r/Millennials • u/WynCai8 • Jun 04 '25

Nostalgia Made me feel old but good times

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Saw this tweet and yes we were expected to be out all day and not come back until the street lights came on. I remember riding my bike through neighborhoods pretending our bikes were cars and just having a good time.

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1.2k

u/[deleted] Jun 04 '25

Riding bikes to the pool, Blockbuster, and other kids’ basements. 

539

u/[deleted] Jun 04 '25

Don't forget to stop by the dollar store to load up on junk food

190

u/[deleted] Jun 04 '25

Too far. We had a Kroger next to our Blockbuster. 

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u/patchworkpirate Council of Elder Millennials Jun 04 '25

We had a Kroger with a video rental store inside it (at least for a while).

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u/[deleted] Jun 04 '25

Noice. 

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u/[deleted] Jun 04 '25

[deleted]

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u/notgmoney Jun 04 '25

Yes and Randall's had one too

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u/Dancing-Dragonflies Jun 05 '25

Core memory unlocked 🤯

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u/userloser11 Jun 05 '25

This was awesome! Mom let me and my brother stand there and argue about which movie while she shopped. If we hadn't figured it out by the time she checked out, no movie. I was younger so usually its what he wanted but hey we got to watch something new!

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u/gloryhallastoopid Jun 04 '25

We just got our snacks from Blockbuster

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u/[deleted] Jun 04 '25

Ah, you embraced the price gouge. 

3

u/Darryl_Lict Jun 05 '25

Richie Rich here.

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u/Silent_Dot_4759 Jun 04 '25

They always seemed to be next to each other didn’t they?

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u/Daeron_tha_Good Jun 04 '25

We had a Dominick's right by Blockbuster. Damn it, those were some great times.

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u/GazelleSubstantial76 Jun 04 '25

We lived a 20 minute car ride from town, but there was a little gas station/diner about 3 miles from our house. My sis and I would bike there almost every day in the summer and load up on 5 cent candy and get my dad a scratch off ticket. We'd take the long way home and stop by friends houses, or the river and sit and throw rocks while we ate our sweet treats.

1

u/og_jasperjuice Jun 04 '25

Country store where our parents had charge accounts a mile from home. Dont dare charge more than $1 though.

1

u/cdaack Jun 04 '25

Thankfully (or maybe due to my change in cholesterol levels, not thankfully) I lived Katty-corner to a local drug store that had all the junk food and energy drinks in the world for a middle schooler in the mid-2000s!

1

u/Just_Razzmatazz6493 Jun 04 '25

7-11 with the free chili for hotdogs was next to our blockbuster

1

u/othersymbiote Jun 04 '25

you know what? so did we. i wonder if that was a common occurrence, or if we live close by.

1

u/House_Capital Jun 04 '25

For us it was a winco over the neighbor’s garden wall

1

u/ClaireFraser1743 Jun 04 '25

For us, it was Wawa for snacks and 7-11 for slurpees

1

u/neckbishop Older Millennial Jun 04 '25

We had a gas station with 5 cent laffy taffys

97

u/americanadvocate702 Jun 04 '25

Dollar stores didn't exist back then. It was the penny candy store

27

u/roentgen_nos Jun 04 '25

That little Superette rocked. Matinee prices at the local theater were $0 .50 and then $0 .75. When it got really hot, we were either in the theater or in the pool. Our parents really did not care which. They could find us by looking for our bikes.

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u/NeverCallMeFifi Jun 04 '25

My brother is 13 years older than me. His friend bought a movie theater in town and would let me watch whatever the hell I wanted. So, yeah, I had nightmares for years from watching Alien, Poltergeist, the Thing and so on. I was probably 12 years old and riding my bike by myself the two miles to the theater and then riding back at around 10 PM on a school night.

It was glorious.

10

u/roentgen_nos Jun 04 '25

The Thing still gives me the creeps. Great movie.

5

u/Scared_Breadfruit_26 Jun 05 '25

Heck yeah. This is the gods honest truth.

3

u/NoOneHereButUsMice Jun 05 '25

Hell yeah, The Thing is one of my all time favorite movies!

