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What did you do outdoors as a kid that you miss? BEFORE you had a car.
Sandlot football/baseball. Remember using a "ghost man" when you didn't have players and needed someone to hold a base.
Crawdad fishing with some fishing line and bacon in an old culvert or creek.
Riding bicycles all over town. Jumping home made ramps and barreling down wooded paths.
Camping in the back yard with friends.
Especially vivid and missed would be building what we called go-carts. Reruns of old "Little Rascals" were a big influence. Especially if you ever saw the one with the firetruck. None of ours had motors though. They were made out of scraps of wood and whatever wheels we could get our hands on. It was just like that old Cosby sketch. Most of us were not allowed to get into our Dad's tools and power tools were a real no-no, so we improvised. Cutting with a hand saw wasn't so bad, but it limited us to very angular cuts. Lack of a drill was another big limitation. Most of what we built did not have a steering wheel or bearings or even axles. Sometimes we would nail a bunch of nails through the bearing hole of a lawnmower wheel and THAT was the "spindle". The "axle" was a plank with these wheels hammered into each end and the plank was nailed in the middle with the biggest nail or nails we could find. A rope was nailed to each end of the board and we steered by holding this like reigns on a horse. If you were really lucky, you might find a solid axle and wheels from a on old Big Wheel that could be used for the rear since it could handle more abuse and those hard plastic wheels would slip and slide on asphalt making for more fun. I still remember one particular Summer day in my friends back yard where several of us neighborhood kids had gathered and building them. Our friends down the street, Paco, Bebe and Martin came up with a "van" they built. They built a box of sorts on the rear with a roof on it. It had porthole windows, shag carpet and was spray painted blue, but it was too heavy to push very fast. We didn't have any hills around us. Later on, we found ourselves a F150 Army Powerwheels someone was throwing away. We decided to stretch it out since we were all too big for it (we were about 8 - 12). We cut it in half and stretched it out with 2 x 4's. The luxury was having proper steering with a steering wheel. Someone came up with the idea of tying a rope to it and pulling it by bike. That was a blast. We'd get it up really fast on asphalt and jerk the wheel from side to side until we were drifting all over the road and spinning out until the slack took up and nearly yanking the kid off the bike.
I plan to build one of these carts with my kids soon and relive some memories.
Sandlot football/baseball. Remember using a "ghost man" when you didn't have players and needed someone to hold a base.
Crawdad fishing with some fishing line and bacon in an old culvert or creek.
Riding bicycles all over town. Jumping home made ramps and barreling down wooded paths.
Camping in the back yard with friends.
Especially vivid and missed would be building what we called go-carts. Reruns of old "Little Rascals" were a big influence. Especially if you ever saw the one with the firetruck. None of ours had motors though. They were made out of scraps of wood and whatever wheels we could get our hands on. It was just like that old Cosby sketch. Most of us were not allowed to get into our Dad's tools and power tools were a real no-no, so we improvised. Cutting with a hand saw wasn't so bad, but it limited us to very angular cuts. Lack of a drill was another big limitation. Most of what we built did not have a steering wheel or bearings or even axles. Sometimes we would nail a bunch of nails through the bearing hole of a lawnmower wheel and THAT was the "spindle". The "axle" was a plank with these wheels hammered into each end and the plank was nailed in the middle with the biggest nail or nails we could find. A rope was nailed to each end of the board and we steered by holding this like reigns on a horse. If you were really lucky, you might find a solid axle and wheels from a on old Big Wheel that could be used for the rear since it could handle more abuse and those hard plastic wheels would slip and slide on asphalt making for more fun. I still remember one particular Summer day in my friends back yard where several of us neighborhood kids had gathered and building them. Our friends down the street, Paco, Bebe and Martin came up with a "van" they built. They built a box of sorts on the rear with a roof on it. It had porthole windows, shag carpet and was spray painted blue, but it was too heavy to push very fast. We didn't have any hills around us. Later on, we found ourselves a F150 Army Powerwheels someone was throwing away. We decided to stretch it out since we were all too big for it (we were about 8 - 12). We cut it in half and stretched it out with 2 x 4's. The luxury was having proper steering with a steering wheel. Someone came up with the idea of tying a rope to it and pulling it by bike. That was a blast. We'd get it up really fast on asphalt and jerk the wheel from side to side until we were drifting all over the road and spinning out until the slack took up and nearly yanking the kid off the bike.
I plan to build one of these carts with my kids soon and relive some memories.
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