We recently asked older adults in the BuzzFeed Community to tell us about the things that were just part of everyday life a few decades ago — and the responses were a lot. From rifle clubs in elementary schools to chasing pesticide trucks on a bike for fun, here’s what people remembered:
1. “In the fifth and sixth grade, we had an in-school rifle club. When classes ended, and all the other students were on their buses, we’d unlock the armory inside the gym and set up target traps, lighting, and a full rolling rack of .22-caliber rifles. One of our fifth-grade teachers was the coach, and for the next hour we fired hundreds of rounds — nobody ever got hurt!”
2. In the mid-’60s I would walk home from school, grab my rifle — yes, my parents trusted a 12-year-old with a rifle — and ride my bike to the edge of town to hunt squirrels.”
—Anonymous, 72, Male, Tennessee
3. “Having BB gun or bottle rocket fights, usually with those Red Ryder BB guns. We’d have teams of four or five kids on each side, build forts, and have at it. Luckily, no serious harm.”
—Anonymous, 62, Male, Oklahoma
4. “My dad was a farmer and we had fields scattered around, but we had to move equipment and vehicles from field to field. Often the pickup would be two or three miles away when we got equipment moved. My dad would ask 8-year-old me if I wanted to drive, and would send me on my merry way to get the farm pickup and drive it on county roads to the field where we were working. I also started driving a tractor 15 hours a day at age 12.”
—Anonymous, 68, Male, Texas
5. “Our little country town had a ‘mosquito truck’ that would drive through town pumping huge clouds of god-knows-what out the back to kill mosquitoes. We would ride our bikes behind it, breathing it all in.”
6. “It was common for my uncles to drive my grandmother’s vehicle within city limits unaccompanied in the 1970s, with their little sister. I’m speaking at the ages of 12 and 10. This was still standard fare in the late 1980s when I was little — the only difference is that it was my 11-year-old cousin instead of my uncle driving. NEVER have I EVER had such a scary ride to the public pool.”
—Anonymous, 45, Female, Oklahoma
7. “I was little in the early ’70s. My parents still drove cars with bench seats, and I’d sit in the front seat between my parents with no seat belt. Also, if my siblings weren’t in the car, I’d lie across the back window, and when they came to a stop I’d roll off the shelf and onto the floor of the back seat. Good times!”
—sharprocket135
8. “We rode in an open pickup bed down a gravel farm road with my grandfather. Did the same with my dad down the highway at 60-plus mph. No helmet, no seat belt, no airbags, no worries.”
—Anonymous, 57, Male, Texas
9. “When driving with my grandmother, I would stand on the bench seat right next to her. I still remember the joy of riding like this, but as an adult I am horrified. One sudden stop and I would have flown through the windshield.”
10. “In 1974 and 1977, I held my newborn in my lap on the way home from the hospital. It was a mandatory five-day stay if mom and baby were in good health.”
—Anonymous, 72, Female, Florida
11. “When it snowed and the side streets got covered and packed down, we would run up behind a passing car, grab the bumper and skid along on our shoes or boots. We called it bumper hitching, or skitching.”
—Anonymous, 62, Male, Michigan
12. “We used to drink beer while driving. As long as you didn’t swerve or drive erratically, you could literally have a can of beer in your hand on the steering wheel and the cops wouldn’t stop you. We used to measure trips by the number of six-packs per trip!”
—Anonymous, 79, Male, Florida
13. “As a Los Angeles cop in the early ’70s, I used my discretion to arrest or not arrest a DUI suspect. If they seemed reasonable and didn’t claim they only had one beer, I directed them to park the car and walk to a nearby restaurant to sober up. Be a jerk and you went to jail.”
—Anonymous, 81, Male, California
14. “My mom smoked Pall Mall Golds, and she would give me a quarter and a dime, and I would ride my bike to the 76 gas station and plunk 35 cents into a cigarette vending machine and pull the handle. I was probably around 8 or 9 years old!”
15. “There used to be ashtrays at the end of the aisles in the grocery store, because people smoked in the grocery store. My mom would also send me down to the little corner convenience store with a note that said it was OK to sell me three packs of cigarettes, because it was for her.”
—Anonymous, 56, Male, Texas
16. “I’d have to go somewhere with my mother, driving in the car with the windows rolled up and a cigarette in her mouth, lit the entire ride. Then we’d get there and I’d have to wait in the car for an hour while she did her shopping.”
—Anonymous, 58, Male, California
17. “My parents would send me to the local Rexall drugstore to pick up prescriptions that were refilled. I would also pick up cartons of Pall Mall Straights and Kools, and get a soda at the soda fountain. I’d sign for it, and they would send a bill at the end of the month. All with just a note.”
