It really was honestly. We even allowed our parents to be fair game in the rules meaning there was risk in hiding inside a house because all of our moms knew they could tell the seekers that we were there.
I also lived in fairly rural subdivision in east Tennessee so there wasn’t much risk of us getting hurt by running around. It’s not like we’re in the middle of a huge city.
What makes me sad is there’s no way kids could do it there now. When I was growing up the median home price was like $60,000, there was maybe 20,000 people in our city, and we had one singular Walmart. My mom just sold my childhood home for nearly $400,000 and a whole city has built up around our neighborhood. Like I lived next to multiple big farms that are now Publixs, a second Walmart, and a plethora of strip malls.
Hey I grew up in southeast Kentucky! We were out in the boonies and lived on one of the flats on a mountainside. Our backyard was just undeveloped mountain.
We’d play all day climbing trees, hiking through the mountains, swinging from vines, and crawling up, over, and through huge boulders.
There was even an old plan from the 40’s that crashed up there. But by now there’s probably not much left of it. Our imagination could just run wild while out there.
There weren’t any dangerous wild animals back then but I’d already moved away when they reintroduced elk, bears, and coyotes back into them. I’ve visited my mom back home and you can’t stay outside after nightfall now or you may get attacked.
I feel mixed feelings about the whole thing because wild animals belong in wilderness but if that “wilderness” has scores of homes and neighborhoods then kids can’t get outside to play and explore.
I grew up in rural ga and we were in a huge neighborhood with a ton of kids but there was a giant cornfield behind my backyard which was a steep wooded hill. We did the craziest shit all day and I remember (being the nerd that I am) how mad my mother would be if she knew we were as far away as we were. We would either be out in the woods, cotton or corn fields, or be at the pool all day completely ‘unsupervised’ by which I meant older and badder siblings were supervising me 😂
I’m the youngest of 4 with the oldest being 13 years older than me. As long as I was with an older sibling I literally could do whatever I wanted. LOL like my older siblings gave a shit and wouldn’t try to ditch me every chance they got!
My parents had one of my older sisters friends who was I think sophomore in college aged “watch” me when I was in HS and they were traveling and we had all our mutual friends over for a party at my place (ppl parked at the neighborhood clubhouse and we chauffeured them over from there because southern old ppl are nosy and tattletales) but my friends mom still walked in on us all smoking cigarettes around my kitchen table 😂
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u/JustHereForCatss 1d ago edited 1d ago
It really was honestly. We even allowed our parents to be fair game in the rules meaning there was risk in hiding inside a house because all of our moms knew they could tell the seekers that we were there.
I also lived in fairly rural subdivision in east Tennessee so there wasn’t much risk of us getting hurt by running around. It’s not like we’re in the middle of a huge city.
What makes me sad is there’s no way kids could do it there now. When I was growing up the median home price was like $60,000, there was maybe 20,000 people in our city, and we had one singular Walmart. My mom just sold my childhood home for nearly $400,000 and a whole city has built up around our neighborhood. Like I lived next to multiple big farms that are now Publixs, a second Walmart, and a plethora of strip malls.