I feel like I left it all on the field. I wasn't even a dare devil, but I broke more than a few bones. Ribs, wrist, ankle, several fingers. Tearing ACLs is where I drew the line. Some stuff doesn't heal.
It's still good to have a sense of what is possible if necessary.
libraries, arcades, malls, bowling alleys, pool halls, swimming pools, console game systems, video rental stores, bikes, parks, dungeons and dragons. There was a bit of things to occupy time.
libraries, arcades, malls, bowling alleys, pool halls,public swimming pools, console game systems, video rental stores, bikes, parks, dungeons and dragons.
Not every kid had money growing up and most home entertainment was expensive.
dungeons and dragons manuals were at my library and arcades had 10 tokens for a dollar. I was able to make enough collecting aluminum cans. libraries also had movies but yeah you neede a friend with a console or vcr which I had. bowling and pool were more high school things when I was able to make that sweet sweet minimum wage. Also when out of funds it was still fun to watch people play at arcades and sometimes you might find an errant token on the ground.
we did not have a per can thing but you could get money per pound. it was a lot of cans. likely made as much finding coins on the ground while looking for cans. newspaperstands and payphones were good for a quarter fairly often.
Suddenly, I'm transported and hear the sounds of Billy Ray Cyrus singing Achy Breaky Heart live on TNN emanating from the open trailer door. Also, I'm a fraud. I've never even been to England.
definitely. its in my blood. My wife and I grew up on sorta the two extremes of the metro area. me close and her far. we each prefer to go further. me to the city and her to the country so we live the middle. Just close enough for me to take public trans to work downtown.
Nah, I get it. I live in the city now. But growing up, as a kid, you just have to have fun in some way or the other. The suburbs and the rural areas dreamed about those things you listed, but the more open spaces can also offer fun activities with as little as a ball or a day of rain. But you had to live in the season, I guess.
where I lived would be called the suburbs but it was close to the metro area. Guess its far burbs vs close burbs things. Honestly feels like nowadays the burbs never end and it drives me crazy how far you have to be to see cornfields now.
We jumped off buoys and navigation markers as a kid.
Sure it was water below but under the water β¦ the supports and ladders of the buoys, mangled barnacle mess.
And the ospreys.
Goddamn did an angry osprey make jumping off the buoy that much more exciting, a little bit of βand maybe weβll get attacked by a raptorβ excitementβ¦.
Comrade here forgetting that not only do sharks predate dinosaurs, but - unlike birds - have hardly changed.
Orcas are still kings of the oceans, and it seems they've finally decided they've had enough of our shenanigans, so maybe we should be more worried about them that either of the others.
modern theory is that this was just their skull, and that they had skin over it:
I was curious about that! My recent trip to the field museum in Chicago indicated that they believed the armor to be external but it would make more sense for it to be beneath the skin if there's not evidence to suggest otherwise
Edit: Also turtles are fucking badass. You do not want to meet a snapping turtle on the Riverwalk!
There's so much media representing Dunk with external armor, it's going to take forever and cost a lot to clean everything up. AFAIK, the "internal" theory only became dominant recently, and I think it might have been because they found evidence of skin patterning in a recent fossil? I might be conflating that with the (also recent) Ankylosaurus find, which had spectacular preservation of skin patterns.
Completely off-topic, but apparently in UK English they pronounce buoy like "boy", which, like, phonetically is fine but it's definitely wrong. Or feels wrong. "We jumped off boys. " Utter madness
Maybe it is just the angle, but why are the kids jumping out those windows and not the ones that seem to be directly over the mattresses? I guess this shows my age: my first reaction was to ensure these kiddos were safe! It does look wicked fun!!
You say that based on Doppler effect or you have more frames?
He's clearly facing a diagonal that will lead to the mattresses. People usually jump on the direction they are facing, but there isn't enough information on the image to tell if he's doing the things people do most of the time or if he's laughing after jumping to his death in a very unusual position.
See? You are the one I want to have around when I'm doing these kind of things. You are completely right, those other windows aren't as easy or safe! I just didn't notice and would have fallen to my death with the sash most likely. Having smart friends who think more clearly than "yes, let me do something dangerous for fun!" is awesome and the reason I have to still alive.
I suspect they jumped from one more floor up and pushed off hard toward the landing zone. Ballsy maneuver either way, you slip wrong on that jump probably your last.