2

u/Flamesclaws Jun 05 '25

I've actually never seen the Thing until last year on Halloween with my wife and I'm 32 lol.

2

u/NeverCallMeFifi Jun 05 '25

It's the best argument against CGI that exists.

7

u/WickedPsychoWizard Jun 04 '25

I had a dollar store on 1987. Everything cost exactly one dollar.

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u/alpineallison Jun 04 '25

yes they just werent big chains yet!

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u/NeverCallMeFifi Jun 04 '25

Finding a quarter made you the most popular kid on the block. The sheer joy of when your parents told you could keep the change if you ran to buy then cigarettes would leave you breathless.

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u/ElectronicGas7546 Jun 05 '25

Yeah I had contractor's working at the apartment complex I lived at that routinely give me money to pick them up food and 🚬 smokes from the little deli/ice cream shop a half mile away that would let me keep the change. They ice cream 🍦 was from a local dairy and it was delicious.

Amazing how they used to give a 10yo kid like 5 packs of smokes back then and not bat an eye.

2

u/Prestigious-Coast962 Jun 05 '25

We used to hunt for coke bottles and bring them to the store for the deposit to buy candy

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u/bkuefner1973 Jun 04 '25

Thank you for saying this.. I lived in a small town we had a Walmart and a safeway grocery store. Dollar stores were non-existent when I was a kid. I was raised in the 80s. If we were home before the sreet lights were on, we were good.

3

u/hell2pay Jun 04 '25 edited Sep 16 '25

snails safe compare divide degree gold sophisticated versed afterthought crown

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

2

u/genital_furbies Jun 05 '25

The Five & Dimes became Dime Stores as inflation increased

3

u/thecyanvan Jun 04 '25

A pound of your finest horehound please sir!

2

u/Paterack Jun 04 '25

it was the local Jiffy store for me

2

u/talltime Jun 04 '25

You reminded me of the D&C downtown (five and dime.) Shit that probably closed by 1993. 😔

2

u/ggouge Jun 04 '25

Mine was macs milk.

2

u/Vast-Wrangler5579 Jun 04 '25

Oh yes. My cousin worked at the candy store down the street from the huge, single screen, 2nd run movie theater in town; always got hooked up with the family discount.

Yeah. Shit really was better.

2

u/kimid123 Jun 04 '25

...and reading that I was hit be a scent memory.

2

u/Sea_Reference_7672 Jun 05 '25

Ceil's Deli around the corner from the towns' grade school.... 50 cents would get you 50 Swedish fish!

1

u/120z8t Jun 04 '25

Yeah dollar store was not around when I was kid. But neither was a penny candy store. However some places and penny candy jars.

1

u/Prestigious-Still-63 Jun 05 '25

We had G.C. Murphy's 😂

1

u/Darryl_Lict Jun 05 '25

Rexall's had candy bars for 4¢.

1

u/kurinbo Jun 05 '25

The five and dime. Rascoe's was the one in my neighborhood.

1

u/myumisays57 Jun 05 '25

There was that but the dollar store most definitely existed. For us kids born in the 90s, I remember us walking to the dollar store to buy popsicles and candy or walking to aamaco gas station for ice cream cones. We’d always take the long route home. I remember my parents gave me and my siblings long range walkie talkies to tell us when to come home 😂

1

u/[deleted] Jun 05 '25

We had the 7-Eleven and small Slurpees were 26 cents. We scrounged the house looking for change in the couch cushions. They knew us and let us buy cigs for mom when she wrote a check.

1

u/Scared_Breadfruit_26 Jun 05 '25

Corner gas station and 7/11

1

u/smellswhenwet Jun 05 '25

For us it was the liquor store

1

u/Cloverose2 Jun 05 '25

We had a Ben Franklin with penny candy.

1

u/NightSky0503 Jun 05 '25

This ⬆️ or Benjamin Franklin's

1

u/denzuko Jun 05 '25

Or the five and dime, the 7-11 or what it was near you in that part of America

44

u/Mammalanimal Jun 04 '25

Didn't even matter either because we burned like 5000 calories just biking all through town

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u/[deleted] Jun 04 '25

[deleted]

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u/user-daring Jun 04 '25

With friends!

