Kids being able to bike across town to a friend's house. Too many pedos out there now... I won't let my kids (late elementary school age) bike out of my sight.
Had this conv. with someone just the other day. Not only did we ride our bikes everywhere:
No cell phones, so on Saturday you literally left in the a.m. and came home by dinner; parents often had no clue where we were.
Started riding my bike to school in 4th grade; about a 2 mile ride. Parked bikes outside the school and no locks; don't recall anyone ever having thier bike stolen.
Our principal was also a 6th grade classroom teacher, so she did a fair amount of school business during class time. It was not unusual for her to have me or one of the "bike guys" in her class to ride up town and make a bank deposit, then scoot over to the Winn-Dixie to buy coffee for the teacher's lounge (I can still recall the first time I took coffee into the teacher's lounge: dimly-lit with a blue cloud of smoke from seemingly every teacher in the school in there puffing on a Salem).
Others:
"Safety patrol": in 7th grade I (again) rode my bike to an interesection about a half mile from the school, where I walked out in the intersection with a hand-held stop sign so kids walking to school could cross the street (pedo concerns aside, imagine some in-a-hurry asshole on a cell phone being told by a 11 year-old to stop so a bunch of other 11 year-olds can pass).
Going hunting before high school and leaving your gun in the back widown rack of your unlocked truck.
Playing pick-up/sandlot baseball.
Growing up playing all 3 local rec sports (football, baseball, basketball) and the coaches being men who had coached the same team/same leauge for years, vs. now it's your parents who coach Junior as he/she moves up to each league (and Ii was guilty of this one with my kids). And since we rode our bikes to/from practice, I don't recall any parents there; they only came to games.
Speaking of parents, my junior year of high school we took 2 busloads of kids to Atlanta for a band competition; stayed downtown ATL for 2 nights. The only two adults who went were the band director and assistant band director; no parents. That was typical back in the day; parents came to school for PTO meetings or conferences with the principal if you were a screw-up; that's about it.
The school bus drivers were 16/17 year-old students.
There's a lot of positives to how much more involved parents are today in their kids' lives than they were when I was growing up (and a fair amount of that is due to safety concerns; there was a degree of naiviety back then but also the world is a more dangerous place now), but I enjoyed the freedom of being able to go and do a lot on my own as long as I stayed out of trouble, made decent grades, and took care of assigned chores around the house.
