Everybody knows that. The other kids always had better toys than you did!

......When the old man would come outside and whistle, and it was time to get your ass home. No excuses.

Lite brite is still fun

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You were talking dodgeball and I remember one time we had a sub. So of course it was time to make some trouble. Our dodgeballs were made of a solid foam that you could squeeze. A couple of guys took one into the locker room and put it in the sink, squeezed it real tight, turned on the faucet and let it suck itself full of water. This was at the end of class and one kid had already changed back into everyday clothes and they pelted him in the back. SPLAT! It was pretty funny then, kind of a dick move now.

Or if you pushed it and came home and the old man's truck wasn't in the driveway which meant he was out looking for you and you knew a ass whooping was coming

I got a Vac Man for Christmas one year. Very cool toy. I remember keeping it in the box so it wouldn't get broken. It was Stretch Armstrong's nemesis.

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In the 60's my allowance was a dollar a week and I had to do chores for it.But you could get 4 taco's and a drink at Taco Bell for a dollar.A decent model kit was a dollar.

My daughter gets $20 a week if she is 100% on top of everything.

She is a great kid, so I don't mind giving her the cash. Straight A's, sweet as can be.

....Or when he found you, and gave you a major ass-reaming in front of your friends, while he threw your bike into the trunk of the car.

Ten thumbs up for that exact Super Ball memory, TED...

I used to take Super Balls, and a Core Drill/drill press, and in the 70's make rubber pinball posts out of Super Ball material!
Awesome Bounce!

I spent years as a kid writing to Whamo and all the pin companies to implement....what else is a 9 year old going to do at school except draw pintables and mail them to Chicago?

David Gottlieb, was the only one who ever answered...I think it was the Senior.

Fast forward, I made silicone rubbers that all failed...Thanks, Matt!
and went back to Whamo in person 5 years ago and met to try to make sling rubbers, etc out of Super Ball material.
They werent interested, but one "chemist" at the table actually made a couple and sent to me.
Worked amazing.....Lasted 10 games...oh well.
Good dream to have.

I can remember my mother telling me that Super Balls were filled with high pressure oil.
If you broke one open, the oil would squirt out and you could lose an eye!

Oh yeah, golf balls too.

Where do they hear these things?

I wonder what it was like when the factory exploded and thousands of Super Balls were found for blocks away. Nimblepin?

"Things our mothers would tell us to dissuade us from having fun":
I remember (back in 63-64) my dad bought us kids an early Beatles album,
It was a stereo album, but all we had was a little portable (mono) record player,
and my mom thought we would ruin the needle if we played that "stereo" LP on it,
so back "the Beatles" went to the store.
I think she just did not like the "radical new rock&roll" music that the Beatles
were playing at the time.

I think she had it backwards.

We had a Packard Bell console with 15 inch woofers. The lady next door hated us when I started getting into 70s metal.

Bikes were freedom indeed. Even as young as six or seven we could take off and ride around town till all hours of the night. Or we could ride them down to the firework stands and they didn't have a problem selling them to us little kids who had saved up for the occasion.

Fourth of July toys.

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Great story!

Haha of course...water rings absolutly.

It wasn't like I was raised in Charlie Bucket's house. But we weren't wealthy to say the least. Come x-mas time and birthdays we got some toys, but everthing else was earned by me doing paper routes, digging aluminum cans out of trash cans, or whatever else I could do to scrape up some cash. It made me appreciate them all the more.

Coolest swingset ever. And probably the most dangerous.

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And this guy.

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Funny, I was actually at the end of my paper route when I stumbled upon some Superballs in the street. I followed the trail down Raymond Ave across the tracks, found the mother lode amidst the rubble; loaded my Sunday Register bags to the brim (before they tore) and rode (slowly) back home.
Went back another 15 or so times on my Dad's beach cruiser with his trusty Hawaiian Punch crate on the back rack and and the rest was vague Fullerton History.

I don't know if I was the actual "kid" in question though with the paper bag...
I sold a few of them via Alpa Beta bags a couple of times but, mostly used my backpack.

I can't tell you if it was a true "explosion" or not due to fuzzy memories but, there definitely was a loud noise down the street the day before I found the balls and the building was basically leveled with a couple of shelved areas still intact.