Well shit, 80s kid here and we kinda did this. We had a pile of old mattresses and cushions. The mattresses were the super cheap and crappy kind with no springs so were actually really good for landing on. The ground floor of our house was maybe 6ft higher than the back garden and we had a kinda small raised patio at the back door with steps down into the garden. We piled up the mattresses on the lawn, beyond the flower bed. And threw ourselves off the wall at the edge of the patio down onto the mattresses. Lots of fun.
My siblings and I used those same mattresses to slide down our stairs, crashing into them at the bottom. That was fun too.
I also remember finding these long smooth metal sheets somewhere and using them to make a slide down our garden steps. Then using a sledge sliding down it and crashing into the mattresses.
slightly (or absolutely) unrelated story, but I remember we built cross tracks in the forest for ourselves and our crappy bikes (I'm talking early-mid 80s on the other side of the Iron Courtain; the best bike I had was a rusty Csepel BMX, then my father's Sputnik race bike). once we decided fuck it why don't we do the same in our own street (a mud/gravel street at that time), and took shovels and stuff and destroyed the street. when the first adult residents got home, they were very pissed for some reason and commandeered us to restore the street. I remember the feeling of betrayal / injustice to this day! :-D
It's a form of socialised healthcare where the government negotiates the prices with medical companies. The government of an entire country negotiating prices carries way more bargaining power than individuals so it means the prices are much lower. Combine that with taxes paying for healthcare and you have a nice healthcare system
Ashfield Valley estate in Rochdale. It was completed in 1969 and while it was initially popular, like many housing estates at the time, it quickly declined and by the 1980s was a haven for drug users, glue sniffers and squatters as well as being home to a large number of families, OAP's and single people. In January 1987, frozen water pipes cracked, flooding 15 of the 26 blocks. Many of the tenants were evacuated, with some having to sleep in a local church. 23 blocks were demolished in 1992.
My mattresses were just stuffing. The spring board under it had the springs. Do you have springs in your mattress now. I went memory foam and air combo decades ago so im not sure what a typical one has now.
Personally mine (which I got from a local mattress manufacturer) has springs in it and sits on a "box spring" which as far as I can tell is just a platform for the mattress to sit upon and contains no actual springs
90 replies
I miss being indestructible.
I think I just put my back out seeing that jpeg
I feel like I left it all on the field. I wasn't even a dare devil, but I broke more than a few bones. Ribs, wrist, ankle, several fingers. Tearing ACLs is where I drew the line. Some stuff doesn't heal.
It's still good to have a sense of what is possible if necessary.
No parents. No Internet. Very limited home entertainment. Full boredom.
Growing up Gen-X was like a perpetual episode of Jackass starring The Goonies.
libraries, arcades, malls, bowling alleys, pool halls, swimming pools, console game systems, video rental stores, bikes, parks, dungeons and dragons. There was a bit of things to occupy time.
Not every kid had money growing up and most home entertainment was expensive.
dungeons and dragons manuals were at my library and arcades had 10 tokens for a dollar. I was able to make enough collecting aluminum cans. libraries also had movies but yeah you neede a friend with a console or vcr which I had. bowling and pool were more high school things when I was able to make that sweet sweet minimum wage. Also when out of funds it was still fun to watch people play at arcades and sometimes you might find an errant token on the ground.
I moved from a 10c per can state to a 0c per can state. It drastically affected my income as a kid.
we did not have a per can thing but you could get money per pound. it was a lot of cans. likely made as much finding coins on the ground while looking for cans. newspaperstands and payphones were good for a quarter fairly often.
Holy shit, you had public swimming pools? Everything in my area... Accounting for inflation... Would be like 70 bucks a month
The city guy just showed up!
You guys ever just throw pinecones at each other?
Brother we used to have brick fights at the derelict hospital and my mum had zero clue where I was all day
Well, not exactly "pine"cones, but let's call it the Mayan version of pinecones.
I've stepped barefoot on a lychee before and I don't think I'd like having one thrown in my face
That's the fun thing! (For a kid that just wouldn't think about it.)
EDIT: also, these are guasima fruits, not lychees, just in case you are mixing them up.
