Did anybody ever do anything in highschool/gradeschool/college that you could never

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greymouser7

greymouser7

Vagrant Vagabond “Veni Vidi Vici”
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do now? When you guys get the chance, I would love to hear some of the lost culture of Americana that you have lived.

Examples might include some of the country bound ole timers might have driven to school with guns in the rear window of their pickup trucks, field-trips, pranks, school activities, snow-ball (?rock?) fights, bike jousting, ridiculous mudding/snow {off-roading} antics, youthful driving (PLEASE NO EGO BATTLES), whatever...

Allot of us rode in the back of pickup trucks, & station wagons.

My first father used to let me steer (drive) the vehicle we were in when I was five-could never happen now in today's society.

The grandparents would give me a box 22 long rounds or 410 shells with rules like you can't shoot towards the road or house or sky. You had to be able to see what you were shooting at - all while too far away to be saved if the predominant rattle snakes were all over in the brush were to strike me. -before age 8

In my early teens we used to work the corn fields in the mid-west, we used to bushwack and beat each other with corn stalks or cultivate the farmers' illegal crops...{no worries of those in the know, when the federal agents asked me if i ever cultivated ____, this is one of the things I confessed to, so, it's in my record} -We made good money, as much $16 an hour in the late 80's. It was more than MANY MANY jobs would pay for years later.

Happy holidays
 
There wasn't a guy I went to school with that didn't wear a knife in a pouch on his belt. I carried a large Buck. Still have one just like it.

Also, everyday the weather was good when the bell rang to leave, the assistant principal would look at me goin out the door and say "light um up when you leave Merritt". He loved my Charger. There are probably still some of my black marks in the parkin lot if it hasn't been paved over. Me and my buddies smoked um down almost every single day. They'll lock your *** up for that now.

We also used to drive for very long periods (sometimes a whole school year) with uncapped headers or JUST header mufflers hangin off. My preferred brand was the old Thrush straight through beer can mufflers. They sounded like crap with a whole exhaust system, but they were badass just as header mufflers.
 
Well I am a college freshman right now, but I still road in the bed of trucks for youth league baseball trash pickup and just around the country here. I was driving a tractor on the road since about 12-13 years old, never too far though. Only vehicle driving was on the property before my permit/license. In todays age definitely couldn't take a gun to school...not saying that I didn't know kids who had them in their trucks, I wasn't gonna risk getting caught with it in the vehicle. Heck I was nervous when I had ammo in the car once. :wack:
 
In speech class I gave a how to speech on how to properly clean and care for your gun. Which included me bringing a 12ga shotgun into school and keeping it in my locker, then walking down the hall with it (cased of course) to class.
 
RustyRatRod said:
There wasn't a guy I went to school with that didn't wear a knife in a pouch on his belt. I carried a large Buck. Still have one just like it.

Also, everyday the weather was good when the bell rang to leave, the assistant principal would look at me goin out the door and say "light um up when you leave Merritt". He loved my Charger. There are probably still some of my black marks in the parkin lot if it hasn't been paved over. Me and my buddies smoked um down almost every single day. They'll lock your *** up for that now.

We also used to drive for very long periods (sometimes a whole school year) with uncapped headers or JUST header mufflers hangin off. My preferred brand was the old Thrush straight through beer can mufflers. They sounded like crap with a whole exhaust system, but they were badass just as header mufflers.
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Yeah no burnouts allowed in high school, but most kids had ricers so... But that doesn't mean I never seen a Mustang or truck light em up. And thats another thing, I carried my pocket knife with me everywhere but school. Although again I did know those who had them.
 
Ohhh forgot fist fights! Fight until you couldnt anymore, shake hands and become good friends! Heaven forbid you settle a dispute that way now days.
 
Well, since you mention it... almost every pickup in town had a gun rack in the back window and a rifle or two was part of the outfit. Those pickups went to school and parked on the school parking lot...unlocked and probably with windows rolled down. My drivers training class was a bit different too. The instructor separated those who truly needed to learn to drive from those who had been driving on the farm, or wherever, for years and just needed the credit. Those of us who were already adept at driving would load our rifles in the car and head out to another teacher's ranch and we would drive around shooting jackrabbits for hour of training! The instructor had a pump .22 that just laid in the trunk when we weren't hunting and he had to actually teach someone how to drive. Can't quite imagine that happening these days!!!
 