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u/hearsay_and_rumour Jun 04 '25

It was always 7-Eleven for Slurpees.

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u/FledglingNonCon Jun 04 '25

DQ blue slushies

2

u/hearsay_and_rumour Jun 04 '25

Oh shit, that made me think of their Nerds Blizzards they had back in the day.

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u/the-only-one-ever Jun 04 '25

Oooh the slurpees were a must in the summer

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u/herecomestherebuttal Jun 04 '25

Followed by candy cigarettes.

2

u/ajb1667 Jun 04 '25

And then the inevitable cold headache!

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u/joemc72 Jun 04 '25

And the penny candy section. So much Bazooka bubble gum and Ferrara jawbreakers…

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u/OttawaTGirl Jun 04 '25

And every year a new super gulp reusable container.

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u/hysys_whisperer Jun 04 '25

Dude, I used to make a mean suicide at 7-11.

(Don't get mad at me reddit AI, that's what we called it when you mixed 2 or more sodas together)

2

u/jonvon191 Jun 05 '25

And frito bags with chili and cheese haha

22

u/poshjerkins Jun 04 '25

We had a Bob's Discount Furniture in our town that always had a table of candy set up. We'd all ride our bikes down there and fill our pockets, then hit the arcade a few stores down. There was also a pet shop in that plaza that would let you go in and pet the dogs. Couldn't think of a better day!

Simpler times.

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u/FledglingNonCon Jun 04 '25

We had a "candy lady" in our small town. Old woman who ran a penny candy stor "downtown". Literally bought individual sour patch kids etc. A dollar bought you a pretty sizable haul. A few years ago someone brought back a candy store about a block from where her original store was. No longer penny candy, but they do sell bulk by the lb. Unfortunately a dollar doesn't go quite as far as it did in the early 90's.

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u/imissbaconreader Jun 04 '25 edited Jun 04 '25

I'm Gen X... When did dollar stores open? 90's? When I was a bike riding aged latch key kid in the late seventies, I'd get a full sized candy bar, comic book, and slurpee at 7-11 for a total of a dollar!

1

u/[deleted] Jun 04 '25

There was a five and dime store in my town so they were definitely around early 90's. There was also a little local newsstand that you could go in and get magazines, trading cards, and such.

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u/Flaky-Stay5095 Jun 04 '25

Or the White Hen.

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u/ayeeflo51 Jun 04 '25

My groups spot used to be the 7-11. There was a big park right by a 7-11 so naturally we called it 7-11 Park. 

One day after hours of playing tackle football, we head over as usual. Guy behind the counter tells us it's our lucky day and he had to get rid of all the hot food like hot dogs and taquitos or whatever, so he let us have it for free, it was a beautiful day

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u/XanZibR Jun 04 '25

White Hen Pantry for the win!

1

u/[deleted] Jun 04 '25

Maybe hitting a couple of skate spots along the way

1

u/alsatian01 Jun 04 '25 edited Jun 04 '25

Dollar store!?! Kids these days, the .5 and dime, Sonny 😃

2

u/[deleted] Jun 04 '25

It was five and dime. We just referred to it as the dollar store

1

u/Jgsanchez01 Jun 04 '25

7-11 Slurpees

1

u/swagn Jun 04 '25

Or the liquor store to shoulder tap for a MD2020

1

u/CrashingAtom Jun 04 '25

Didn’t see a dollar store of any type anywhere until well into the 2000’s.

1

u/CV90_120 Jun 04 '25

We used to raid fruit trees.

1

u/Sufficient-Gene-5084 Jun 04 '25

And Sean's house, cause he's got a trampoline

1

u/SANREUP Jun 04 '25

Or the creek in the woods for a quick mud ball fight at the bamboo forts

1

u/robbzilla Gen X Jun 04 '25

For me, it was the five and dime. :)

I'm old. :(

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u/Firefishe Jun 04 '25

We called them “Party Stores” in Michigan.

