Boomers Loved These Outdoor Activities — Now They're Nearly Forgotten

For generations of American children, playing outdoors meant heading to the park or a friend's backyard, with little more than a few pals and an active imagination. There was significantly less adult supervision for the baby boomer generation, fewer safety regulations, and the only rule was to return when the street lights kicked on. But the games these kids played could get dicey, especially by modern standards. As a result, a lot of the outdoor toys and activities boomers loved playing might be unfamiliar to today's kids. Lawn darts, for instance, were an iconic game that we'll likely never see again, and games like Red Rover often resulted in bodily injuries. Though most schools haven't allowed it for decades, as recently as 2013, a San Diego school district formally banned the running-and-blocking game over a parent-led lawsuit.

One movie- and TV-inspired boomer game that has largely gone the way of the dodo bird is old-fashioned cops and robbers. Though children still chase each other around the playground, you're not likely to see them using the realistic-looking toy guns you would have seen decades ago. During the mid-20th century, it was commonplace to see children brandishing hyper-realistic firearms as playground toys, often sold with plastic ammunition belts, popping caps, and child-sized holsters. Popular advertisements from brands like Mattel highlighted these products throughout the 1950s and 1960s, allowing us a now-shocking glimpse into the past. 

Today's parents are all too aware of the risks that come from realistic toy guns, easily mistaken as real weapons by police officers or other onlookers. These days, toy companies have pivoted to brightly colored weapons, foam dart blasters, and other obviously fictional designs to replace the realistic replicas. The handful of similar games still played — like Senior Assassin — though sometimes controversial, wouldn't be mistaken for its more realistic predecessor.

Clamp-on roller skates were another popular toy that boomers grew up playing on. Unlike the sturdier skates you'd find in a sporting goods store today — padded boots with comfortable straps and high-tech wheels designed for predictable handling — children of yesteryear were treated to flat metal frames that simply clamped onto their everyday shoes. These old-fashioned roller skates, with metal or hard rubber wheels, adjusted to accommodate different shoe sizes. While that may sound practical and convenient, you can find plenty of horror stories from the kids who survived them, due to remarkably unreliable construction. 

Back when clamp-on skates were all the rage, children would be entrusted to tighten them on their shoes with a simple metal key, somewhat like an allen wrench. Getting the fit right was essential, as the skate could shift or come loose while the wearer was in motion. In many cases, this caused kids to wipe out on sidewalks, scuff the floors of their local roller rink, or suffer significant bodily injury on rough asphalt. Obviously, not every child who strapped into a pair of clamp-on skates was destined for disaster, but issues were shockingly common, and no one was wearing helmets or elbow pads. 

Vintage clamp-ons can still be found in antique shops and online, but many skating rinks prohibit them due to modern safety standards. That makes clamp-on skates one of many things boomer kids enjoyed that are now forever banned in the U.S. If you're brave enough to clamp them on and hit the road, wear safety gear, including a helmet and kneepads. If you're old enough to remember these skates from the first time around, don't: You're already at risk for a broken hip as it is.