A couple more things that I recall..... almost all of the high school kids would cruise main on Friday and Saturday night. If someon under age was drinking the cops would make them pour their beer out. Then the cops would make sure they weren't too messed up to drive, and if they were they would take 'em home and turn'em over to their parents. (Which initiated punishment more serious than can be initiated by our legal system!) At the time it wasn't illegal to drink and drive. It was only illegal to drive impaired! (That law was in place until just a few years ago and was always good for placing a bet with an out of stater.) We also had a couple of city policemen who had hot cars. One had a 413 Dodge and the other a 426 wedge Plymouth. So, on Saturday night after 10PM if a contest of speed and acceleration happened to occur, and as long as those involved maintained some level of sanity, the cops would look the other way. Occasionally they would have to look the other way from the drivers seat of their car! (And even occasionally from the passenger seat of my car.....)
 
grimreaper said:
Well, since you mention it... almost every pickup in town had a gun rack in the back window and a rifle or two was part of the outfit. Those pickups went to school and parked on the school parking lot...unlocked and probably with windows rolled down. My drivers training class was a bit different too. The instructor separated those who truly needed to learn to drive from those who had been driving on the farm, or wherever, for years and just needed the credit. Those of us who were already adept at driving would load our rifles in the car and head out to another teacher's ranch and we would drive around shooting jackrabbits for hour of training! The instructor had a pump .22 that just laid in the trunk when we weren't hunting and he had to actually teach someone how to drive. Can't quite imagine that happening these days!!!
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grimreaper said:
A couple more things that I recall..... almost all of the high school kids would cruise main on Friday and Saturday night. If someon under age was drinking the cops would make them pour their beer out. Then the cops would make sure they weren't too messed up to drive, and if they were they would take 'em home and turn'em over to their parents. (Which initiated punishment more serious than can be initiated by our legal system!) At the time it wasn't illegal to drink and drive. It was only illegal to drive impaired! (That law was in place until just a few years ago and was always good for placing a bet with an out of stater.) We also had a couple of city policemen who had hot cars. One had a 413 Dodge and the other a 426 wedge Plymouth. So, on Saturday night after 10PM if a contest of speed and acceleration happened to occur, and as long as those involved maintained some level of sanity, the cops would look the other way. Occasionally they would have to look the other way from the drivers seat of their car! (And even occasionally from the passenger seat of my car.....)
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Awesome stories. Too young to have lived them, but enjoyable to read about :glasses7:
 
When I was 14 working for my Grandpa he had me drive his forklift across town to where he was relocating his lumber yard, as well as I always drove it to the gas station.

At 16 working in a German restaurant, the owners let all the other busboys and me sit at the bar and drink two beers every night after work.

Fake I.D's.....a classmate had a way to get them made, we all had them, it was easy to get into bars and clubs back then. And I was 5' 5" 115 pounds, no way did I look 18.

Dads drinking a cocktail while taking the family for a drive.

Edit: High Schools had a smoking area for students.
 
Buck knives? wow. That would not have flown, here. I graduated in 66, and even then there were rules about knife blades, but I don't remember "what."

I was pretty lame in high school

I remember one noon, a local kid---who's father was a Pontiac auto trans mechanic.......had the family 57 Pontiac. This was EASILY recognized because of the color, and his dad--a radio amateur--had a huge WWII surplus insulator on a rear bracket for his mobile antenna. He also had "call letter" plates, K7VBP.

Anyhow, I'll call the guilty party "Mark" came up to a stop behind another car, eased the Poncho up to touch bumpers and then put on the power!!!! To this day I don't know why the other driver didn't raise hell.

We had a huge concrete "thing" part of the sewer sticking up by the back door near the band/ orchestra class. This was a big manhole on a pylon about 3 ft high. Some "of the guys" put the band teacher's VW on top. He was not happy

Our school was VERY conservative. There was some bullshit about the girls, if someone thought "their skirt was too short" they had to get on their knees and the skirt had to touch the floor all the way around.

Couples were not allowed to cuddle and make out on school grounds.

One kid named "Monger" was a rebel. They told him......several times.......to get a haircut, so he came in with a Mohawk. "They" didn't like that either, so he shaved his head. "That" (who knows what else was said and done) got him suspended

Two of us had beat-up 57 Chevies. One of us discovered, what with worn--out suspension and shocks, that you could come up to a stop sign "just right", stab the brakes "just right" and the thing would dive and roll backwards from the spring. So technically speaking, "you stopped" at the stop sign. "We" practiced this up for the opportune time. "The cops" didn't like it at all.

Before I joined the Navy, I was a "radio operator" graveyard shift for our small town PD. I was also under age for beer. On Friday or Saturday nights, certain times, the cops would put on "an extra guy," and would have the regular (one) patrol car ("Car 10") and then borrow the Fire Chief's staff car for a second patrol. On busy summer nights "swing shift" sometimes they'd have a third guy in the Cushman meter main wagon!!!!

Anyhow, they'd stop "juvies" and confiscate beer, call their folks, and send them home, and dump the beer in the Chief's office. I'd come into work midnight Sat. night and here's all this beer. This was not evidence, and was not inventoried. Guess what?? We'd go out later and drink it. This was a REAL problem in the winter because the only place I had to stash it was my trunk......and it might freeze!!!!

This is one of the dispatchers not long before I came along. That mike she is holding ran the main PD freq we used, down on 39 something Mhz. This is known as "low band VHF." There was LOTS of stuff all on that freq, including two other towns, the ID state PD used it some and the local county sheriff. The Motorola mike to the right gave us a way "into" Montana if needed.