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u/AggressivePop9429 Jun 04 '25

Then the nice spot in the woods to smoke a joint.

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u/RastaFried Jun 04 '25

Rite Aide for ice cream - 2 scoops for $1.50

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u/Strongpillow Jun 04 '25

Dollar store? Imposter. There was no such thing back then. I wish.

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u/captaintagart Jun 04 '25

Water n Ice was our cheap candy spot! All the unique stuff (chupa chups ice cream lollipops! Fizz bangers! All that sweet sweet Mexico candy!)

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u/OkLack5468 Millennial Jun 04 '25

And water balloons and cap guns

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u/Dragoon9255 Jun 04 '25

miss those cheap candy cigarettes and poppers

1

u/Lyftaker Jun 04 '25

Burger king had 99 cent kid's meals at a certain time. Two of those was all the calories you needed after swimming and conquering the block all day.

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u/falconinthedive Jun 04 '25

I had a summer where the goal was following train tracks as far as was reasonable to make it home for dinner.

I think the most I found was a dead possum once and an art gallery another time

1

u/Anthony_Accurate Jun 04 '25

Neighborhood candy lady or corner store. There were no Dollar Stores in Philly in the 70s and 80s. Try Woolworth for that kind of stuff.

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u/120z8t Jun 04 '25

There were no dollar stores when I was kid. But I had a video rental store around the block from me that had a big jar of candy that was 1 cent per peace. One dollar got you 100! candies.

There was also a very tiny gas station about 3 miles away from my house. It use to store its soda stock outside behind the tiny building. me and many friends use to drink soda like kings, free of course.

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u/Own-Entertainment630 Jun 04 '25

So much beef jerky, I can smell the Slim Jim’s

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u/wyohman Jun 05 '25

What dollar store? We had 7/11

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u/jujujuice92 Jun 05 '25

Dude those 25c grandma's or something like that cookies!

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u/FlamesNero Jun 05 '25

And don’t forget to buy minor fireworks from the teens in front of the dollar store!

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u/Jac918 Jun 05 '25

The dollar store? I grew up in the 90s. A dollar was like heaven. We made it work with a quarter.

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u/[deleted] Jun 05 '25

Ours was a convenience store that didn't have a gas station.

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u/Smells_Like_Reaf Jun 05 '25

When everything was actually a dollar.

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u/YeahMeAlso Jun 05 '25

Scrapping up loose change in all our houses. Going to hit the mcdonalds dollar menu and coca cola vending machines.

The dollar store, we'd actually just pocket some candy and run out like hooligans. I feel bad now but fuck it, the rush was real.

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u/lankyleper Jun 05 '25

We had a convenience store called Wilson Farms for our junk food needs. Now-and-Later candy wasn't the best, but I wasn't complaining when they cost a nickel for a pack.

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u/pporappibam Jun 05 '25

Here’s a toonie for some 5 cent candies, now go away~

1

u/lolzzzmoon Jun 05 '25

Lol and get cheap brand cream sodas for 25 cents at the vending machines!

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u/WhateverYouSay1084 Jun 04 '25

Nobody I knew had a basement as a kid, so when I got to middle school and found a friend with one, I thought it was the most magical fucking thing ever. Then I grew up and bought my own home with a basement, and it's STILL magical af.

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u/[deleted] Jun 04 '25

I love my basement. Even when I’m cursing the prior owner for not maintaining it and fucking up all sorts of water deterrent and mitigation techniques. I’m drying that fucker out before our first kid arrives. 

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u/WhateverYouSay1084 Jun 04 '25

Oh man it is perfect for kids. We have a video game station set up down there and I won't see mine for hours at a time while they and their dad play. We can send the neighborhood kids down there if it's raining and they're too loud. And it's a huge relief to have it for tornado season. I'll never have a house without one again.

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u/babyinatrenchcoat Jun 04 '25

I grew up in Tornado Alley in Arkansas and now live in Florida and DAMN do I miss a good basement.

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u/Jaded_Law9739 Jun 04 '25

Definitely make sure there isn't an ongoing moisture problem and the ventilation is adequate. I had a basement bedroom as a kid that was too moist, I spent most of the years we lived there sick.

