What did you all do for fun growing up

[Marc St Louis]

My dad was heavily into fishing when I was a kid, mostly Trout but he liked Bass as well, and would drag us along to places most people wouldn't go; sometimes packing in several miles into secluded lakes.  Here's some old pics from some of our fishing trips

[JEB]

I grew up in the world of archery.  Been shooting  bow since I was five.  Our family attended archery tournaments every weekend during the spring, summer an fall and shot in the winter .  Never had a chance to play sports like baseball or football.  Dad opened an archery shop in the early 60's and my brother and I worked in the shop after we got out of school. Dad got involved with Bear Archery, shooting for Bear and he was on Bears archery staff for 3 years.  It was nothing to answer the phone in dads shop, Bear Archery of Muskegon and  holler out, dad, Mr. Bears on the phone.  I remember going to Grayling so dad could attend meetings and we would hang out at Bears Museum.  There were four family members won several state archery championships.  My dad was  really good winning the Midwest Nationals twice in the 50's and my brother won a national archery championship in Watkins Glenn, New York.

I learned a lot about archery growing up in the shop.

It was after I got married that I/we competed in other sports. Wife and I started running and then doing short triathlons. We had to ditch the running because our feet went south but kept up the biking. I guess our claim to fame now is that we rode our bicycles across the United States, doing it in three summers. 

[upstatenybowyer]

It was all about the outdoors for me. Mom used to throw me out in our fenced in backyard, turn on the hose and let me go (thus the pic). Lots of critter catching (snakes, toads, bugs, turtles, ect). My parents used to let me keep them for a few days then I'd put them back.

As I got older we started blowing stuff up too. Lots of M80s and mischief. Forts in the woods, BB guns, sneaking out to meet up with girls and I can't forget skateboarding.

Teenage years were spent playing guitar and seeing as many Grateful Dead concerts as possible.

[bjrogg]

Great thread guys thanks for posting, sure glad they didn't have video games when I was a kid not that my parents would have ever let me play them anyway.
Bjrogg

[Knoll]

Love those pictures, Marc.

Clint may not have growed much, but he sure got less handsome!

Me, in the front wearing the "too small but fav" jacket, at a neighbor girl's birthday party, circa 1955.

[bubby]

And already looking grumpy😎

[Stixnstones]

what a great thread... I only remember the early years playin outside, building forts runnin around in the woods. bent sapling bows and sharp stix. lots of fishin and catchin snakes and frogs and lightning bugs. around 12 years old started skateboarding and took that pretty serious for about 10 years. at 16 got my first bass guitar and started playin in a couple punk bands. than in my 20's got into playin with a descent group of guys and did some touring up and down the east coast and during all that time got into bowhuntin pretty hard, started with a compound and quikly got bored with that and wanted to learn to hunt the hard way. traded my compound set up for an old bear black bear #45 recurve and than regressed to primitive archery... one big memory of bein a wee lass was Dad was a turtle trapper and duck hunter, man durin the summer there would be headless snapping turtles walkin all around the yard and I walk around and put stix in their mouths and carry em around.. snappers don't know their dead even with their head clean off they still bite...great thread, thanx bubby

[H Rhodes]

This is a great thread.  It dawned on me that I am 52 years old and still doing the same things for fun that I did when I was 10.  I refuse to grow up if it involves not fishing and hunting.  The one thing I miss from my boyhood days is shooting cans and bottles at the dump.  Back in the seventies and eighties in my part of the world, you could always find a spot down a dirt road somewhere that was filled with likely targets for a boy with a .22 rifle.  Of course, these were unsightly and highly illegal spots where people "hauled off" their unwanted junk and the country side is more beautiful without them, but I would be straying from the truth if I said that I didn't miss them.  Ammunition was dirt cheap and me and my buddies shot all the time. I grew up in a rural area that was surrounded by miles and miles of coal and steel company land that we had free run of.  It was a great place to be a kid.  Weekends were spent camping on the creek, squirrel hunting, coon hunting, running trot lines, or Lord knows what else...  It was fun.

[Emennis]

Being the tomboy I was, I did a lot of building forts, exploring woods in the neighborhood, climbing (and falling out of) a lot trees, especially my grandmothers ginormous magnolia tree. Liked to make rapids with the rocks in the creek. Skip rocks on the creeks. We collected tadpoles and caterpillars, and there is such a thing as too much of a good thing, about 30 caterpillars in one aquarium is not a pretty sight. My sister and I would go bike riding everywhere, especially on dirt roads and dirt bike trails because we liked the hills and bumps lol. We were in the Girl Scouts, so we did camping with them, as well as with my family. When we visited the Grandparents it was at the lake where we did fishing and watersports in North Carolina, or when in VA we were at the beach and playing with hot wheels with my boy cousins.

[bjrogg]

That cool Emennis, I had a few Tomboy cousins that where all right. Glad to here from another.
Bjrogg

[Hawkdancer]

Grew up in the city, got exposed to fishing early, got exposed to archery at summer camps, learned to shoot rifles and shotguns by about 12, wasn't much for tests in school, but managed to get by(underachieving) they called it.  Rode our bikes almost everywhere, played football 1 year in high school, run track 2 years, was too weird for most of the other city kids who didn't get to get out of town much.  Had a couple or 3,4 girlfriends, like most guys, not lasting too long, or too permanent!
And that was just into the mid/late 50's. 
Hawkdancer