Okay, just one quick fic question...
Feb. 20th, 2006 12:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trinityofone...and then I am showering going to the library, I swear.
On the left you have: ages where you make up elaborate fantasy stories in your head and play pretend and run around thwacking your friends with sticks.
On the right you have: ages where you're starting to feel the first stirrings of sexual awakening, (mostly) innocent and vague, yes, but there.
In the wacky Venn diagram that is this story, where do those two circles intersect? How old are you?
Remember: also, you are a boy.
I was going to say 12, because at 12 I think I was still semi-convinced that I could still find the wardrobe to Narnia, but also I was crushing on Harrison Ford like mad and cutting his picture out of magazines and stuff.
Anyway, I would love to hear your thoughts.
(And sticks are still TOTALLY the best toys ever, OMG.)
On the left you have: ages where you make up elaborate fantasy stories in your head and play pretend and run around thwacking your friends with sticks.
On the right you have: ages where you're starting to feel the first stirrings of sexual awakening, (mostly) innocent and vague, yes, but there.
In the wacky Venn diagram that is this story, where do those two circles intersect? How old are you?
Remember: also, you are a boy.
I was going to say 12, because at 12 I think I was still semi-convinced that I could still find the wardrobe to Narnia, but also I was crushing on Harrison Ford like mad and cutting his picture out of magazines and stuff.
Anyway, I would love to hear your thoughts.
(And sticks are still TOTALLY the best toys ever, OMG.)
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Oh, oh, oh -- and something else that's different!
Date: 2006-02-21 08:43 pm (UTC)Besides, who wanted to go all the way back home to ask? You were miles away from home by 2pm.
The way kids got to wander off and spend time by themselves or in a pack of kids is really different. It was fairly common for a kid to come limping home with a sprained ankle, supported by a friend.
Mom would have to milk the story out of him about how he was playing on some abandoned rusted farm equipment they found in the woods. Mom would wrap his foot up (you only went to the hospital for serious injuries) and make a new rule about not playing on the rusted farm equipment, which everyone would ignore.
Oh, also? The new-fangled parents supported their kids getting into this new game called Dungeons & Dragons, as it was "imaginative" and "healthy." It was originally considered the PBS of childhood games (and very quickly became geek-heaven).
As for videogames, someone mentioned here... didn't have them until a little later, not at home. Most of the video games were in seedy arcades where a lot of the drug trafficking was done (I kid you not). Even the most permissive parents called them off-limits for the 12-year-olds. There was a lot of smoking and pot behind the arcades by the teenagers, but John and Rodney were a little young for that crowd.
By the time John/Rodney were 14, 15, Atari and Intellivision came out, with Donkey Kong and other such games. (The Beatnik families -- who all later bought Macs -- would have the Intellivision of course: better graphics, fewer games available.)
Icarus