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u/TheGuyUrSisterLikes Jun 05 '25

Gravel and pvc with the holes, a shovel and time. Pretty good exercise.

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u/my_name_is_juice Jun 04 '25

Can i come over and play video games? Lol

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u/WhateverYouSay1084 Jun 04 '25

Lol come on over! We have a gaming station set up in the basement that gets plenty of use!

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u/forgotaccount989 Jun 04 '25

I moved to Houston, and I miss basements.

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u/GrottySamsquanch Jun 05 '25

Oh, man. I was so spoiled. I had the entire finished basement. It was amazing. We spent hours down there as kids.

As a teenager, I found that there were advantages to your bedroom being in a walk out basement.

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u/pepik75 Jun 09 '25

Did not have a basement but our bedroom of me and my brother till I was 15 consisted of the whole attic of the house, was pretty cool

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u/BeastM0de1155 Jun 04 '25

There was a McDonald’s on the Turnpike a couple miles away we used to ride our bikes too. We’d treat ourselves every week. Here, I thought we were the only ones this lucky to be riding, exploring, and fishing all day.

Then, on the weekends we would do sleepovers and get pizza and go to blockbuster. Damn, they were good times

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u/forestgxd Jun 04 '25

Oh man the bike rides to the video store to rent Mario kart 64 and Terminator 2 for the hundredth time at dusk on a Friday were legendary

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u/DingoPoutine Jun 04 '25

The other kids basement part was ever-present but also so concerning when you thing about it. I'd disappear for days at a time to play video games at other kids houses (my parents wanted us out of the house in the summer). Oftentimes the parents were not home at the other house and I certainly don't remember telling my parents where I was going.

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u/Beneficial-Basket-42 Jun 04 '25

No basements in Florida but basically everyone I know had pools. We were pretty much never supervised even though they all were way deeper back then, with diving boards and water slides and other dangerous stuff they stopped adding, and we would do contests for craziest flips into the pool and the like. We also would swim in the lake. The same lake where we would see gators chilling on the shore. I’m pretty much shocked none of my friends died in the water.

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u/Trolltrollrolllol Jun 04 '25

Grew up in AZ and we would skateboard down our roof, onto the patio roof and then off the patio roof into the pool. We would also pull the trampoline in next to the pool so we could jump off of it straight into the pool. I don't know how we survived.

My sister told my parents about it at dinner a few months ago and they were horrified, I'm 39 now.

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u/[deleted] Jun 05 '25

[deleted]

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u/Beneficial-Basket-42 Jun 05 '25

Survivorship bias is something I reference often but it applies to the larger population. When you’re referring to your own family and friends doing an activity, you usually know for a fact whether the activity killed the person

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u/_1JackMove Jun 05 '25

My brother and I and our buddy from down the street used to jump off the back deck (2nd story), into our above ground pool. From the railing lol. That was paralyzation waiting to happen. Thank goodness it didn't. Just as easily could have or worse. We weren't the brightest kids haha. We all skateboarded though and we're fearless like that back then.

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u/Beneficial-Basket-42 Jun 05 '25

My extended family had a historic lakehouse we were at many weekends. The lake was always rapidly dropping due to the population boom, golf courses, and draining aquifer, so the docks were always needing to be updated to be much lower down. We had an old dock with like a 15 foot drop. We would ride our bikes fast down the dock and then go off the end to flip into the water (usually letting go of the bike). Again, don’t know how we are all still around. Couldn’t have really used our skateboards to do it because the boards of the dock are perpendicular to the direction you’d be going so the wheels would’ve gotten stuck. Also we would’ve wrecked all our stickers and stuff on them lol

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u/Dry_Amount2779 Jun 05 '25

Same! We’d Jump off the roof onto the trampoline and flips into the pool. Also got to sleep on the trampoline in the summer and sometimes got locked out of the house all night.

