@andyw I did HO-scale trains for a while and then even tried N-scale for a smaller layout. At one point I tried building my own switch out of rails and stuff, but don’t know if I ever put it into service.
@MrGoodGuy@phendrick
Same, which led to initially pursuing an education/career in computer hardware. But then I got introduced to software and never looked back.
(Spent 42 years wrangling 1’s and 0’s into commercially valuable patterns. )
@MrGoodGuy@phendrick HeathKit was fun but too expensive for my mother to let me buy much. At one point they even had a version of a DEC PDP-8 you could build. But sadly never got one for above reason.
Books. I’d go thru 3-4 Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew/Tom Swift/others each weekend.
80-in-1 (and larger) electronics kits (some of you remember Lafayette I’m sure).
Fixing things (like washing machines, fans and other home appliances).
Chemistry sets
Erector sets
Tinker toys
Lincoln logs
Some LEGO but not that much
@baqui63 are… Are you me? Maybe add an Estes rocket catalog
I had 3-4 different library cards, a grandma who bought older hardy boys/nancy drew/tom swift hard backs, and when we would go out west in the summer stacked as many as the libraries would let me take to read in the car.
Also loved hunting the amber library terminals with their mechanical keyboards in the 90s/probably annoyed them with my book requests if a branch didn’t have it…
@baqui63@unksol My wife is a book junkie. She keeps a log and finishes 200-plus books a year. She always has 2-3 books that she’s reading at any given time. Not surprisingly, she started a community library some years ago and serves as the head of that. There are books pretty much everywhere in our house.
@baqui63@macromeh And she is awesome for that especially with the AI/kids not reading if she’s dealing with that.
@baqui63 statement basically describes me exactly though. I mean I tore down a stephen ambrose and a bunch of other routes. Fiction and non fiction.
I will admit it’s been a long time since I have read a book though. And why/when I stopped IDK. I think sometime in college because classes all day and working all night and hey let’s just watch stargate.
Went from free time to burn to no free time. But kids still have time and other challenges we didn’t… I would not let them have phones or social media or chatbots
Anyway I’ll take suggestions of good books that the library might have. I need to reset my brain… Some other stuff
@baqui63@macromeh@unksol I used to read a lot. Mostly Sci-fi like Asimov and Arthur C Clarke. Oh yeah and some Bradbury and Vonnegut whatever genre you’d call it.
Lately have not read a lot of books but listen to audiobooks on long 50-hour cross-country drives. Still upset with Grrrr (so angry!) Martin for not finishing Game of Thrones books and instead letting HBO bastardize the ending, at least according to many.
@macromeh@pmarin@unksol Sci-Fi, especially “hard” sci-fi. like RAH and more recently MD Cooper, is my favorite genre. Recently tho, I’ve been reading a lot of paranormal cozy mysteries. Not sure why, but I enjoy them. Confuses the crap out of Amazon’s algorithms tho… they’re constantly trying to sell me stuff for middle-aged women.
@unksol I still have a bunch of Estes kits waiting for time to build them. And a grandkid or two so no one accuses me of being a creepy old man.
I grew up under one of the approaches to LaGuardia airport. The planes went over at about 800 feet and our rockets could easily hit 2000 feet. We never actually tried to shoot down a B-727 but I did build several rockets that had explosive payloads.
Back then, nobody cared, other than to say things like, don’t launch if a plane is approaching. Today, NYPD, FBI and Homeland would be all over the place with what we used to do.
@baqui63 we got to do them in science class/got the catalogs. A friend was doing them for 4H. I worked at hobby lobby one year when I was 15-16. So employee discounts and sales. Have a whole tackle box full of engines and ignitors. I have the saturn V kit I never built
Launch wise we lived directly across from the public elementary school. We played there. Sled down a hill. They had a huge field in back. So we would launch there. Woods around and a huge tree I got one stuck in. Never did the three stage ones I was pretty sure we’d never find it.
I wonder if some karen would call the cops on kids today. Estes is not October Sky. There are some YouTubers doing the super high altitude stuff (there are FAA rules)
Making statues and art out of Ivory Snow flakes…and just playing outside.
