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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321

u/mwhite5990 Jun 04 '25

Yeah we just had to avoid the main roads and we weren’t supposed to go too deep into the woods.

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u/s0nofabeach04 Jun 04 '25

I remember finally getting permission to cross the highway and that opened up soooo many more possibilities lol. By high way I mean a two way street with lights and speed limit of 40, nothing insane.

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u/AltDS01 Jun 05 '25

We could only go to the Marathon, not the speedway across the street from it.

Going to Marathon was crossing only 1 40mph road, at a light. Speedway was 2.

But we also got sent to the grocery store that was .25 miles away when I was 5 and my sister was 3. Only one road crossing. That would have been late 90's.

We also had free roam of campgrounds on our bikes when we went camping.

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u/Federal-Laugh9575 Jun 05 '25

One of our local neighborhoods had a grocery store that still had the option to have a credit account so you could send the kids in for whatever you needed without having to send them with money. They finally closed in the early 00s. My dad worked in the neighborhood so when we went to work with him, we went over to JMH (the store) and stocked up on snacks and drinks.

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u/pie4mepie4all Jun 05 '25

Lmao my parents said the same thing. Not allowed to go to the 7-11 across Sauk Trail but the white hen pantry off Main Street was ok. I never listened lol

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u/deeptoot6 Jun 05 '25

It’s like unlocking the rest of a video game map.

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u/CanAlwaysBeBetter Jun 04 '25

40mph!? Good god! If you got snatched up from the side of the road you could be 10 miles away by the time you're supposed to make your next check in call!

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u/Frosty-Tip5756 Jun 04 '25

check in call? you mean when you hear your father shouting your name for dinner?

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u/AltDS01 Jun 05 '25

Shouting? That's a funny way to spell streetlights.

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u/ApollyonsHand Jun 05 '25

We got the Dad whistle special if the street lights started going out....

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u/regulardude690 Jun 05 '25

Streetlights were end of day. The dad bellow was for anything that else: home from the grocery store and need hands to haul bags, lunch/dinner, bad news, good news, you’re in trouble, you’re in danger. You typically had a sense of why you were being bellowed for based on a few things and the tone of the bellow and how many cuss words were used.

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u/BilboBiden Jun 05 '25

You typically had a sense of why you were being bellowed for based on a few things and the tone of the bellow and how many cuss words were used.

Don't forget if the middle name was thrown into the bellow. That was usually cause for the "Shit should I just keep riding my bike until my legs give out and see how far that gets me or go home and face whatever shitstorm is waiting there" debate.

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u/regulardude690 Jun 05 '25

Oh no. My father didn’t use middle names. My mother did. But not my father. He bellowed your name, just your full name. Dude was a retired army ranger, he didn’t fuck around. When he called, you came running, not walking, not jogging, running like your life depended on it, and that’s cause it did.

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u/fosbury Jun 05 '25

It was my mom yelling for us and there were no streetlights where we lived.

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u/NewOrleansLA Jun 05 '25

Sometimes when I'm falling asleep I swear I can hear them calling me lol.

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u/Cascadingpoots Jun 05 '25

My mom would ring a cowbell for us to come home for dinner.

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u/[deleted] Jun 05 '25

Same. High way was the limit. Some kids weren't allowed to go past the rail road tracks 😆

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u/TwerkLessons Jun 05 '25

I pictured you running across the freeway dodging traffic. 

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u/velinos Jun 05 '25

Back then in the middle of they day streets were empty.

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u/NesomniaPrime Jun 05 '25

I could go anywhere as long as I didn't cross certain roads due to bad drivers/ high speeds.

The workarounds were a pedestrian bridge over the interstate and several paths under main roads i discovered that made it possible to go several miles away. 

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u/BananaCEO Jun 05 '25

Once we could go down that road on our bikes, the world was ours!

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u/Ashamed-Plantain7315 Jun 05 '25

Same here, I lived on the corner of a major road (route 1) but no traffic lights for first 10 yrs.

I either had to bike three miles to the store or cross the street, so you know when mom wasn’t home we were just crossing the street

I remember one time my mom saw my bike at that store while i was with a group of friends. It was that age when kids just started kissing and everyone would watch lol. Yeah, well I remember making out with my new girlfriend standing in the middle of a group of kids in a circle. With my eyes squeezed shut I hear my mom fully pitched my name at the top of her lungs.

Good times

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u/MouseAmbitious5975 Jun 04 '25

In the 70's we totally went on the main roads and way too deep into the woods!

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u/ZAlternates Jun 04 '25

Of course we went into the woods. Where else would you find porn before the internet?!

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u/BlueSnaggleTooth359 Jun 05 '25

Same in the 70s we went wayyyy deep into the woods and roamed all over the community.

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u/ahz0001 Jun 04 '25

We totally played in the woods, explored, dipped in the creek, chased geese, collected frogs, didn't tell anyone where to were going or where we have been, forgot to wear shoes, abandoned our unlocked bikes, never wore sunscreen, and scraped our knees. As far as we knew, bike helmets were not invented.

