OT: Sports toys/games from your younger days. (Pics encouraged)

[uconn13]

couldn't imagine childhood without one

 

[uconn13]

the Nerf ball must have been made with some serious toxins back then, why else would it cease to exist in this form?

 

[CCSUblue]

 

[Palatine]

 

[CCSUblue]

the Nerf ball must have been made with some serious toxins back then, why else would it cease to exist in this form?

Like those Wham-O super bouncy balls that were loaded with pfas.

 

[Chuck]

I think this is the retro-new version, but you'll remember it if you are Gen X.

 

[husky8273]

Nok Hockey

 

[temery]

I saw a lot of freak little league accidents but never saw anyone get a jart stuck in their head at a little league game. Maybe a Babe Ruth league or Twilight League game but never little league.

Sub Jart for a bb, bat or cleat. There were far more kids seriously injured in organized sports each year, than in decades of Jarts. I remember a kid in my area killed by a lacrosse ball hitting his heart between beats. Nobody banned lacrosse.

But you already knew this was my point.

 

[temery]

I don't think you need to die for it to be an issue. I remember more than one story of a Jart getting stuck in somebody's skull back in the day.

x100 for the bow and arrow sets we all got as kids. Banning Jarts was comicly stupid.

 

[Kolumbo]

 

[Kolumbo]

My track wasn't nearly this large and I was always working on the cars. The tracks always seemed to lose their connections. The cars always flew off on the corners

 

[socalhusky]

View attachment 102063

Connecticut family business

 

[Chin Diesel]

My favorite adult toy…

View attachment 102072

My favorite youth toy…

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We used electrical tape instead of duct tape on the barrel.

 

[dvegas]

loved playing with these!

 

[B1GEast]

 

[CL82]

I mean, how do you not include this.

View attachment 102062

"death from above"

 

[storrsroars]

Strat-O-Matic

As a kid in the 60s, I'd never heard of Strat-O-Matic. But we had "Challenge the Yankees", where a team of all-stars would challenge the Yankees. There were 50 player cards, 25 Yankees and 25 "All-Stars", although I'm not quite sure what the criteria was for All-Star as such non-luminaries like Joe Christopher and Pete Ward were among the 25 opponent cards.

 

[CL82]

I refuse to believe those things ever killed anyone outside a freak accident.

We used to have pellet gun Jarts fights. Use your trash can shield to block pellets or to block falling Jarts. I think this was taught at the War College in RI in the 60s.

We stopped when CO2 pellet guns came out, and a few balloon knots threatened to sharpen the Jarts.

pellet gun gun fights? Insanity!
(We had a BB only rule.)

 

[CL82]

I believe I had the detonator version. I loved that thing.

 

[B1GEast]

 

[temery]

Back here just to post a childhood favorite - Lincoln Logs.

Fast forward 30+ years and the one video I showed to my elementary school class every year was "Alone in the Wilderness."

Can you imagine never having to deal with another human for almost 40 years of your life? He built the cabin from scratch, was the very definition of a hunter gatherer, and just lived the perfect life in his very own self made Lincoln Log cabin.

(yes, I know his friend and his brother flew in once in a while. Doesn't change a thing.)

#1 on my bucket list is still to visit Dick Proenneke's cabin.

For anyone who hasn't seen "Alone in the Wilderness" - do it, and show it to your kids.

 

[mussels]

Gas plane on a tether. Saved up for it by selling Christmas Cards door-to-door as advertised in my “Boys Life“ subscription. (a magazine from cub scouts) Was a bear to control, and started a boyhood obsession with anything with an internal combustion engine. Amazing that we survived.

 

[B1GEast]

Batcopter playset

 

[temery]

pellet gun gun fights? Insanity!
(We had a BB only rule.)

ok. You're right. The transition from BB gun to pellet gun was the end of the fun. CO2 came in about the same time as pellet guns.

We always had a "DMZ" buffer zone to prevent serious injury.

 

[B1GEast]

Toys were simple and fun. If you had a Duncan yoyo, you were set for hours. No batteries, no instructions, nothing