We didn’t have to have a lot of toys to play. We made up our own games (usually things like ‘King of the Hill’ if we could find a mound of dirt, or ‘Robin Hood’, or ‘The Lone Ranger’, whatever was on tv the night before).
Did anyone else do that??
@Kyeh I had asked for a barbie for my birthday at the height of the barbie craze and I got instead something else (that size, jointed but not a barbie) although I was thrilled at all the clothes my grandmother made for it.
@Kidsandliz Lucky you, having her making those clothes for you! I did finally get one when I was about 12, when some family friends visited, and they sent gifts afterwards & for me it was a Barbie. That family (Japanese American) was great at crafts & things and the girls could sew, so they sent some clothes they made along with her.
Summers were largely spent cutting firewood to burn in the winter. My bro is 6 years older so he ran the chainsaw and I did most of the splitting. No hydraulic splitter either. Maul all the way.
@mycya4me@tweezak my friends rented a hydraulic splitter to go through a bunch of wood from a big tree project. He got a few cords of wood out of it, which he uses for heating a lot in Winter.
Funny thing was they didn’t know about how to start a Honda engine. “Did you turn on the switch?” “What switch?”
So anyway got them running.
Also found out that few people know how to back up a small trailer. It’s actually harder than a larger trailer. So I had to jump in there as well.
@mycya4me@pmarin@tweezak When I lived in NW Ontario (about a 2 week canoe paddle from the James Bay) the entire Outward Bound school heated by wood (and if you didn’t bring it inside to thaw before you put it in the wood burning stove it would put the fire out), had to use propane for lights and the stove (generators don’t work at about 5 below or colder), had an epic time getting water out of the lake (opps froze to the bottom and we had to dig a hole through about 8’ of ice further out)… AND… use outhouses (we kept a seat inside) at 20 to 60 below (when I went home for christmas it made 5 above seem absolutely tropical).
Back then I’ve backed all sorts of trailers from a 10 canoe canoe trailer over a one lane bridge with no sides while driving a 24 passenger school bus to my own little trailer with my 14’ sail boat on it (similar to a flying junior only 2’ shorter). Once at the dock in the greater Norfolk VA area men were taking bets on whether or not I could back it in the water, get it off the trailer, etc. and how many tries it would take me. Ummm that would be one unless I chose to divert to hit someone being truly obnoxious.
What was actually harder was attaching the wire (using non boat language here for folks who aren’t familiar with it) that went from the top of the mast to the front of the boat. That I could barely get attached by myself as it was really more of a 2 person job.
I find backing the trailers you can barely see is harder only because you can’t see them all that well. I’d only back them using mirrors. Had a lot of practice back then. Could I do it now? Probably but I’d want a trial run first. I do think it is sort of like riding bikes, you don’t forget if you have done it enough.
Lionel trains and Lincoln Logs. Still have the trains (and add to the collection periodically) but lost the Lincoln Logs… I consider getting them for" my kids" often…
I had a Johnny Express truck that was my favorite for quite a while (that is, until the f*cking batteries leaked in the control box and ruined it ).
But mine was in color…
Legos and war, mostly WW2. Lots of plastic models. My scale of choice was 1:72. Most were destroyed but I have a few of my last ones because I wasn’t playing with them as toys anymore …
@pakopako A friend of mine’s brother wrote at least 3 books with instructions on how to make variuos origami things - all his own design. A couple he didn’t finish as he said that if people got that far they’d know how to finish it themselves. . And once way back when when Southwest air had a magazine they’d give out to us poor folks in cattle class he had a page in there making something. At his parent’s house his dressers were full of it, he had a pile on the floor as big as a huge, tall leaf pile of the stuff… Most of the designs were his own. Obsessed it to put it mildly.
@cbatte I think I had each of those at some point. Spirograph was a lesson in geometry and I doubt anyone would have the patience to perfectly hold a pen while spinning circles today.
Riding my bicycle is one that that you can keep doing.
/youtube Queen my bicycle
Oops didn’t know this was the video with brief clips from a France nude bicycle ride. Maybe NSFW.
Portland now has an annual nude bicycle ride too.