WebMarilyn%20Rutherford%20Balch.jpg


Police chief at the time. People used to make fun of our "Mayberry" cops but the truth is, they would ease around town, have coffee, talk to people, listen, and get a really good idea of what was going on. When they saw some car parked, "they knew" who was (probably) up to no good.

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We would carry pocket knives to school everyday. Nearly every guy carried his rifle to school during hunting season to hunt after school. We had a designated smoking area at school for students to smoke in. I also remember that the principle had a little Ford fiesta, and we used to pick it up and move it all over the school grounds, most often into the alcove at the front doors to block the doors.

Last but not least, I was on the yearbook staff and we developed out own pictures in the school darkroom. The darkroom was located in the girls locker room.
 
our school had a smoking box. before school, after lunch and after school you could go into this large square painted in the parking lot and smoke. that box was packed all the time. then they changed the age to 18 to buy cigarettes and it went away. don't know of another school in the area that had anything like that..
 
Guns were a tool, not some fearsome object that made criminals out of nice people. I attended a one room country school for the first eight years, and we'd bring our .22s to school to hunt jackrabbits during lunch hour. The teacher would check that they weren't loaded before we brought them into the mudroom to stand in the corner.

When I started driving to high school at age 13...there were no school busses...I always carried a .22 rifle under the seat and the car was never locked.

I think I was 11 when I began driving a tractor in the fields, and 12 when I started hauling grain in Grandpa's '48 Dodge truck.

Best prank in grade school was placing a half-dozen ground squirrels in the teacher's desk drawer. Took days to find them all and get them out of the schoolhouse. Took her about that long to stop screaming...

Schoolhouse had a framed copy of the Ten Commandments hanging on the wall. Don't think it offended any atheists or created any Christians. They were just there, to be read by a few, but broken and ignored by most.

Keys were left in the ignitions of all our cars and farm equipment. Houses were never locked. Dad always said that if someone wandered into the yard during a blizzard, that they would need to get inside.

Drugs of any kind were unheard of. A wild night out was a car full of kids sharing a couple of warm beers that someone had pilfered from their parents supply. But, we did abuse cigarettes. They were a quarter a pack from the machine in the Lakeside Café.

Saw some good practical jokes in the Air Force. One Sunday morning a young airman found his brand new VW waiting for him outside his second floor barracks door. No one would help him get it down for hours.

A kid washed out of tech school in Denver, and was assigned barracks duty until he got orders for a new assignment. He was the only person working the day shift in a barracks where everyone attended school on swing shift. He was the victim of practical jokes almost every day, but one time he got even. We got back from school after midnight chow and found he had short-sheeted every bunk in the barracks.
 
Pickup trucks and girls: I took my drivers test in a 1954 Ford pickup. Had to cover the seat with a blanket so the spring's didn't jag the State Police officers butt. Back then the drivers test was actually driving on the street, parallel parking, stopping in the middle of a hill, shutting the vehicle off, re-starting the car/truck and pulling out without stalling the vehicle. Oh yeah. received my learners permit on a Tuesday, took my drivers test on Saturday and Dad took my license from me on Sunday. I got caught playing cat and mouse in the alleys with another guy. The cops didn't stop us, they went to our Dads (that was worse).

How many guys played "trust me" with their girlfriends when they sat real close to you while you were driving? Trust me was when you placed your right hand on her knee (back then girls wore skirts) and then asked the girl "Trust Me" and if she said yes you moved your hand a little further up her leg, the more "Yes's" the further up the leg you went. But you never forgot where your hand placement was if and when you had to shift gears.

Gun in the truck, you betcha. Even to this day but for different reasons.
 
Driving test reminds me of a friend whose dad owned the Dodge dealership. He was taking his test in a '55 Dodge 2-door hardtop with a V8 and manual transmission. As he was driving with the testing officer, a car flew by on a city street, ran a stop sign, and went tearing down the road, unaware there was a cop in the yellow Dodge he had just passed. The cop asked my friend if he thought he could catch the guy. Of course, the answer was yes, so he was told to "take off". A few blocks away, they pulled alongside the offender, the cop flashed his badge, and after writing the ticket, the cop told my friend that he had passed the driving portion of the test. It was the talk of the small town for several days.
 
Trick or Treat in your NEIGHBORHOOD. Play outside, get yout butt whipped for doing something dumb.

Growing up in AK, if I missed the bus I would walk 1.5 miles across 2 frozens lakes and a swamp to get to school. Instead of walking the 4 miles around on the road.
 
growing up in the Netherlands things were slightly different for me...discipline in school was non-existent and I wasn't as good a boy growing up as I am now

so I once got suspended from school for 3 days for knocking a teacher out



as for things in the US....I had a coworker once
not sure how old he was but he served in Vietnam
he once told me that as a project for wood shop they would bring in their hunting rifles and fix or replace the stock on them
 
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