Yeah I don't know much about fruits. They look like they'd hurt more than lychees because they're pointier
Y'all better watch out, I just picked up one of those pinecones that hasn't opened up yet
Suddenly, I'm transported and hear the sounds of Billy Ray Cyrus singing Achy Breaky Heart live on TNN emanating from the open trailer door. Also, I'm a fraud. I've never even been to England.
definitely. its in my blood. My wife and I grew up on sorta the two extremes of the metro area. me close and her far. we each prefer to go further. me to the city and her to the country so we live the middle. Just close enough for me to take public trans to work downtown.
Nah, I get it. I live in the city now. But growing up, as a kid, you just have to have fun in some way or the other. The suburbs and the rural areas dreamed about those things you listed, but the more open spaces can also offer fun activities with as little as a ball or a day of rain. But you had to live in the season, I guess.
where I lived would be called the suburbs but it was close to the metro area. Guess its far burbs vs close burbs things. Honestly feels like nowadays the burbs never end and it drives me crazy how far you have to be to see cornfields now.
Hell, even if you lived in the burbs a lot of those things are still premium priced.
Elder millennial, youngest sibling here:
A gen x older brother was a master class in being a crash test dummy
Thatcher was PM, if you were a kid then youβd be throwing yourself off a building too.
You say that as if it's got any better.
Now we've got Thatcher wearing a tie and running the labour party...
For a second timeβ¦
We jumped off buoys and navigation markers as a kid.
Sure it was water below but under the water β¦ the supports and ladders of the buoys, mangled barnacle mess.
And the ospreys.
Goddamn did an angry osprey make jumping off the buoy that much more exciting, a little bit of βand maybe weβll get attacked by a raptorβ excitementβ¦.
Comrade here jumping into an ocean full of sharks and is worried about being attacked by birds...
Veeeeery few sharks in the bay I was jumping into.
Osprey on the other hand will actively rip your face off for getting too close to their nest.
Very few sharks implies some sharks which are way too many for this guy.
I donβt fuck with apex predators.
Comrade over here forgetting that birds descended from dinosaurs.
Comrade here forgetting that not only do sharks predate dinosaurs, but - unlike birds - have hardly changed.
Orcas are still kings of the oceans, and it seems they've finally decided they've had enough of our shenanigans, so maybe we should be more worried about them that either of the others.
They at least lost their armor. Imagine a shark with one of these covering its head!
Oooh, what's best about Dunkleosteus is that modern theory is that this was just their skull, and that they had skin over it:
Less bizarre looking than earlier renditions, which made them look a bit like turtles, but still... bad ass!
I was curious about that! My recent trip to the field museum in Chicago indicated that they believed the armor to be external but it would make more sense for it to be beneath the skin if there's not evidence to suggest otherwise
Edit: Also turtles are fucking badass. You do not want to meet a snapping turtle on the Riverwalk!
There's so much media representing Dunk with external armor, it's going to take forever and cost a lot to clean everything up. AFAIK, the "internal" theory only became dominant recently, and I think it might have been because they found evidence of skin patterning in a recent fossil? I might be conflating that with the (also recent) Ankylosaurus find, which had spectacular preservation of skin patterns.
I too was a bay child. We'd use the barnacle covered chains holding the buoys in their place to pull ourselves down to the bottom for whatever reason
I have a scar on my left leg from where I slipped on the ladder abd sliced my calf open on barnacles.
It bled till it didnβt. And I survived.
Iβm pretty sure Iβd die of some terrible infection if it had happened today.
Completely off-topic, but apparently in UK English they pronounce buoy like "boy", which, like, phonetically is fine but it's definitely wrong. Or feels wrong. "We jumped off boys. " Utter madness
Absolute bastards, idk how the English could ruin English so muchβ¦.
How the fuck do you say buoy then?
Boo-ee, rhymes with bluey. Before you say anything about that word not being phonetic, one, I already said that, and, two, Lieutenant.
This is what happens when you cancel Doctor Who, BBC.
Ah yes, back in the good olβ days when natural selection was still a thing
You say that but remarkably few of us died and in retrospect I wonder how.
With the emphasis on βfewβ
As we say here: "A bisserl schwund is imma." Translation: "There is always a little bit of loss."
It still is! It's just now those kids also film themselves doing it on YouTube.
Maybe it is just the angle, but why are the kids jumping out those windows and not the ones that seem to be directly over the mattresses? I guess this shows my age: my first reaction was to ensure these kiddos were safe! It does look wicked fun!!
They aren't falling straight down.
Those windows seem easier (even safer) to climb than the others where they would have to support themselves on the frame.
What about the kid who is actively falling straight down?
