and multiple side tracks as a depot for putting idled freight cars when not in use.
It was another area where danger was a constant, and fortunately, none of us befell any horrific accidents. Something about standing close to a freight train roaring past. Amazing feeling of slight danger, with an adrenaline respect for the vast power you can feel in that moment.
With bikes, it’s amazing I can still walk, run, and move effectively, after some of the crashes I experienced. Multiple stories there; some funny, some painful, but, I’ll leave it at that for now.
I have a knee scar that seems to possibly STILL have sand or gravel embedded… those were the days indeed.
Lgr, I love that story of your childhood. The idea of using the building’s brick wall as a catcher is great.
I used to play tennis by myself on our carport. Hit the ball into the brick wall, which was the living room wall inside, and it would come back to me as if someone was hitting back. But my mom didn’t appreciate the rattling of mirrors and pictures on the living room wall so I usually did it while she was at work. 🙂 I spent hours doing that. So fun. Sometimes you just have to come up with ways to entertain yourself.
Thx, VeeVee…Now that you mention it, I used to do the tennis ball hitting with a raquet against a wall, with a chalk line about the same height as the top of a normal tennis court net.
-Against a school wall adjacent to a parking lot. Really shitty hitters would send balls up onto the roof.
I remember climbing onto the top of an annex, using the door from top ledge as handholds, and the hinge pivots as footholds, then shimmying up a drain pipe to get to the higher roof top of the building where errant tennis balls could sometimes be found. Amazing, that I never got caught for trespassing, or slipped and fell. That building was about 2 stories high, or at least 30 feet. It was a high ceiling indoor swimming pool, at a public school.
Damn. Even more memories.
Re: bouncing balls indoors, yeah, Mom & Dad frowned upon that at my crib, too.
Another sign of the times, in those early, carefree years:
Mom used to do laundry down in the basement, where she could sneak a ciggy, out of view from us kids.
We’d play and do all kinds of games down there.
One time, she was down there, and I told her I was a good shot with my brother’s Daisy BB rifle.
I stood up a thick black magic marker on a small table against the wall across the basement, and with her watching, I took it out from across the floor on the 1st try. She howled with laughter, instead of warning about shooting my eye out with a BB gun without safety glasses.
…more innocent times, when the safety rules were a little more relaxed.
Hey, lgr… today I visit the wound dude and maybe, just maybe, get cleared for a nice cold one. Hoping your contribution shows up soon. I still have your coffee beans, both ground and whole, but I really HAVE been that ill for that long.
Don’t read into the downvote if it shows on Quinny’s site…I fat fingered that one with an errant mouse click.
Edit: I re-clicked up vote, and it corrected the error. Me likey that plug in, if that’s the correct terminology for a hat tip to TMWNN.
Also have been away from my duties and obligations, and am in catch up mode.
I will make your request a priority…I did write myself a note, to git ‘er done, but, alas,
I’ve been like a one legged man in an ass kickin’ contest the last 10 days.
Tahred, boss. Dog tired. But, still workin’.
So, hang in there…it’s not en route yet. ASAP, friend. ASAP. Feel better soon.
Cheers.
I am in no hurry, bless you. But my son heads to Maryland today and so will not be here to taste it and I wanted to impress him now that he’s graduated from college and realizes there really is more to beer than a kegger.
Maggie, hope all turns out well, and hope you get that cold one. I’m drinking one now. It’s been a long day/night.
And there’s another fine old song.
Great story, Lgr. Great, fun days back then.
Oops. forgot to remove my name.
Tucking here for discretion. I am afraid I will forget later. I’m writing in Word so as to not lose, then will edit, hopefully.
Ook lay under ary may
The 60’s vintage lawn chair should be the official symbol of America, tacky, made cheap and folds up in seconds with no real quality but very colorful. The eagle soared high above, the lawn chair collapses.
You just need vision, Bea. Life is 10% vision, 90% acting on that vision.
Larry- The people here (not all but most) are the type that would stand around and debate what color to paint the livingroom while the kitchen is on fire. Jebus H. Krist Larry, nothing short of an empty grocery store will keep them away from the latest Kardashian news flash.
Oh fuck off, you arrogant prick.
At least most don’t believe the moon is fucking see-through, moran.
Roids inflamed again Ratty? Moran?? Double, triple dog dare ya to watch RFB , the moon thing starts around 2:40 or there abouts, that phenomenon has been documented for a couple hundred years. Prove it 100% wrong RawDawg and I’ll flip to your side. I’m just the messenger.
