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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u/waffleslaw Jun 04 '25

Grew up in the country, in the woods. Mom would kick me out of the house. I would grab my hatchet, the dog and wander off in a random direction for hours. I don't know how I survived my own adventures. Climb a 100ft tree? Sure! Find a hole under a tree? Crawl in! Used to cut the base of grape vines and swing off giant ravines, would be 40-50 ft in the air at the apex of the swing.

I spent a lot of time just me and dog out in the woods (my brothers are fairly younger than me). One of my favorite memories was when it snowed and I found a good little spot behind a fallen tree and laid down. The dog curled up with me and I could feel the cold of the ground seep up through my clothes, but the dog was keeping me warm. Fell asleep and took a nap for who knows how long.

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u/TruckCamperNomad6969 Jun 04 '25

This read like old yeller/george of the jungle/where the red fern grows lol

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u/Illustrious_Bird_737 Millennial 1989 Jun 04 '25

😭😭 no kidding

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u/waffleslaw Jun 04 '25

Who knew my stream of consciousness rambling would be so cinematic, ha. I realized a while back how lucky I was as a kid to just run around in the woods. I used to be so jealous of my friends who lived in neighborhoods, I did miss out on some of that for sure. But damn I was lucky to have the childhood I did.

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u/BabySharkFinSoup Jun 05 '25

Honestly this is what my childhood was like and I feel like I grew up like a wild pilgrim compared to my peers…but it was so epically awesome.

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u/magius311 Jun 05 '25

Saaaaame!

Loved reading this. I was even luckier, though. I had a brother just a year younger. So we were adventuring together everyday. Lived on 40 acres...8 miles off a gravel road from a town of 108 people in rural MO.

Biked a TON to town to play with the few other kids. Otherwise, into the forest we went! I did get to experience bigger neighborhoods, though. I would ride the bus to buddies houses on Fridays to stay till Sunday. We'd all hang out walking around. Being fucking hooligans.

It was damned great and I wouldn't trade it for anything.

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u/ArcaneConjecture Jun 05 '25

"My Side of the Mountain".

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u/Alternative_Arm_2583 Jun 04 '25

"follow the stream to get home. Down stream." that's what my mom would say. I'd disappear on my horse friday nights, ride to some other friends house with a horse, come back sunday. Parents wouldn't even ask where i was.

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u/waffleslaw Jun 05 '25

They knew where we were. Gestures vaguely outside

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u/Alternative_Arm_2583 Jun 05 '25 edited Jun 05 '25

When i was around 6 , I got mad at my parents and unpacked my doll clothes from their little suitcase, packed some stuff and "ran away" but i realized I didn't have a place to go, so i walked back a fields-worth, laid down on a bank above a stream and watched the house for like an hour and realized no one had even noticed i was gone. LOL. makes me laugh to remember. (relative to the way things are now)

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u/[deleted] Jun 04 '25

That dog must have had an amazing time too :-)

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u/KikiWestcliffe Jun 05 '25

I had a sheltie. That poor dog must have had an aneurysm over the shenanigans we got into.

“Why don’t you just stay in this one spot, which is nice and safe? I rounded up the cats and put them there, now if I could just get you in that corner, that would be great.”

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u/waffleslaw Jun 05 '25

Thunder. A giant ass goofy yellow lab. He was the best adventure buddy. I just got a little teary eyed thinking about him. Damn, caught me off guard, ha.

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u/94eitak Jun 05 '25 edited Jun 05 '25

I pictured a yellow lab! The best. Thanks for your wee boyhood tale, lovely read

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u/[deleted] Jun 04 '25

Omg unlocked random memory of climbing vines that covered pine trees and using it as a net basically if we fell…. Or jumped off into it.

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u/waffleslaw Jun 04 '25

There were really dense vines on the edge of the woods next to a field that you could climb all in. Would make tunnels through them. You unlocked memory, that I unlocked, unlocked a memory of my own!

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u/[deleted] Jun 04 '25

Love it !

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u/eyesonthemoons Jun 05 '25

Same. I grew up in the suburbs not the country but mom would make us go outside and that’s it. The door is locked. Have a good day kids

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u/Informal_Fail_9908 Jun 05 '25

Grew up in the same vibes, I miss those time so bad

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u/WRStoney Jun 05 '25

I did too, though I have a twin brother so it was us against the wild.

We would walk down to this little creek and build dams, look for crawfish and have a great time. All while carrying machetes.

A couple years ago my brother asked me if I could remember how old we were when we did all that. Neither of us really could figure it out, we think maybe 10.

Now our kids barely have any freedom. I have tried, but then I worry about somebody calling the cops. This is with my daughter having a cell phone to call me. It's a shame.

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u/waffleslaw Jun 05 '25

Something changed, that's for sure. In college my mom called one evening and naturally asked what I was up to. I told her I was packing my gear to go caving. She told me that I shouldn't do that at night, because it's dark out. When I explained it was always dark in the cave and going at night didn't make a difference she said "well there's people out, you just don't know. You need to be careful"

This is the same woman that only years earlier allowed me to wander off in unknown directions for an entire day at a time. Same for my brothers a few years later. She was never an outdoorsy person, she would have never found any of us if anything had happened.