When I was a kid

[Tobin S.]

When I was a kid:

I thought all dogs were boys and all cats were girls.

I was afraid of the dark.

I discovered the Monkees in my parents' album collection in 1981 and thought it was new music. Killer stuff, too. I must have played "Last Train to Clarksville" 20 times in a row one day.

I could recite the spooky guy voice-over (Vincent Price?) from Michael Jackson's "Thriller" word for word.

I wrecked on my bike on a regular basis.

I read Mark Twain's "Huckleberry Finn" and it's probably the reason why I'm here now instead of Free Republic.

I caught snakes, crawdads, and minnows from a creek that ran by our house. I kept one of the snakes for a pet and put him in a large jar that I left out on the back porch, much to my mother's distaste. Somehow, the snake escaped (dad?). It was just a small garter snake. A few months later the neighbor lady discovered a two foot long garter snake in her laundry room, much to her horror. Whether it was my beloved Burt, we'll never know, but I'd like to think it was. That woman was mean.

When things got rough at the house, I lost myself in Walter Farley's "Black Stallion" series of books. Oh, how I wished I was the kid in those books. It was like Farley wrote them just for me.

The scene in the original "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" movie where the fat kid gets sucked up in a vacuum pipe while slurping on the pond of chocolate freaked me the fuck out. I could identify with that kid.

I sucked at baseball, but played anyway.

I cried when the Bengals lost the 1982 Super Bowl.

I watched the original Friday the 13th movie with my mom when I was 10. It took me a while to get that one out in therapy. :D

I played with matches.

Starting when I was around 6, my inner world started to take on a life of its own. I would get lost for hours in my imaginary world where I was cool and had friends and no parents. I lived in that world quite a bit until I was 20, and became unable to distinguish it from reality. The two worlds mixed and I was lost for the next 10 years.

[petronius]

1. "Darkness falls across the land..."

I had that one too, although I only remember the first few lines now... :)

(I was also pulling for the Bengals, despite being a Californian.)

[Tobin S.]

2. Here we go. I admit I had to look it up.

Darkness falls across the land
The midnight hour is close at hand
Creatures crawl in search of blood
To terrorize y'alls neighborhood

(I'm gonna thrill ya tonight, ooh baby
I'm gonna thrill ya tonight, oh darlin'
Thriller night, baby, ooh!)

The foulest stench is in the air
The funk of forty thousand years
And grizzly ghouls from every tomb
Are closing in to seal your doom

And though you fight to stay alive
Your body starts to shiver
For no mere mortal can resist
The evil of the thriller

[ThomCat]

3. Many people Still think dogs are boys and cats are girls.

Most of our friends who come over to visit think all 3 of our cats are "her" and all three of our dogs are "him".

No matter how often we tell them the names of each pet, they don't get it. I don't know why people think this way.

For the record Dogs: 1 boy (Jack) and 2 girls (Molly and Coco). Cats: 1 boy (Silver) and 2 girls (Milly Dear and Dora).

[Tobin S.]

4. Good to see you ThomCat

I think that "dogs are boys and cats are girls" thing goes back to stereotypical views some people have about males and females, where a dog's behavior might be seen as more masculine and a cat's as more feminine. I'm just guessing, though. I think that was why I thought of them in that way when I was a kid.

[ThomCat]

10. Hi Tobin S.

I am not sure if it is personality. But you may be on to something when you say it's based on stereotypes.

I think people think that boys have dogs and girls have cats, so maybe they go with that association. :shrug:

[Curmudgeoness]

5. Sounds like a pretty normal childhood. I think we all can relate

and I smiled at some of the things that were so common in all of our lives back then. Sorry that you got lost for a while and glad you are back now. This is a rather pleasant thread, reminding me of some of the sillier things I did when I was a kid.

Silliest thing that pops into my mind was the doll house that I populated with Japanese Beetles, and played with it for hours, putting them to bed, and having tea parties with them. Ick, I can't imagine that today, I freak at even getting near them now.

[Tobin S.]

9. I was hoping I'd get a smile or two here

For some reason I was thinking about all of that stuff the other day and then I thought it would make for a good DU thread. I wish a lot of things were different from back then, but there's some good stuff back there, too.

I don't know why a lot of people develop an aversion to critters as they get older. I wouldn't even think about playing with a garter snake now days.