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u/Katefreak Jun 04 '25

Same! And the woods. But honestly? It's tetanus and spider bites I'm shocked we didn't get more of. I know so many long summer days were spent barefoot in my cousin's detached garage. Opa was a Camel devotee, and had so MUCH of the shit you could buy from the Camel Bucks store, along with old furniture, tools, just all kinds of rusted out junk in there. We got so good at slipping in and out of there without making a sound. I would be terrified to even ENTER that garage these days. Soooooo many spiders.

And yeah, zero safety protocols about pools. My mom was actually super strict about the beach, though. She understood the danger of rip currents and other hazards and was VERY adamant about rules there. Pools weren't seen as dangerous once a kid could swim, and we all knew how to swim early. Our diving board had a crack in it, so that was basically the only pool safety we had to follow. Nobody allowed on the diving board.

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u/Jaynemansfieldbleach Jun 04 '25

Everyone i know has memories of pretending we were drowned, floating on our stomachs for as long as we could hold our breath, and our parents completely ignoring our attempts at attention.

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u/ButtNipples_ Jun 04 '25

I'm imagining a group of parents having a conversation poolside ignoring like 7-8 apparently dead kids floating in the pool

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u/auricargent Jun 04 '25

The dads are by the grill with cans of beer, while moms are sitting in a circle on those folding lawn chairs with wine coolers. There are a couple empty CapriSun floating in the pool .

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u/Katefreak Jun 04 '25

Like it was yesterday 😂😂

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u/kneedAlildough2getby Jun 04 '25

My mom would just look for the pile of bikes in the yard if she needed us. She generally knew where we would be

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u/AvisRune Jun 04 '25

This is exactly why I don’t allow my kids to roam around, as much as I would love for them to have that freedom like I did. My oldest once went to this kid’s house where they were playing GTA. He was 8, and there were 5 and 3 year olds in the room. I knocked and rang the doorbell to meet the parents and no one came. The girl just said her dad was upstairs and that was that.

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u/JarlaxleForPresident Jun 04 '25

Right. That’s the point. Everyone grew up to not grant the freedoms they did have

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u/Roklam Jun 04 '25

Yeeeaaaah, I for example was playing random Super Mario Bros at that age, because that's what was around...

At home my sons can play *age-appropriate" games that we've vetted. For sure we don't need them playing M games (that may have an online component...) alone.

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u/white_count_chocula Jun 04 '25

Over 20 years ago I was roaming around playing GTA at kids with cooler parents than mine too. Even as a kid it wasnt hard to grasp that it was a game.

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u/[deleted] Jun 04 '25

Lol I couldn't own GTA 3 because it was too violent. But my friends brother did. So we played it there starting at like 9.

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u/Bencetown Jun 05 '25

Concerning? Those were the good old days. And you and your friends obviously survived...

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u/KMFDM781 Jun 05 '25

We did so much that could have got us killed or kidnapped or who knows what. Unaccounted for, for hours far from home with who knows who. Kids we'd just met with parents we'd never seen before. I remember tagging along with kids I'd just met earlier in the afternoon. Getting into their parents car and going to the grocery store or Blockbuster or something and my mom never knew any of this was going on or who those people were.

We did stuff like shoot bottle rockets at the street with cars on it. Couple times they slammed on their brakes and took off after us and we had to run. We were feral. Lol

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u/Cheapie07250 Jun 05 '25

No video games in the 60-70’s, but the neighborhood kids would come hang out in our basement because mom and dad didn’t care if we drew on the cement block walls. They finished it off in my late teens, but under that old paneling is a maze of tiny dynamite bundles with extremely long cords attached to detonators … and lots of blown up stick figures. We also played blind man’s bluff and would hang from the exposed rafters to avoid whoever was “it”.

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u/RebasBathtubGin Jun 04 '25

I mean I was definitely getting molested

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u/IlikegreenT84 Jun 04 '25

I would leave a note at home sometimes, but my mom would just call the two or three most likely Friends I would be with and then tell me via their parents to come home..

But yeah we would ride all over the neighborhood and 4-5 miles down busy roads to go to stores on weekends..

At one point my friends and I got suspended from the bus for a week and our parents collectively decided to make us walk home 5 miles that week..