Seriously dawg, why is everyone in such a shitty mood?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rzt6U08gzM
I already watched the stupid thing; we discussed it a year ago already. I’m not going to discuss it again. You didn’t want to hear counterarguments then, and you don’t now.
Here’s the thing: I want to like you. But you bitch.
You bitch about how stupid everyone is. You bitch about the country. You bitch about how we aren’t as enlightened as yourself. You bitch if you ask a question and don’t get a reply in 8 minutes.
You bitch. And bitch. And bitch. And bitch.
It’s truly a wonder your old lady hasn’t put a pillow over your sour puss while you sleep. You must drive her up the wall with your incessant whining and smugness.
Seriously, how are you still alive?
Rdawg, maybe he bitches here because he can’t bitch at the old lady. People need to vent. LOL.
He IS an old lady. Seriously.
Still on the Raggin’ Train? Who is an old lady? Needy much? Just stop it’s embarrassing (for you).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlGocTNmUXw
You beat me to it, white beaner!
EC- I try to have some fun and Rawdawg tries to shake me down for free alcohol and Martha blames me for everything that goes on here on the platform.
Somebody can dish it out but can’t take it and I have been polite too long. The “needy” thing the other day was the last straw.
Proud to be a white beaner…..
Rdawg sold out for Maggie’s offer of absolution over the saggy tits jibe. He sold us out for a woman’s approval. SMH.
I suddenly have a craving for white beans and ham hock with a cake of buttermilk cornbread/buttered. I’m Hongry!!
If you’re hungry, eat! You do not need to ask, Lord, should I eat? You don’t need a revelation. – Pastor Pangloss
I was nice the other day….what? It’s my job dawg. Besides you are a grumpy POS yourself. I don’t care if you bitch , we all bitch. This is the bitchiest place on the internet.
Don’t read my comments McDonald if you are so fukkin thin skinned and have such sensitive feewings.
Vic- LOL….
Don’t tell me what to read, asshole.
Send me a bottle of Blanton’s and I’ll leave you alone.
Dayum Dawg, do you know what that costs? You old boozehound, I’ll send you a bottle of Ripple.
Fine. You drive a hard bargain. Knob Creek, then.
Shit, is selling protection even legal on a blog?
Vargas- That is an old Rdawg trick, that varmint starts a fight then asks ya to send him expensive hooch, it’s not protection…..he is just a free shitter.
I know most of his scams, I just humor him. 🙂
you are forgiven for the saggy tits comment….
“you are forgiven for the saggy tits comment….”
Sheesh. Took you long enough.
Screwey’s in St. Louie tending to a snake bite on her heel.
If the sun is out, it seems the sparkles on the moon that look like stars would be reflections from the sunlight. Or did I miss the point?
You missed the point he was making that those twinkles are stars shining through the Swiss cheese.
But that’s what I was explaining. You can’t see through the moon. It’s shine from the sun. Even I can see that and I was horrible at science.
Who are the Kardashians? Just kidding. 🙂 I know who they are, but only because of the news, believe it or not.
I cut the tip of my pinky off in the hinges of one of those when it collapsed.
My mom put the piece and my pinky in the same bag of ice and marched me down the street to a heart surgeons house.
He sewed it back on in his kitchen.
Probably Canada’s first pinky transplant.
LOL. Those chairs could be dangerous as they aged. I know someone that sat down and went straight through the webbing. Not a pretty sight because she was rather large and wearing a dress.
“rather large”…quite courteous and sensitively correct there, babe.
In attempting humor, I’d have said a large barge named Marge tried to drift into port docking and the aft section of the vessel took out the pier, safety strap webbing was faintly heard yelling, from being ripped apart from the force of excessive application of load, to an undersized, low load bearing , light duty class structure.
Or, “some fat ass just wrecked my lounge chair! WTF??”
BTW…Marge is shorthand for Margaret, not Martha. Ahem.
Your funny, lager. Maggie is gonna have your ass. We bros have to stick together to blunt her assault.
Lugar is playing in dangerous territory. He must have a deathwish…….
No sir. Clarification disclaimer, that I was not referring to anyone’s ass in particular. Rather, to a generic large Marge on the heels of Vixen’s funny comment.
I wasn’t going to wax funny on the part about the offender wearing a dress during the mishap of the destroyed webbing lawn chair.