You say that based on Doppler effect or you have more frames?
He's clearly facing a diagonal that will lead to the mattresses. People usually jump on the direction they are facing, but there isn't enough information on the image to tell if he's doing the things people do most of the time or if he's laughing after jumping to his death in a very unusual position.
I don't know what's going on haha but it looks to me like the kid is jumping beside the mattresses which is kinda funny.
See? You are the one I want to have around when I'm doing these kind of things. You are completely right, those other windows aren't as easy or safe! I just didn't notice and would have fallen to my death with the sash most likely. Having smart friends who think more clearly than "yes, let me do something dangerous for fun!" is awesome and the reason I have to still alive.
They might be trying to do a roll on impact, so horizontal momentum might be intended.
Yeah! That's even more fun!
I suspect they jumped from one more floor up and pushed off hard toward the landing zone. Ballsy maneuver either way, you slip wrong on that jump probably your last.
Well shit, 80s kid here and we kinda did this. We had a pile of old mattresses and cushions. The mattresses were the super cheap and crappy kind with no springs so were actually really good for landing on. The ground floor of our house was maybe 6ft higher than the back garden and we had a kinda small raised patio at the back door with steps down into the garden. We piled up the mattresses on the lawn, beyond the flower bed. And threw ourselves off the wall at the edge of the patio down onto the mattresses. Lots of fun.
My siblings and I used those same mattresses to slide down our stairs, crashing into them at the bottom. That was fun too.
I also remember finding these long smooth metal sheets somewhere and using them to make a slide down our garden steps. Then using a sledge sliding down it and crashing into the mattresses.
I miss those days.
Did you ever jump apparently 5+ stories up, trying to hit a 3ft/1m-wide target?
Oh all the time. Sometimes while riding a tiger. It was the style at the time.
slightly (or absolutely) unrelated story, but I remember we built cross tracks in the forest for ourselves and our crappy bikes (I'm talking early-mid 80s on the other side of the Iron Courtain; the best bike I had was a rusty Csepel BMX, then my father's Sputnik race bike). once we decided fuck it why don't we do the same in our own street (a mud/gravel street at that time), and took shovels and stuff and destroyed the street. when the first adult residents got home, they were very pissed for some reason and commandeered us to restore the street. I remember the feeling of betrayal / injustice to this day! :-D
That would be a hard pass for me.
Bless single payer healthcare.
Apparently it allows you jump out of windows onto a pile of mattresses.
Single payer is a system where healthcare is paid for a single public authority, not private and not a combination of both.
It's a form of socialised healthcare where the government negotiates the prices with medical companies. The government of an entire country negotiating prices carries way more bargaining power than individuals so it means the prices are much lower. Combine that with taxes paying for healthcare and you have a nice healthcare system
Edit: in some cases it's just one guy paying, in this case it's Alan: https://www.thebeaverton.com/2017/08/poll-canadians-love-single-payer-healthcare-except-alan-single-payer/
We used to jump off the roof into a snowbank. Then when the snow got deep enough we would just sled off the roof onto the snowbank.
Comment from an old reddit post:
ah, the British Space Program of the eighties!...
No wonder they didn't get to the moon, using mattresses instead of trampolines.
This is why video games are important.
That's crazy!
But it looks like crazy fun...
1980s England wasn't the most sheltered place I guess
1980s everywhere
Really? Given your history, West Germany as well?
Everywhere, really.
Well at least the places i went to school. Germany ( It was West Germany back then ), Brazil, USA and Colombia.
I feel like all the sheltering came around in the 90s.
I mean, I'm guessing some of the 90s sheltering was maybe in response to the crazy 80s
And then after playing head inside and watch maβs Corrie and make her a proper cuppa I remember these days I do
What's the spring situation like here? Did mattresses not have them back then? Have they been removed?
My mattresses were just stuffing. The spring board under it had the springs. Do you have springs in your mattress now. I went memory foam and air combo decades ago so im not sure what a typical one has now.
Personally mine (which I got from a local mattress manufacturer) has springs in it and sits on a "box spring" which as far as I can tell is just a platform for the mattress to sit upon and contains no actual springs
I did this in the 70s!!!!!!! good old days :)
Holy shit!!! We did that too! And we did it inside the building too.
I did that until i knocked a kidney stone loose at 14
Good, clean fun.
We used to do this off roofs into the snow as a kid.