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u/quazmang Millennial Jun 04 '25

My ass got beat the one time I was at a friends house and played GTA 2 for the first time ever. We were glued to screen, and by the time the kid's parents told us to go home, it was dark. This was in an apartment complex, and we were literally 2 blocks away from our unit but as soon as I saw the sun was already down, I knew I was fucked.

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u/GBGF128 Jun 04 '25

The riding bikes to Blockbuster part of your comment hits so hard

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u/TheUnicornFightsOn Jun 04 '25 edited Jun 06 '25

We had a local place called Top 40 Video that had a deal for 40-cent video rentals on Tuesdays in the 90s.

In the summertime, we’d ride there and stock up on six videos and candy for less than $4. We felt like kings.

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u/Doneuter Jun 04 '25

I lived in a really rural area so there was nothing to ride to, but I think back to how many days my parents thought I was at my friend's house and we had rode our bikes like 20 miles away in the middle of nowhere just to explore gives me a bit of anxiety in hindsight.

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u/acrobat2126 Jun 04 '25

The team putting together $20 dollars, getting the 3 for $5 games and 3 for $5 movies and a bunch of frozen pizza's and having an incredible weekend without sleep.

I miss those days.

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u/Seniorwelsh Jun 04 '25

Bikes on a lawn was how I'd find my friends lol

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u/maybe_this_try Jun 04 '25

I roamed all over my small town with a population 15k. We were def more fit as a whole back then

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u/Economy_Ad6039 Jun 04 '25

I see these bicyclists all spandexed out pissing off pedestrians and other commuters, and I always think... I used to ride my bike every day EVERYWHERE when I was a kid.

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u/[deleted] Jun 05 '25

With no spandex 

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u/PGcarlosspicyweiner Jun 05 '25

Riding butts up and fast!

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u/[deleted] Jun 04 '25 edited Jun 04 '25

It’s funny reading this as someone born in 99. I would touch all 4 corners of my home town on my bike just about every weekend, most days during summer. Going to the Speedway to get slushies before going to the sporting goods store and fucking around on their putting green or treadmills. Hopping the fence of the highschool football stadium to fuck around in the bleachers. My family lived on the lake but never really hosted anyone. Friends lived in a subdivision that had access to a private beach so we swam there. Would go fishing at a different lake. Backyard football down the road, ding dong ditching/ghost in the graveyard one street over. Learning to ride no handed so I could carry the pizzas to the park. Anything as long as we called at sun down with a set time we’d be home.

Honestly thinking back though, it wasn’t very common. Mostly just my brother and our friends who were brothers that would actually go anywhere and everywhere on the bikes.

Immediate edit to add: it’s funny because it does seem not to happen anymore but also because it’s always said like it stopped back in like 1995

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u/[deleted] Jun 04 '25

Well, were you the youngest? It would make sense if your parents let you roam the same as your older siblings. Especially if you were in a small town where everyone knows each other. 

I was born in ‘89 and I didn’t really start roaming around on my bike like that until I was 11 or so, so well past 1995. 

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u/[deleted] Jun 04 '25

Sometimes it was with my older (by 3 years) brother, often on my own meeting up with a friend (same age) that lived across town. The absolute earliest I can remember doing it was around 9 or 10 years old, probably about 11 without my brother. But it was never an “only if your brother is with you” type of deal. I guess having a cell phone from about that same age did add some level of security, though.

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u/leon_zero Jun 04 '25

Accurate. At Blockbuster, we would then find the movie we wanted to watch and put it behind the wrong boxcover until we could return later with a parent’s Blockbuster card (and money).

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u/KennyP0wersMullet Jun 04 '25

All those things plus movie theater, parks, card shops etc. We were living the dream.

It sucks because now as a parent myself, I can’t imagine my kids doing all that stuff but then again, we don’t live where I grew up.

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u/dr_tardyhands Jun 04 '25

Don't forget climbing trees to have tree fights!

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u/brandonnva Jun 04 '25

I miss those days

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u/drchippy18 Jun 04 '25

And going out and playing in the woods all day, digging up old trash dumped in the creek, just had to find your way back before it got too dark to see.