Books. Yeah I was that kid. Yeah I’m that adult
@Cerridwyn books about horses
for me 
@Cerridwyn @llangley
: )
/image drinkers of the wind
@Cerridwyn @llangley Yup books. I’d get in trouble reading books at the dinner table, telling a parent, “Just let me finish the chapter before I do…”
Riding my bike.
LEGO bricks. Not Legos. Don’t make the Danes mad.
@zhicks1987 yes, never plural, you stupid @mediocrebot.
Lionel trains, for a while. Also books, bikes.
@andyw I did HO-scale trains for a while and then even tried N-scale for a smaller layout. At one point I tried building my own switch out of rails and stuff, but don’t know if I ever put it into service.
Electronics and Science Kits!!
NERD POWER!! 
@MrGoodGuy Edmund Scientific, HeathKit, even some Archer/Radio Shack
@MrGoodGuy @phendrick
Same, which led to initially pursuing an education/career in computer hardware. But then I got introduced to software and never looked back.
(Spent 42 years wrangling 1’s and 0’s into commercially valuable patterns. )
@MrGoodGuy @phendrick HeathKit was fun but too expensive for my mother to let me buy much. At one point they even had a version of a DEC PDP-8 you could build. But sadly never got one for above reason.
I’m old. It was Erector Set, Tinker Toys, and American Flyer trains.
Books. I’d go thru 3-4 Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew/Tom Swift/others each weekend.
80-in-1 (and larger) electronics kits (some of you remember Lafayette I’m sure).
Fixing things (like washing machines, fans and other home appliances).
Chemistry sets
Erector sets
Tinker toys
Lincoln logs
Some LEGO but not that much
@baqui63 Yay! Someone who knows how to capitalize LEGO!
@baqui63 yes I loved Books.
@baqui63 are… Are you me? Maybe add an Estes rocket catalog
I had 3-4 different library cards, a grandma who bought older hardy boys/nancy drew/tom swift hard backs, and when we would go out west in the summer stacked as many as the libraries would let me take to read in the car.
Also loved hunting the amber library terminals with their mechanical keyboards in the 90s/probably annoyed them with my book requests if a branch didn’t have it…
Never mind taking everything apart
@baqui63 @unksol My wife is a book junkie. She keeps a log and finishes 200-plus books a year. She always has 2-3 books that she’s reading at any given time. Not surprisingly, she started a community library some years ago and serves as the head of that. There are books pretty much everywhere in our house.
@baqui63 @macromeh And she is awesome for that especially with the AI/kids not reading if she’s dealing with that.
@baqui63 statement basically describes me exactly though. I mean I tore down a stephen ambrose and a bunch of other routes. Fiction and non fiction.
I will admit it’s been a long time since I have read a book though. And why/when I stopped IDK. I think sometime in college because classes all day and working all night and hey let’s just watch stargate.
Went from free time to burn to no free time. But kids still have time and other challenges we didn’t… I would not let them have phones or social media or chatbots
Anyway I’ll take suggestions of good books that the library might have. I need to reset my brain… Some other stuff
POPSOCKETS! COURT DOCKETS! FOLK ROCK HITS! AWESOME!
@baqui63 @macromeh @unksol I used to read a lot. Mostly Sci-fi like Asimov and Arthur C Clarke. Oh yeah and some Bradbury and Vonnegut whatever genre you’d call it.
Lately have not read a lot of books but listen to audiobooks on long 50-hour cross-country drives. Still upset with Grrrr (so angry!) Martin for not finishing Game of Thrones books and instead letting HBO bastardize the ending, at least according to many.
@macromeh @pmarin @unksol Sci-Fi, especially “hard” sci-fi. like RAH and more recently MD Cooper, is my favorite genre. Recently tho, I’ve been reading a lot of paranormal cozy mysteries. Not sure why, but I enjoy them. Confuses the crap out of Amazon’s algorithms tho… they’re constantly trying to sell me stuff for middle-aged women.
@unksol I still have a bunch of Estes kits waiting for time to build them. And a grandkid or two so no one accuses me of being a creepy old man.
I grew up under one of the approaches to LaGuardia airport. The planes went over at about 800 feet and our rockets could easily hit 2000 feet. We never actually tried to shoot down a B-727 but I did build several rockets that had explosive payloads.