It was probably a quite humorous event to witness, putting aside the probable fact that viewing some aspect of the wrecking ball might have required a rinsing of the eyeballs with Chlorox afterwards. Sometimes, repulsive sights cannot be unseen. I’ve had my share, as both offender and as a victim-witness.
Pero, me gusta este lugar. y amigos buenos, tambien.
aw man, I’m with ya. the gals take offense to words at times, even when kidding or humor is the intent. I think someone got a bee in her bonnet when one was describing the perfect breasts, strictly his opinion, and it was deemed insulting to experienced gals who might have nourished their newborn childrens au natural.
Yet, the years and history take their toll on both males and females.
Body part criticism is verbotten, as I learned w/ me gal pal years ago.
They’ll fire back, in no uncertain terms. And I’m no Jack LaLane.
If she wants my ass, there ain’t much there to have; ol skinny lil’ dude that I am.
I do skate, though, which firms it up quite well, as our Canadian buds know.
This caboose is off limits to other bros, though. Nuh-uh. Homey don’t play that.
Worst is rejection; cuts like a knife.
btw…i’m enjoying all the samplings of latino moniker alternates put forth.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJ9QhltvaFo
Thanks amigo.
LOL.
Lawn chair, and a far superior chair to today’s fold up uncomfortable crap chairs and their damn storage bags. I own 4 of this classic style, One I rescued from a trash pile, all it needed was new webbing, which you can still buy. Someone else trash was my treasure, I sat in this one just last night. Two of the others have a slightly rounded back frame, far more comfortable than the straight back style. If you can find some of those, they are the gold standard.
Sure, this style chair may not pack as small, but who cares, the trade off for not having to mess around with the damn storage bag from the China chair is well worth it. Trips to the river, birthday parties, etc, I toss a couple in the trunk and can be seated at a moments notice, when I’m ready to go, stand up, fold up and I’m on my way. My china crap chairs are hanging in the garage gathering dust and have not been used in years. (Since I came to the conclusion they suck and the webbing chairs are far superior in every way)
I agree, Dan. Still have some myself. Instead of gathering dust, maybe you should sell those China chairs to people who think they are just the right thing for them and earn some dough for yourself.
https://www.walmart.com/ip/RIO-BRANDS-LLC-BY055-0138-Blue-Web-Fold-Chair/44802241
Oh for gebus’s sake, just do a gargle search.
that pos non aluminum frame with Plastic arm rests, surely you jest!?
That crap show of a chair would not survive the shipping, let alone actual use.
We used them as wiffle ball strike zones in the mid sixties….
I didn’t know what wiffle ball was until I got to junior high. We always played hardball in the neighborhood. But in junior high, the gym coach would give us the equipment, tell us to play wiffle ball or basketball or volleyball or kickball or whatever, while she sat on the bleacher and watched. That was gym class in junior high.
You sound like Mrs. nkit. You couldn’t hit a curve ball if you’re life depended on it, but you were bad to the bone..smooch…
I couldn’t hit anything now, I’m sure. But back then, I could hit a curve ball. I was a good hitter and runner but couldn’t catch well. I admit I was too scared of the ball hitting me. But not while batting, only in the field. I guess that’s part of the girl in me.
I still love you, Marla Hooch…
You’re great nkit. Especially with your gifs. Always look forward to your contributions to the Friday Fail and Sunday Funnies. Especially love the animals.
People are getting along too well on this site. time to stir some shit.
Lol…and you’re just the man to do it, hombddddre!
(how the hell else can you spell a spoken, trilled R, w/o the squiggly above it? (~)
Me keyboard skills w alt language punctuation is lacking.
Ayudeme por favor.
I know not how to use a tilde and don’t bother to put accent marks on Spanish words. This is America, speak Spanglish!
I concur, Vic. Hope tmwnn can give kit a solution to the .gif obstacle shackling and frustrating him, with the new plug in attributes.
Persistence, kit.
Problems are learning possibilities.
Yet, I can appreciate the discouragement and reluctance to keep trying, with limited success. Persistence anyway.
Love will find a way.
A 2-fer…
Is there a problem posting .gifs?
That is not a between the ears problem?
Hope nKit checks in here, and can respond to the man’s hilarious comment.
I haven’t dabbled with posting gif files. Maybe I’d better mind my own bidness on this topic, but the Friday Fail fans are legion in their appreciation of good content.