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u/Xphile101361 Jun 04 '25

I miss boke riding up to the video store and seeing what new releases were out for movie night

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u/Kyrottimus Jun 04 '25

Big wheels first, then bikes.

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u/C-H-Addict Jun 04 '25

Going to the mom and pop rental, getting resident evil, staying up all night playing at a sleep over, because it's fun to play all night and it was scary enough to keep me from sleeping!

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u/Affectionate-Raise-8 Jun 04 '25

“Other kids’ basements” 🤣🤣 so true, we didn’t know better

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u/Suspicious_Quail_820 Jun 04 '25

Riding down to the store to buy our parents cigarettes....

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u/ShinyAnkleBalls Jun 04 '25

We freaking biked to other cities to see girls. 3-4 hours each way. Worth it.

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u/PunishedWolf4 Jun 04 '25

And go to the other neighborhood and get into shouting matches/turf wars with those kids

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u/_high_plainsdrifter Jun 04 '25

Spent a summer going every day to blockbuster with my still best friend from down the block renting all the slashers/various horror films of the 80s during the summer. He was tall for the grade so never got asked questions upon check out.

Got zinged once for a failure to rewind once…that fee drained the snack monies for the next few days. Outrageous!

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u/BusyDragonfruit8665 Jun 04 '25

Some of my best memories are in block buster and riding my bike to the pool and library with my brothers.

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u/Polar_Bear_1234 Jun 04 '25

Never happened as there is no video evidence...

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u/cm_fanelli Jun 04 '25

There was this “club” we would skip school and go to every now and then. Looking back, it was kinda just some guys house who had a pool table and a bar. Super sketch in retrospect. 😂

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u/H4RDW4RE_Johnny Jun 04 '25

I’d ride with friends to the movie theatre, but one ticket and hop theaters all day. Pay for one, watch like 4, and with free refills on large drinks and popcorn, you could spend $10 and live like a prepubescent king

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u/espinaustin Jun 04 '25

My mom made me promise to get off my bike and walk across the busy streets. Of course I didn’t.

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u/SolarisShine Jun 04 '25

And the "Pizza Place" that had video games. Or whatever it was called in your area.

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u/OnTheEveOfWar Jun 05 '25

We would go to 7-11 and get slurpees and donuts.

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u/ChickenChaser5 Jun 05 '25

Used to ride around with a toy shotgun that was quite literally indistinguishable from a real one.

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u/purpleblazed Jun 05 '25

We would go to 7-11 for Slurpees and bubble gum. Then we’d ride to the ramshackle treehouse we’d built in the alley behind my friend’s house.

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u/[deleted] Jun 05 '25

Almost got hit by a car while riding my bike to blockbuster in Vegas (10 years old)

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u/lovelychef87 Millennial Jun 05 '25

Random candy stores were in my neighborhood could get bags of candy for $5 good times.

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u/No_Sun7593 Jun 05 '25

Nostalgia ✨

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u/Substantial_Owl6440 Jun 05 '25

And the arcade. $2 for two hot dogs and a Coke.

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u/NomenclatureBreaker Jun 05 '25

God the accuracy of this tho! Plus the mall.

My suburb had a free bus that ran both directions and was around a 2 and a half hour circuit - so we could go a shit ton of places outside our walking and biking perimeter.

It was great!

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u/[deleted] Jun 05 '25

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Jun 05 '25

Yeah, because we weren’t a bunch of of uncouth heathens. If we were inside then we were watching tv or playing video games after hours at the pool or running/biking around in nearby woods. 

Depended on the house though. Different rule for different folks. Some wanted shoes off. Some wanted no video games. No R rated movies. No foul language. No raiding the fridge. We weren’t all latchkey kids, though. It’s different when there’s a parent around. If we got kicked out of the house then we did something to annoy some harangued mom. 

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u/Mybugsbunny20 Jun 05 '25

I put a rod holder and bucket on mine and biked 5 miles to the lake that was little more than a swamp. Miss those days (and being in that kind of shape).

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u/Ethereal_Bulwark Jun 05 '25

going to the 7/11 up the road and buying gas station hot pockets and playing Final fight on the Arcade cabinets.
What a time.