I'll ask my dad if there are still some in his garage and report back.
My guess is he tossed them in the mid-90's after the last big clean...

The majority of the haul were blue and dark green. However I did snag some of the larger ones as well as some multicolored red and white swirl ones that had to have been prototypes at the time. The solid brick red ones were the hardest to find and I usually sold them for double. All had the extrusion "fins" from the mold which took some time to remove.

Good thread guys!

Thanks! I do remember a lot. It's the short term memory that is going by the wayside lately. Like in the mornings I can't always remember if it's a work day or not

In this town you took what you could get! Great story!

Indeed!
With FTT members roaming the back streets you had to be quick on your bike/board/feet. Even more so, with a fat wad of cash.
Thankfully most of the Superball proceeds went to marathon trips to Dragon's Dungeon, Del Taco, Wienerschnitzel and possibly a few used Nintendo carts from Cal Video to boot.

Oh yeah. The only run in I had was a coconut thrown at me as I rode my bike thru FTT. I tried to stay cool with them.

So I have a confession. You know those hangers that came with your Dad's work socks? I would ask my Dad to keep them for me so I could hang up GI Joe's pants in a little closet.

I am still playing this!!! These days its with my son,
but when I was younger my wife and I loved to play this!!!
(PUN FULLY INTENDED! )

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All of this Fullerton talk keeps me walking around singing Mr. Automatic by 3 day weekend. YouTube it if you're not a sports fan. A couple guys wrote a song about a call screener on the Jim Rome show back in mid 00s. He's the best contestant Blind Date ever had!

I'll check it out. I once heard an Axl Rose interview where he got lost in Fullerton. He said " I didn't realize how big that town was" lol. It's not a bad place, but it's certainly not the beach.

I just played it and my wife was said "not this freaking song again" rolled her eyes and left the house. If only I knew it was this easy?

How about this toxic nightmare!! I LOVED this stuff!!!!

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faz

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I liked having a paper route.The only thing that sucked was the Sunday paper in Scottsdale,Az was about an inch thick and I had to deliver about a hundred.You had to collect the money from the people also.Some would pay me in pennies. You could get quite a bit by selling pop bottles back to the store.I think they would give you 3 cents per bottle but you could buy a candy bar for a dime in 1972.Good times.

I use Operation as a tester for my pins

Green Ghost. My older sister still has this game from when we were kids. So much fun playing in the dark!

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Lol, you had it good then!
Our Sunday edition barely folded (rolling was the best method) and I had to use the industrial rubber bands to keep it from exploding. I could only get about 20 in each bag which meant I had four or five trips ahead of me. Good thing I was a bowler...

Agreed on the collecting money bit jhanley.
Some people would just 'eff with me paying in pennies and or, tales of adventure.
One lady was nice though and gave me some homemade tamales which furthered my deep love of authentic Mexican food.
Now where is my $2?!?

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You couldn't fold these either.No way could you toss them.You had to go all the way up and place them on their door mat.I had to make probably 3 trips back to pick them up and you could actually feel the bikes frame twisting from the weight.

Man that's for sure, no "allowance" money here, at 8 I was shoveling snow for the neighbors for 50 cents during the winter and cutting grass in the summer. At 9 I had a paper route, all 3 papers for I think it was $38 a month, so I could buy my own models and such. I saved till I was 17 and ordered my very first car, my '70 Grabber Orange Mustang. I had it for my last month of Senior HS....and I still have it. It's 46th birthday is this May 1st. Dad didn't live to see me get it but I know he would have been proud of me. These shots were taken last weekend at the body shop. It's gettin there....slowly.

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Hence why you aired up your tires on Sunday!

I could still throw the Sunday edition since my bowling ball back then was 12lbs.
I threw that thing way more than any paper growing up. Also helped my pinball addiction AND my love of all things covered in nacho cheese.

Haunted House game.

LTG : )

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My first train set was an American Flyer HO set with an engine just like this.

LTG : )

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Looks like a topper for The Addams Family.

Oh I LOVED when Gomez blew up the bridge and the train wrecked. LOL

The case full of electronic handheld games I posted earlier is from the current stage of my childhood.

Here are some memorable toys I actually had as a much, much younger lad:

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Oh damn!! Dr. Nim!!!! Back to Ebay....again!!

Anyone remember Madcap Marathon?

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