—Anonymous, 67, Male, Utah
18. “When I was 9 years old, my cousin and I would go to a skating rink on Saturdays in South Boston. My mom would give me 50 cents, and I had a pass for the bus and train. I would walk two blocks to the bus, take it to the train station, take the train to the next town, then take a bus from the train station, and my cousin would be waiting at the corner. We’d skate all day and reverse the process when the rink closed. It’s wild to me that we did that every week in the winter and nothing bad ever happened to us.”
19. “As a preteen and teenager, I rode my horse all over the mountains with no one knowing where I’d gone — only the general direction I’d ridden. No one else lived in the area, so it was just the horse and me. No helmets or protective gear of any kind. We didn’t have phones until the 1980s, so it would have taken some time to get help if I hadn’t returned when expected. No one — me or my family — worried about it.”
—Anonymous, 65, Female, South Carolina
20. “I was 15 when I had the bright idea during spring break that I would hitchhike to New Hampshire from New York City. We took the Long Island Rail Road to Penn Station with backpacks and a canoe, and started hitchhiking from the Bronx. The first person to pick us up was driving a Volkswagen Bug totally filled with pot smoke. We were high as we dodged cops looking for us — it was illegal to hitchhike on state highways — but we didn’t care. We actually made it to Franconia Notch in record time. Nine hours!”
—Anonymous, 69, Male, Washington
21. “Around 1970, my cousins and I lived in East Fort Lauderdale, and on Fridays, we were allowed to walk to McDonald’s a few blocks away by ourselves to get our dinner. Our moms gave us about 50 cents each for a burger, fries, and a drink. We were 8, 7, 6, and 4 years old.”
22. “In August 1964 I was in the Air Force stationed in Missouri. One day my girlfriend — later my wife — said she’d heard on the radio that the Beatles had added Kansas City to their tour and it wasn’t sold out. I asked how much the tickets were. She said $4.50 and $5.50. I said, no wonder it’s not sold out, who would pay those prices? We didn’t go. She reminded me of that for the next 50 years.”
—Anonymous, 83, Male, Missouri
23. “In the 1960s, we not only had milk delivered to the house, but there was also a bread truck that delivered, and a truck that delivered fresh vegetables.”
—Anonymous, 69, Female, New Jersey
24. “The Diamond Dry Cleaners had home pickup and delivery. You just placed their placard with a large diamond on it in your window, and the driver would see it and stop to pick up your dry cleaning. Our insurance man used to come to the house to collect premium payments.”
—blinky_bo
25. “I hitchhiked to nearby towns to take pictures with my Hawkeye Instamatic camera. This was the beginning of my love for photography, which became my career! There was one time a scary guy picked me up. I told him I was hungry, he stopped at a fast-food burger place, and I ran out the back door. I ran across a busy road to get to another road, and a kind person picked me up and took me where I was going. I was 15 then.”
26. “My father owned a small mom-and-pop general store that sold everything from school supplies to appliances and furniture. Folks would shop all year and we would write their purchases down in a little book. They would pay when they sold their tobacco. Then they would start a new charge, paying with the next year’s tobacco profits.”
—Anonymous, 65, Kentucky
27. “Traveler’s checks. Every time we went on vacation, my parents would go to the local bank and buy several hundred dollars’ worth of them. You had to sign each one at the bank. When you used it for a purchase, you had to sign it again, and the signatures had to match. Credit cards put an end to that.”
—Anonymous, 63, Male, Florida
28. “It was 1974. I was 13 and going to my first concert. Blue Öyster Cult — tickets were $1.”
29. “I was 30 years old when I got married, and I got a call from a credit card company saying I had to put the card in my husband’s name, because now I could get pregnant. I said pregnancy is not limited to marriage. I earn the same as, or more than, he does, and I will not accept anything other than a credit card in my name. The representative relented, and I got my credit card, just as always. In my name.”
—Anonymous, 84, Female, California
30. “In 1975, I wanted to learn to use a computer. It was in a very small room that was kept near freezing. I was told, number one, you are a girl, you will never be able to work them, and number two, if you are not in advanced mathematics, you will never be able to work them. Thanks to some WONDERFUL WOMEN, I can effectively — most of the time — use and build them. I leave the programming to my DAUGHTER.”
—awkwardpotato51
31. “For me, it was the total feeling of safety. No fear of being snatched when we were out and about, nobody had ever heard of a drive-by, and no one was coming into our schools with a gun threatening to kill us all. I’m grateful I was a kid in the ’60s and ’70s. Plus, you can’t beat ’70s music!”
—Anonymous, 71, Female, Missouri
32. “My mom was at a Publix in Florida, and after having her groceries rung up she realized she didn’t have her checkbook. The store manager was called over. He said she could take the groceries home and come back with the check to pay for them. Which she did. That NEVER would happen today!”
What’s something that was totally normal when you were growing up that would raise eyebrows today? Tell us in the comments or the anonymous form, and you could be featured in an upcoming BuzzFeed Community post!
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