Memories of growing up in the 1960s

I grew up during a great decade without video games, smartphones and watches, and computers.

I was fortunate to spend my childhood in Seaford in the 1960s in Woodside Manor, a housing development that was filled with many other boys my age. Some became lifelong friends, and many were classmates.

The things we did for fun would send most parents of today into a tailspin, and helicopter parents would surely crash-land.

While fun and adventure for young people on the east side of the county usually involved water and the beach, we found our own fun with rare excursions to the beaches.

We were pretty much oblivious to the times we were growing up in until we reached our teen years.

During the summer, we spent every day outside from dawn to dusk with no adult supervision.

A Tastee-Freez opened up near our neighborhood, and we frequented that place for food. There was also a trampoline and later a mini golf course there where we spent a lot of time, not always during the hours it was open.

We played in houses under construction, built forts out of scrap wood and slept out under the stars in a field across the street from my house. That vacant lot also became our badminton court.

Believe it or not, we dug out a bunker in a large mound of dirt near another friend's house that became our hideout. We spent nights in there never worrying that the whole thing would cave in on us.

We rode bikes and skateboards without helmets. One of my favorite things to do with my Schwinn was to pedal as fast as I could and then jump off, run alongside the bike and then jump back on it.

We also went to the Jaycee Pool and played Little League baseball. There was never “nothing to do” when we grew up.

Infamous golf ball caper

We were always on the lookout for ways to make money. We discovered there was money in selling golf balls. But how do you get used golf balls? You get them in ponds where golfers hit them.

During our campouts at night, we could sneak over to the country club golf course, take off our shoes and walk in the muck of ponds to find golf balls. And we weren’t the only ones doing it.

I hope the statute of limitations has passed, but if you look at it, we were doing nothing more than recycling before it became the thing to do.

Because we weren't smart enough to carry a bag to put the balls in, we tucked them up into our shirts. To get back home, we had to cross the very well-lit Stein Highway, so we took extra care at that crossing.

One night (which turned out to be our last) as we crossed the highway, a police car surprised us as it turned off a side street. We took off like bullets. Unfortunately, one friend tripped and fell, and dozens of golf balls rolled out of his shirt down the highway toward the police car.

Red lights and sirens. We knew we were in trouble. We owned up to it and our parents were notified. There were no more midnight golf ball collections.

Our own golf course

By far, the most significant event in our young lives was construction of an 18-hole golf course in a large field that is now filled with houses.

We worked for days in the hot sun cutting down weeds, cutting out fairways and making smooth, dirt greens. We played the heck out of that course with three clubs, including a putter that somehow found its way from the local mini golf course to our course. Not sure how that happened.

We had a friendly rivalry with another group of kids our age known as the North Shore Four.

They were also members of the local country club and played golf, so we invited them to play at our homemade course. We cleaned their clocks because we knew all of the nuances of the course. My love of golf was born on that course, and I ended up playing on the high school golf team.

Basketball was king

Because my father was a sports fanatic, he turned our garage into a pool/ping-pong game room. He also paved in most of the backyard for a basketball court. So naturally, my house became our go-to place.

We spent many hours playing basketball on that court, and my dad was usually in the middle of most pickup games. I perfected what was called the Garbage Can Shot, which I could make from the side of the court near the trash cans about nine out of 10 times.

My dad was a really good basketball player who played in the Navy and as an adult in men's leagues. I could not beat the man and his deadly accurate hook shot.

At night, I would put my record player speakers in my second-floor bedroom windows and blast out Led Zeppelin, The Doors and Jimi Hendrix as I played basketball – summer and winter.

Woods plus boys

Our neighborhood had a woods. Woods plus boys. You can only imagine what we got into – building forts, trying to trap raccoons and squirrels, daring each other to climb and jump from trees. You name it, we did it.

The only time I can recall ever having to get parents to help us is when I fell into a briar patch without a shirt on. Someone dared me to walk across a fallen tree and I slipped. I could not get out without ripping skin off.

One of our parents turned up with some clippers and cut me out. I don't recall ever going home to get first aid, although I was cut up and bleeding. I think I just put on my shirt and went on to something else.

We also spent a lot of time in a friend's family camper playing marathon Monopoly games. Of all my friends growing up, he was the only one who occasionally would venture to the dark side with another group of boys. But, he was still a loyal friend who died way too early in a motorcycle accident before he reached 20.

Hanging out together

We spent many hours at the neighborhood Sinclair gas station run by Granville Ward, the father of Sherman Ward (aka Eddie Sherman), whom many people know through his music, especially with The Funsters.

We played pinball and drank sodas while listening in awe to exploits of older boys who had cars. They were our heroes. I ended up working part time at the station when we serviced the cars with gas, checked the oil and cleaned windshields.

We had a great secret pond we called Gumby Pokey Hole where we spent a lot of time until leeches ended that adventure.

As we got older, girlfriends, part-time jobs, playing sports and school lessons took over our lives, but we still managed to hang out together as much as possible. One of our favorite places was the Sit-n-Dip Donut Shop (it's now Pizza King) because it had a covered area in the back with a pinball machine.

We mastered that machine and could play all night on a couple of nickels.

As those of us who grew up during that time now deal with getting old, we still have those great memories that the kids of today will never experience.