Back then, nobody cared, other than to say things like, don’t launch if a plane is approaching. Today, NYPD, FBI and Homeland would be all over the place with what we used to do.
@baqui63 we got to do them in science class/got the catalogs. A friend was doing them for 4H. I worked at hobby lobby one year when I was 15-16. So employee discounts and sales. Have a whole tackle box full of engines and ignitors. I have the saturn V kit I never built
Launch wise we lived directly across from the public elementary school. We played there. Sled down a hill. They had a huge field in back. So we would launch there. Woods around and a huge tree I got one stuck in. Never did the three stage ones I was pretty sure we’d never find it.
I wonder if some karen would call the cops on kids today. Estes is not October Sky. There are some YouTubers doing the super high altitude stuff (there are FAA rules)
Football and Baseball card
@em016186
my brother had a much abused (opposite of pristine) 1961 (think that’s the year) Mickey Mantle card.
I am guessing no one has laid eyes on it for decades
he did treasure it though
Pokémon card as well
Skateboards and fire
@edguyver14 Skateboards hadn’t yet been invented when I was young but I think maybe fire had been.
@edguyver14 @phendrick How great was it living in Bedrock?
KuoH
@edguyver14
Had a wooden board with brick wheels. Bought a set of the new polyurethane wheels from Ron Jon Surf Shop in Cocoa Beach when they first came out.
Erector set, Lincoln Logs and wooden blocks.
Gi Joes. The 12 inch version- the little version is naff.
Making statues and art out of Ivory Snow flakes…and just playing outside.
We didn’t have to have a lot of toys to play. We made up our own games (usually things like ‘King of the Hill’ if we could find a mound of dirt, or ‘Robin Hood’, or ‘The Lone Ranger’, whatever was on tv the night before).
Did anyone else do that??
@Tadlem43 Playing “pretend” was my favorite thing to do with friends! Both at home & on the playground at school.
Books and horses
And books with horses in them.
/image “the black stallion”
@f00l
Books, art supplies, dolls (but no Barbies, my mother was kind of a Puritan about some things & didn’t approve of Barbies.)
@Kyeh I had asked for a barbie for my birthday at the height of the barbie craze and I got instead something else (that size, jointed but not a barbie) although I was thrilled at all the clothes my grandmother made for it.
@Kidsandliz Lucky you, having her making those clothes for you! I did finally get one when I was about 12, when some family friends visited, and they sent gifts afterwards & for me it was a Barbie. That family (Japanese American) was great at crafts & things and the girls could sew, so they sent some clothes they made along with her.
Summers were largely spent cutting firewood to burn in the winter. My bro is 6 years older so he ran the chainsaw and I did most of the splitting. No hydraulic splitter either. Maul all the way.
@tweezak I guess it built a lot of character and muscles!
@tweezak
"Wood heats you twice "
@mycya4me @tweezak my friends rented a hydraulic splitter to go through a bunch of wood from a big tree project. He got a few cords of wood out of it, which he uses for heating a lot in Winter.
Funny thing was they didn’t know about how to start a Honda engine. “Did you turn on the switch?” “What switch?”
So anyway got them running.
Also found out that few people know how to back up a small trailer. It’s actually harder than a larger trailer. So I had to jump in there as well.
@mycya4me @pmarin @tweezak When I lived in NW Ontario (about a 2 week canoe paddle from the James Bay) the entire Outward Bound school heated by wood (and if you didn’t bring it inside to thaw before you put it in the wood burning stove it would put the fire out), had to use propane for lights and the stove (generators don’t work at about 5 below or colder), had an epic time getting water out of the lake (opps froze to the bottom and we had to dig a hole through about 8’ of ice further out)… AND… use outhouses (we kept a seat inside) at 20 to 60 below (when I went home for christmas it made 5 above seem absolutely tropical).
Back then I’ve backed all sorts of trailers from a 10 canoe canoe trailer over a one lane bridge with no sides while driving a 24 passenger school bus to my own little trailer with my 14’ sail boat on it (similar to a flying junior only 2’ shorter). Once at the dock in the greater Norfolk VA area men were taking bets on whether or not I could back it in the water, get it off the trailer, etc. and how many tries it would take me. Ummm that would be one unless I chose to divert to hit someone being truly obnoxious.