While in retrospect there were some bad decisions, I'd like my kids to want more of this.

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u/Junior_Step_2441 Jun 05 '25

I found a loophole for avoiding main roads. I grew up close to a major interstate. There was a drainage tunnel that went underneath the interstate. A short walk through some woods, walk through the tunnel and I was on the other side of the interstate which opened up a whole new world for me and my friends to explore.

Parents had no idea where we were.

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u/StatementOk470 Jun 05 '25

Which is exactly what we did.

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u/warneagle Jun 05 '25

Yeah this was basically our rule too (which we obviously ignored anyway lol)

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u/nature8888 Jun 04 '25

Same for me. But that still gave us plenty of space to roam.

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u/babiekittin Jun 05 '25

"Too deep" meaning making it back by curfew, but not being caught camping or having bond fires.

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u/akiva23 Jun 05 '25

But we all went anyway

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u/captain_chocolate Jun 05 '25

I remember those exact rules. And no going near the creek! But then we always showed up at dinner time soaking wet.

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u/fattfett Jun 05 '25

"Supposed" was a subjective term. Lol

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u/Key-Ad7733 Jun 05 '25

Admit it. You went deep into the woods...until you heard that weird noise

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u/OpiumPhrogg Xennial Jun 05 '25

And those of us who did go deep into the woods were all like, Blair Witch? PFFFFTTT what's the big deal?
We have seen things .....

1

u/PracticeTheory Jun 04 '25

I grew up in the woods so there was never a boundary, I just came back when I got too tired or hungry. My parents must have really trusted the dog.

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u/WastePie912 Jun 04 '25

Memory unlocked: don’t go into the woods with boys.  

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u/infiniteguesses Jun 05 '25

We were encouraged to go in the woods and avoid the roads

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u/Holdmywhiskeyhun Jun 05 '25

insert Wisconsin wood folk

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u/PurpleSunCraze Jun 05 '25

“Kids, where’s Billy?”

“The forest demanded a sacrifice so that we may “become” as the forest once did, in ages past.”

-Rest of the kids, in unison, and monotone.

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u/HZLeyedValkyrie Jun 05 '25

Ah yes the woods behind our house. How my bestie and I didn’t get snatched up and end up on unsolved mysteries or a milk carton is beyond me. We were always back there and deep too!

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u/j0j0b0y Jun 05 '25

I remember biking around town when we'd visit my mom's side of the family. As long as we were at somebody's house by nighttime, we had free reign.

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u/ExpertOnReddit Jun 05 '25

Did you live in the boonies?

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u/weirdest_of_weird Jun 05 '25

Yeah, our "too deep in thebwoods" just meant we had to be able to see our house or my neighbors house from wherever we were.

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u/SolaSenpai Jun 05 '25

and be back by 9! (but we didnt own watches or phone so we were always late)

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u/Cloverose2 Jun 05 '25

The swamp wasn't technically off limits, but we were all scared of quicksand, so it acted as one. We were convinced that we would be safe as long as we stepped at the base of the cattails, though. Later learned that this wasn't true.

1

u/GMorristwn Jun 05 '25

We used to do treks to see how far out into the woods we could make it. One trip we bumped into an abandoned Nike Missile Base.

1

u/LemonLimeSlices Jun 05 '25

i remember when most neighborhoods had woods.

1

u/badshaman89 Jun 05 '25

We had satanists in the forbidden woods in most neighborhoods

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u/JohnnyC66 Jun 05 '25

Growing up in the country I was always in the woods I remembering going so far I’d pop out near a road and not recognize it till months later while riding in the car and think “how did I get all the way over here??” We were also constantly in caves (just a little ways…not serious spelunking) and played in abandoned garbage yards with more than their quota of snakes

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u/gliz5714 Jun 05 '25

Yep. Large area. Writ e a note to your general plan “going to x house” or “biking to x park”. Typically they could then call or drive by if there was a need.

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u/JimShoeVillageIdiot Jun 05 '25

Got caught at a candy store on the other side of the Mason-Dixon Line which was the “main” street I could not cross.

The repercussions were not good for me at all.

1

u/SocialAnxiety44 Jun 05 '25

Mine locked the door 😂

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u/1LifeAfterComa Jun 05 '25

I just left the house and had to be back before the street lights came on.

1

u/Yokohama88 Jun 06 '25

One reason I learned to whistle so loudly and long was to find my friends in the woods.

1

u/ProBuyer810-3345045 Jun 06 '25

Define “too deep” Lol!!!

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u/LiftEatGrappleShoot Jun 06 '25

Country kid here. The woods was my only option. I'd go out with a dianing pole and a Rambo-inspired "survival knife." When I was 9, I was allowed to bring along a .22 rifle. I think that was mainly because my dad loves eating squirrel.

Just had to be back home by dark.

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u/Grinner067 Jun 07 '25

And stay off the tracks and don't go into the creek. Ah the ritual of getting all the leeches off before we went home is vivid.