Hi Nate, I'm a boomer and had already started 6th grade when you were born. But we did the same or very similar things. I was riding my bike everywhere in my German hometown of more than 100k, even to the less fashionable parts of town. When I rode to handball training the fastest route was directly through the worst quarter (low-income housing for people so that they wouldn't be homeless). I walked to elementary school collecting all my friends on the way. From 5th grade I took the tram to school (the express train had a smoking compartment which I avoided as best as I could), from 8th grade, I pedaled my bike to school (10km or 6m one way). And we knew spring had arrived when we felt the irk to strap roller blades onto our shoes. We didn't have lawn darts or slides but we played with the automatic irrigation system, clickers, yo-yos, and hoola-hoops. My friends and I spent whole afternoons on the playground(s) and my parents didn't know which one. At our neighbor's fence was a cigarette vending machine and my father often sent me to buy a pack. I never crawled to the back dashboard because our small FIAT was a hatchback and didn't have one when I was the size to fit there. But there were often more than 3 kids on the back bench. Seat belts? Only from 1977 onwards but without headrests for the back bench. And if it wasn't for a totaling accident they'd have come later than 1979. And because my mother couldn't read maps I was co-pilot (proudly sitting on a cushion on the passenger seat from 1972 when I was 7) while she was banned to the backbench. This was nostalgia pure. Today - unimaginable. CU twinmama

Fabulous watch, grew up in late sixties early seventies and had a wonderful childhood, we didn’t have much money and all of our friends families were in the same boat. In the summer time our parents had to send out search parties to find us , wonderful times indeed 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

In Spain we also survived traditional games with large nails, handmade wooden vehicles with which we descended grassy slopes, war games throwing acorns at each other...

When I fell 3,5m - 4m off a tree, I got an extra slap from my mum, for ripping a hole in my pullover.

Hey Nate. One of the GenX here, growing up in the late 60's and 70's. Greeetings from Europe. 👋 😉

As a 10 year old I climbed the drainpipe of the Cathedral in Guildford, United Kingdom. Was absolutely barracked by the Vicar who had to call the fire brigade to get me down. My Mum was furious and grounded me for two weeks. Crazy days.

May 28th 1976 - me to. Amazing. Fantastic time to be born. We where much tougher, much more street smart than the kids of today, all are now wrapped in cotton wool way to long to really live free and have fun, even here in the United Kingdom. Climbing Trees, Caving, Diving of the Cliff in to the Sea, Rock Jumping and even going under the MOD fence of Navy Port near by home, was something I and my friends did all the time.

At the age of 12 I used to stand up on the swings (old school steel & plastic with gravel underfoot) and try to go over the top bar. I did this often but one time to jolt of dropping down after completing the rotation threw be off into the grass. This may seem fairly safe but the grass around the swing area was just a loose mat over the sharp gravel underneath & the impact forced a stone into the top of my head. I carry a small traingular hole in the top of my skull to this day. Moving on to when I was 15, I had a racer bike (BSA Javelin) & while speeding down a paved slope the handlebars came loose as I tried to turn right as the houses formed a dogleg at this point. The handles turned & the front wheel didn't sending be directly a the low window of one of the houses. I crashed through & miraculously didn't receive a single cut as the glass shattered around me, only to land in the old ladies front room scaring the sh*t out of her. I've not owned a bycycle since that day, doesn't make sense to tempt fate.

"Avoiding lawn darts coming down on your head." says the man with 2 metal spikes in his head..... Glad you are doing well Nate, only joking! PS 1970 here.

Also born in 1976. It was a Great vintage that year

Fun to see that there are so many similarities across continents. :) The thing with smoking though, it differs depending on where you are in Europe. Here in Sweden it's not that acceptable to smoke anymore (some still do it) and in 2005 it was banned to smoke inside restaurants, bars etc. It seems to be popular still south of us, like in Denmark, Germany, France etc.

I'm a millenial (and not even from the US), so can't really relate to gen X but it was fun to watch 😄 But seriously, don't skip sun screen. The sun is just a mean radiation gun no one should mess with. Radiation damages is nothing that can be fixed later and it's not about cosmetic problems like wrinkles. Penetrated cells can mutate any time, even after years. Be safe! ☀

Gen X New Zealand. Right here with you brother.

So many people nowadays do not want to have children because they are not allowed to discipline them but are responsible if that child does something illegal also people generally do not want to have any responsibility toward anything

Aufgewachsen in den 70er - 80er in Deutschland . Soviel Unterschiede gab's gar nicht zum Video. Wir sind Rad gefahren , Bäume geklettert, haben Fussball gespielt. Durch Sprinkler gelaufen sind wir auch. Unsinn gemacht . Eben Spass gehabt. Bonanza Rad hatte ich mir der Gangschaltung auf dem Rahmen . Was beim Sturz recht weh tat. Lol. Andere Zeiten einige Dinge waren im Nachhinein vielleicht nicht so clever. Aber Spass hatten wir.

I am British and 59, some of the things bring back memories. What was Health and Safety??

Didn't need to go on the roof in the UK We used to spend the whole summer outside on our bikes

Pretty much identical to we Boomers. At least the latter part of the Boomers. You can still get TV over the air, and there are a LOT more channels even if you only have 3 "stations". Plus, it's free. Those rooftop antennas could be a pain, but you could also put them in the attic versus sticking up out of the roof (I saw attic antennas in Germany too btw). In the valley I grew up in we had 3 stations until about '75 when PBS made it up over the mountains to us. PBS didn't make me as happy as the FM stations that came along about the same time. Prior to that we had both kinds of music ; ) I'm pretty sure the smoking area thing in restaurants started in Utah and spread out from there. Now, it's very uncommon to find smoking in bars or eateries in the US. Private clubs can be exempt in some areas - which is why I no longer go to the VFW these days. Cool piece - a lot of memories came back for me.

The most dangerous things I had to face were my own parents or some of the pastors those two idiots thought were ok. Running around on my own was trivial and it was safer to be out on my own, so I find all this stranger danger bullshit hilarious.

Thank you.

Still not sure if GenX applies to me too. I suppose, when push comes to shove, I was born in '58, so I should be called 'boomer'. Yet I'm part of the lost generation who grew up in a declining world, oil crisis, decline of full-time work, the first generation who actually need to work till 67½ too. So yeah, not the parents who have much to give.

Greetings 🌹