When I was a child (lived in the city, moved to a rural area during middle school):

> Leaving the house in the morning and only returning to raid the refrigerator or play in your backyard until dinnertime.

> Parents trusting the teachers including trusting their punishments including paddling, making them write thousands of sentences, placing children on the dunce chair, sending kids back to kindergarten for the day, keeping them off by themselves away from other children in the corner, assigning extra work as punishment--I endured all of these except paddling--many of the boys I was friends with got paddled occassionally.

> An ice cream parlor with a cool old fashioned candy store (pez dispensers, huge lollipops, dots on paper, etc.) where two waiters ran though the restaurant with a birthday sundae resting on a stretcher, while lights and sirens whirred in the background. This was where you wanted to go for your B-day. (Did Chucky Cheese exist yet? 70s)

> 4 wheeled rollerskates not in line ones; bicycles with "banana seats" and long handlebars; playing in the road and no one cared.

>Watching variety shows with your parents like the Carol Burnett Show, Sonny and Cher, Donny and Marie

>Saturday morning cartoons

In middleschool and high school (lived in a town of less than 1,000):

> More boys being paddled. Separate classes for boys and girls to discuss girl and boy stuff including manners and how to dress, put on makeup, pluck your eyebrows, sit, etc.--my mom would have approved.

> Shop classes, home ec classes, 4 H classes, etc where boys did boy stuff and vice versa--in 4 H the girls barrel raced and the boys chased and lassoed calves.

> Sears and Montgomery Ward catalogues were the main source of clothing (though stores near the hs carried Wrangler Jeans and very basic clothes)--there were no chains just the place you put in your order from the catalogues and then they called you after it was shipped to them so you could pick it up.

> Campouts with the Mormon church (I was not Mormon but many of the students in my school were) -- they hoped to convert the nonMormon kids while some of the Mormon kids were the "bad influences." --this happens in most religions (that the bishop and preacher's kids are sometimes the most rebellious -- tell someone they shouldn't and they really want to )

> No cable TV till the end of hs so there was no TV (only static so awful it wasn't worth it)

> Hanging out with grownup neighbors because the youth lived so far apart.

> One hour lunches where you could leave high school at lunch--towards the end of the school year (junior/senior years) many student didn't come back when they started having too much fun....

College/1st jobs:

> Slaps on hand for DUIs (not me but I was acquainted with people who got caught but were not severely punished).

> Drinking on the job (supervisor approved!) toward end of shifts as a reward for working so hard!

> Cars you could fix yourself.

> The drinking age was 19--lots of school approved parties where there was a lot of binge drinking.

> Personal ads in campus paper versus computer dating

> No one worried about driving to Mexico--the news about crime down there (beheadings, drugs) was not in the news