A story about my dad...

[mobrien316]

Last night I took my father to a New Britain Rock Cats game (the AA affiliate of the Minnesota Twins). We go to a minor league game together every summer.

While we were there he was telling me about a Yankee game he went to in 1946. He lived in Newark, New Jersey, at the time. He would take a bus downtown, then get on the train to go to New York City. Once in NY he would get on the subway, ride to the Yankee Stadium stop, then get off and walk to the stadium. Once there he would buy a grandstand ticket, get a hot dog, soda, and scorecard, and find his seat to enjoy the game. He did this as often as he could afford to.

He wasn't able to go as often as he liked, because the only money he had was what he earned on his paper route. In 1946 my dad was ten years old.

What a different time... My son is three, but I cannot imagine when he turns ten that I would even consider letting him hop on a bus, train, and subway to go to Yankee Stadium by himself. My dad did not think it was unusual that he was allowed to do this at all - he just shrugged and said, "Yeah, back then that was no big deal."

My dad has always been responsible and was a very mature child (he was the oldest of eight and a lot was expected of him), so I suspect that not every 10-year-old was allowed to go to NYC by himself to see a game, maybe they only let the more responsible ten-year-olds go to the city by themselves. But even so... What a different time...

[Joeyd6]

Great story. Times have changed and I am not sure for the good. I can't even leave my dog in the yard to do her business due to folks stealing dogs, let along imagine a kid taking a bus, train or subway to a stadium alone! Hell, I don't know if if I would let my wife do it alone!

[retdetsgt]

It wasn't just society being more dangerous. I remember being 8 years old and driving a John Deere tractor pulling an 8 row disc. I used the John Deere because it had a hand clutch and I wasn't heavy enough to push the foot clutch on my Dad's Farmall. I can't imagine putting my kids on a tractor at 12, much less 8. Pop paid me 35 cents an hour, I was in big money!

Now that I think of it, I was driving a pickup on back country roads when I was 11. It was just what was back then.

[Trip]

Great story, mobrien. I'll have to try to find those emails going around that list those things we were allowed to do before we became such a litigious society, i.e. ride our bikes without helmets, run with sticks, laugh and get up if we fell in a store, etc......

[Rlong1985]

I thought going to the store down the street alone at 10 was a big deal

[cntryboy0531]

It wasn't just society being more dangerous. I remember being 8 years old and driving a John Deere tractor pulling an 8 row disc. I used the John Deere because it had a hand clutch and I wasn't heavy enough to push the foot clutch on my Dad's Farmall. I can't imagine putting my kids on a tractor at 12, much less 8. Pop paid me 35 cents an hour, I was in big money!

Now that I think of it, I was driving a pickup on back country roads when I was 11. It was just what was back then.

That's how I learned how to drive. When we would go up to Alabama for a couple weeks in the summer, I'd drive my mom's cousin's truck down the country roads. I was between 11 and 13.