[likesmountains 52]

22. I used to pull the legs off bugs and spiders , then lay them out on leaves, line

them up in rows and play "bug hospital". I grew up to be a nurse!

[Tuesday Afternoon]

6. I like the way you say

I played with matches.

:D

[Tobin S.]

11. hahahahaha

Didn't you? My step-dad smoked and there was always some matches or a lighter laying around.

[elleng]

7. Love you now, loved you then, Tobin S!!!

:hug:

[Tobin S.]

12. Thanks, ellen

:hug:

[Heidi]

8. All except for the Bengals grief, you and I could be fraternal twins.

But don't be frightened by this fact. I'm really a pretty normal person (like you). :hug:

[Tobin S.]

13. Oh nooooooo!

Not like Heidi! :D

You're a good person to be like. :hug:

[Call Me Wesley]

14. When I was a kid,

I didn't only play with matches but soon figured out that if you fill the lawnmower's gasoline into one of these



you had the coolest flamethrower ever. And yes, I have some burn marks on my body, but fire always fascinated me. ;)

Oh, and hitting fast forward on an old dictaphone with the volume cranked up while you and your friends explore an old abandoned building will really scare the kid whose parents are big into esoteric stuff.

[Tobin S.]

15. I was a teenager before I got into mass destruction

But I'm a late bloomer. :D

[alphafemale]

24. Aquanet + lighter

FwwooOOOSSSHHHHhhh!!!!

[kimi]

16. Ah, "The Black Stallion"!

I never could have been that kid, cause I wasn't a boy, but I read each and every one of the books. Loved the one where he went to Arabia or someplace and met the desert tribe. I think that happened, the memory's not as good as it once was.

I did the crawdad and minnows thing too. Spent hours down at the creek. Gathered up frog eggs, too, they were cool to me back then, those slimy all stuck together thingies. Yeesh, the thought of them makes me ill now.

Yes, you made me smile, too! :)

[femmocrat]

19. Same here! I read every "Black Stallion" book in our school library.

Long time ago, though....I was a real horse-crazy kid even though we lived in the city. :)

[Rabrrrrrr]

17. I remember double feature movies with a newsreel and a cartoon or two.

[Rabrrrrrr]

18. And I remember Mom saying stuff like "Go outside!! And don't come back 'til supper".

And we never had to ask her "What should we do?" We just went to a friend's house or friends' houses, rounded up the kids, and invented games, played baseball or kickball, or rode our bikes around. When we got thirsty, we'd go to whoever's home was closest and their mom would give us Kool-aid or juice and a snack, and we'd go out again.

And none of them ever felt like they would die if they couldn't text us while we were out. They'd actually wait until we got home, and then ask what adventures we had that day when we ate supper together without the TV on, no radio blaring, and no one checking email. By God, we actually sat there and ate and talked, face to face. Totally fucking analog.

[pink-o]

21. Yeah, well Rabrrrrrr, if Tobin discovered a Monkees LP in 81

...and he was still a kid, he's probably a LOT younger than we are:toast:

Only sayin' cuz your childhood sounds like mine, and I was a kid in the 60s. IOW, I had a crush on the Monkees when I was 12 in 1967 and they first had their TV show.

Best Monkees story ever: some clueless promoter in 68 put Jimi Hendrix on their tour bill as the warm-up act. My friend got dragged along with his younger sis and parents to see the gig in the Bay Area, and Jimi corrupted him for life! Been a stratocaster man ever since.

[frogmarch]

20. Wonderful list!

I loved it. You should include it in a book you name When I Was a Kid.

As for me, I thought that dragonflies could sew my mouth shut.

[Kat45]

26. We knew those insects as "sewing needles"

Like that was their name.

[kimi]

23. And "Kick the Can"!!

Does anyone besides me remember playing "Kick the Can" at night for hours in the summertime??

Wow. It was such fun. "Olly Olly In Come Free".

I know. I'm dating myself. Still, what fun, late nights, humid nights in rural Virginia, parents out sipping cocktails and the kids going wild and the dogs following them around the neighborhood. Nice tunes, too.

Good times, good times.

[alphafemale]

25. "Huck Finn"

That poor, illiterate boy makes perhaps one of the most profound choices in all of literature.

He believed he was going to go to hell for not turning in his friend, N-Jim, and he consciously chose to do that anyway.

[Lindsey]

27. I played with matches too. n/t

[alphafemale]

28. I played with lighters and WD-40 nt