What was actually harder was attaching the wire (using non boat language here for folks who aren’t familiar with it) that went from the top of the mast to the front of the boat. That I could barely get attached by myself as it was really more of a 2 person job.
I find backing the trailers you can barely see is harder only because you can’t see them all that well. I’d only back them using mirrors. Had a lot of practice back then. Could I do it now? Probably but I’d want a trial run first. I do think it is sort of like riding bikes, you don’t forget if you have done it enough.
What? No Chuck Berry fans?
Books, bikes, basketball, football.
I was obsessed with making a bigwheel out of bicycle frames, BMX and 10speed wheels. That’s when my uncle taught me to weld. I think I was 12.
Then the mean green machine came along, and big wheels weren’t cool anymore.
Vacuform was a thing for a bit. Jarts,Scifi books (Clark, Asimov,Zelazny, and others) and Frisbee.
Lionel trains and Lincoln Logs. Still have the trains (and add to the collection periodically) but lost the Lincoln Logs… I consider getting them for" my kids" often…
@IWUJackson Oh yeah, trains too! Mostly HO scale Tyco.
Lego is plural; there’s no “s” at the end of the word.
@MrsReyes for those who feel they must, “lego bricks” is also acceptable.
@MrsReyes
I respect correctness but this is one distinction I absolutely do not care about
however it’s cool to know the distinction
Sticks and metal Tonka trucks; front loader back hoe. Oh, and Thing Maker…anyone heard of this?
I had a Johnny Express truck that was my favorite for quite a while (that is, until the f*cking batteries leaked in the control box and ruined it
).
But mine was in color…
Arts and crafts
. My big sister and I would try to sell things we made at craft fairs.
Legos and war, mostly WW2. Lots of plastic models. My scale of choice was 1:72. Most were destroyed but I have a few of my last ones because I wasn’t playing with them as toys anymore …
1:72 and 1:144 versions of same.
@cfg83 I apologize for misspelling LEGO …
/showme Male 10 year old child in 1970’s clothing is bowing to frowning Danish man in Danish holiday outfit holding banner that says LEGO.
@cfg83 Here’s the image you requested for “Male 10 year old child in 1970 s clothing is bowing to frowning Danish man in Danish holiday outf…”
@cfg83 That’s a nice SBD. Slow but deadly.
@cfg83 @mediocrebot it got Billund correct. On my bucket list if I ever get up to those parts.
Micro Machines, G.I. Joe figures, marbles and yo-yo’s!!!
Polly-Pockets, stuffed animals, yoyos and cards
Origami. Construction paper and tangram shape puzzles. And paper planes (later, foam planes… the ones with the weighted plastic propellers).
Huh. They’re still selling these?
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Henbrandt-Classic-Gliders-Polystyrene-Fillers/dp/B078XGQCB7
@pakopako A friend of mine’s brother wrote at least 3 books with instructions on how to make variuos origami things - all his own design. A couple he didn’t finish as he said that if people got that far they’d know how to finish it themselves.
. And once way back when when Southwest air had a magazine they’d give out to us poor folks in cattle class he had a page in there making something. At his parent’s house his dressers were full of it, he had a pile on the floor as big as a huge, tall leaf pile of the stuff… Most of the designs were his own. Obsessed it to put it mildly.
Roller skates, my bike, American Girl dolls, ginny dolls, books
Lite Brite, Spirograph, Spin Art and my bicycle
@cbatte I think I had each of those at some point. Spirograph was a lesson in geometry and I doubt anyone would have the patience to perfectly hold a pen while spinning circles today.
Riding my bicycle is one that that you can keep doing.
/youtube Queen my bicycle
Oops didn’t know this was the video with brief clips from a France nude bicycle ride. Maybe NSFW.
Portland now has an annual nude bicycle ride too.
@cbatte @pmarin Oh yeah spirograpahs. We’d fight over those at my house growing up as there was only one and four of us.
The 12" G.I.Joe and the Creepy Crawler maker
@famwelch Oh yeah, the Creepy Crawler!!!
Surprised nobody has said girls/boys.
But we all know they had cooties.
@pmarin