Laughed
There has been for the last couple of weeks. The new comment plug-in may be better than the old comment plug-in, but at least the old comment plug in accepted 99.9% of all gifs posted. The new comment plug-in? Not so much. It accepts about 55% of the gifs that I post on Friday Fail (You remember that?) It’s nice if I don’t have to plug the URL in a box and then hit “Post Comment”, but if it doesn’t appear, I don’t see that as an approvement. What did you save me? Five seconds for worse technology?I don’t blame you. It really was broken and needed to be fixed.
You know TMWNN. Two weeks ago I posted some gifs on Friday Fail that came up as “awaiting moderation.” No one saw them… They did not post. Today, I went back into the archives, if you will, and looked at Friday Fail from two weeks ago, and the gifs that would not post then are up there now with nary a single vote. I’m a computer idiot, but I find that strange. Why is the new plug-in so touchy? The old plug-in was always ready to accept..anything.
Come on Josey. Help me out.
Can’t fix generalities like “55%”. Need a specific example of a single not-working .gif and I’ll try to either fix what’s not working or tell you why it doesn’t work.
When my son said “Could you be a little more specific than my email isn’t working, Mom?,” he said it with that same tone. Rolled his eyes, sat down and fixed it.
Relatable. The IT guru that solves our PC problems at work is pretty cool, but when describing a frustrated attempt at something unfulfilled,
he’ll roll eyes, grin, and utter: “You sure it’s the computer? It’s most likely User Error” Good, knowledgeable troubleshooters are appreciated.
Experts have little patience for novices, especially if they remain novices after years of ‘experience’.
I’ve been an impatient hypocritical mentor to novices on some things, but more often I’m the mocked novice for having insufficient expertise at things.
Bottom line: If you don’t know, it’s not a fault. Simply inexperience.
We’re gonna breach the hundy mark yet, on a thread about lawn chairs.
Many twists, turns, and detours, but what the hell. Easily entertained.
The outside world can be much worse.
It’s an “ID10T error” is what I always hear when I ask for help with a problem I can’t fix myself and yeah, the eye roll. Priceless
So, I joined the USAF and literally got engaged to the tallest guy in the class from Boston because he was different than anyone I’d ever met and he talked really weird. We had nothing in common, so, of course, I jumped right in.
Fast forward to parents meet and greet.
His folks were supposed to stay at Sikeston’s Drury complex until we arrived. But, they got there early and asked around and “found” my family farm, which had/has a farmhouse built in 1921 still intact (sort of… remodeled and patched up here there and everywhere). One step up to the “porch.” I had no idea they had invaded my parents home to meet them ahead of the planned meeting.
I had met them. They lived in a small suburb of Lebanon, NH, known as snob hill. ‘nuf said.
After a rainy summer, there was a plethora of reptiles everywhere on that farm, but mostly, there were frogs living and breeding under the front porch, as they always had, all my life. My mother, not prepared to welcome fancy guests (let’s face it…they were fancy), tried her best to keep the cacophony at bay while getting up every few minutes to toss the few little frogs sneaking in under the front porch door (let’s face it… from the front porch!) out into the yard. She told me later she enjoyed their visit, but they could not have picked a worse time to come unexpected.
So, for many years I was embarrassed at my in-laws because they’d “seen” where I’d grown up. They said patronizing things like “you farmers are the salt of the earth” and “why, your mother was just charming!”
Then, I divorced the bastard and realized how very rude the snobs from snob hill were to just drop in on my parents like that without warning and then, later, to mildly poke fun at me for growing up in such a home.
Perspective. Get some.
Is why I’m saving my front porch story. Haha
What? No throwing a tennis ball against your front steps?
We didn’t have a front step except into the door. The porch was flat on the ground.
I have a very amusing story to tell about front porches flat on the ground (or slightly elevated) I will tell you when I can. It is actually time to do rounds. I’m being chauffeured around the animal pens to say hello to my little friends.
Shoot, I missed all the fun. Almost 100 comments for a picture of a lawn chair and a question.
I think Nkit and Vix maybe should have got a room last night.
I still have a scar on the back of my calf from one of the chaise type chairs. I sat down on it just perfectly wrong. It folded up and pinched my calf and hurt like hell. I must have been about 9 or 10 at the time.
Hang around. There are a couple of vultures perched with their tiny peckers on the down thumb waiting for my front porch story.
I got the 100 banger again, MC. You go ahead and take last word. Deliver a nice typo.
100. Now I can rest.