FreedomWriter
57 posts
Nov 06, 2013
5:48 AM
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Growing up in Kettering, our particular neighborhood did not have a park, so we looked for unusual places to play. We had a place we dubbed the (Time Tunnel) which was actually a drainage tunnel which ran for about a half mile or so. It would be completely dark, except when you passed a manhole cover which let in enough light in which to see by. We always challenged the other kids in the area to see if they could get from 1 end to the other. Some would chicken out, only going part way while others made it all the way thru. Or when we would go swimming in a creek which had a train trestle where you could swim up underneath and completely disappear within it. Just looking to find other unique places that you played at as a child
Last Edited by FreedomWriter on Nov 06, 2013 5:49 AM
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luv my dayton
444 posts
Nov 06, 2013
6:53 AM
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Used to play around the corner from our home in kettering in a empty little shack that had once been a small donut shop and kids could also get ice cream and penny candy.It was called The Donut Hut and on the property where an Earl Schieb auto painting place used to sit. Some of us would be inside and pretend we were serving customers thru the windows. When in dayton pre 6 yrs old we had a wooded area across from our house where someone had built a beat up shack where we would also go and play house.
Last Edited by luv my dayton on Nov 06, 2013 6:54 AM
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olds88
168 posts
Nov 06, 2013
9:22 AM
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Under railroad bridge on Patterson road. we would build fires and any thing to mess with the RR workers.There were also some older adults down there drinking beer and we maybe could score some.
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olds88
169 posts
Nov 06, 2013
9:22 AM
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Under railroad bridge on Patterson road. we would build fires and any thing to mess with the RR workers.There were also some older adults down there drinking beer and we maybe could score some.
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Billd1952
124 posts
Nov 06, 2013
10:26 AM
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There was an alley called, "Horseshoe Alley", that ran between Richard St., and Haines St., from Parrot St to Highland Ave.. We played many games of hide and seek, kickball, and baseball, as well as fashioning bicycle jumps from trash cans a 2 x 6's. Many of the homes back yards had fruit trees and grape vines to grab a snack.
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Nile
99 posts
Nov 06, 2013
2:15 PM
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Three blocks from my house on Parkhill Dr. in Upper Dayton View was a woods with a creek. There were vines and we swung on the vines and, hopefully, we cleared the creek. Another place was off of Gettysburg Ave where there was a gravel pit. We fished there, drank beer there and even skinny-dipped there.
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rdebross
94 posts
Nov 07, 2013
6:45 PM
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Build1952 I haven't thought about the Horseshoe Alley for decades. It was the most unusual alley in the area because it was concrete instead of gravel and two blocks long. I loved to ride my bike down it because it was smooth and had almost no cars. Actually it was the shape of two horseshoes placed back to back. We played some of the same games as you did in the gravel alley behind our house on Xenia Ave. We played a lot of wiffle ball too.
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FreedomWriter
121 posts
Jan 02, 2015
8:56 AM
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Time to ressurrect an old posting I made. As kids we had a place which was all overgrown where we had trails that were made for racing and we would see who could make around that place the fastest. Many years later, the lot has been cleaned up, and you can believe how small it was compared with back then when it was covered with trees and brush.
Last Edited by FreedomWriter on Jan 02, 2015 8:57 AM
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Daytongirl01
52 posts
Jan 05, 2015
6:46 AM
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Well, I know this is going to sound out-right stupid for a kid to play in, but I did a lot of exploring that I shouldn't have..one of the places was a big sewer line, under the Broadway bridge on the West side. It started at Wolf Creek and went up to north Dayton....no I didn't walk all that way in the sewer, but far enough to get sick on the smell. Did I learn not to do that again....NO. Made many trips. Also, there was a construction company (Foremans) on Negley Place, again on the West side, that housed their construction supplies behind their shop...and I am sure you can guess who played on those railroad ties, lumber full of nails, and tar coated. Spent a lot of time there.
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luv my dayton
788 posts
Jan 05, 2015
7:42 AM
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DIDNT TAKE MUCH TO ENTERTAIN OURSELVES MANY YEARS AGO AND DO BELIEVE THATS A PART OF LIFE THAT WOULD SERVE KIDS TODAY WELL. WE HAD TO USE OUR IMAGINATIONS BACK THEN AND KEPT BUSY ALL DAY LONG AND USUALLY OUT OF TROUBLE. THEN IT BECAME THINGS THAT KEPT PEOPLE ENTERTAINED AND YOU CAN SEE WHERE THATS GOT US. AFFLUENCE MADE PEOPLE LAZY IN MORE WAYS THAN ONE.IT ALSO TOOK THE FUN OUT BEING A KID.
Last Edited by luv my dayton on Jan 05, 2015 7:46 AM
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luv my dayton
791 posts
Jan 05, 2015
9:22 AM
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Back then trains did the work that semis do now. Trains everywhere and many tracks still remain unused.To this day I love the sounds of trains in the distance as its a reminder of what once was. Think maybe boys,being braver found the danger a thrill in itself.You better believe mom and dad would have been mildly traumatized but then wouldnt they have been that way with what most of us may have been doing! My grandson when he lived at Covey Run and before Austin landing was built used to think it was fun to run across 741, across 4 lanes and back to beat the traffic.Jig was up when kids told on him. One of those cases where it was anything for attention.I was pretty much a tomboy in my youth and would ride my bike,alone,from dorothy lane area in kettering out 48 to a friends who lived on Social Row rd.Mostly farm land then and no traffic to speak of.Getting home was another matter as had worn myself out getting there. Had to call my mom who had no idea what I was up to and she had to make the drive out to load my bike and me in the car to get home. That happened once! Olds88 will remember when a mutual friend back then worked at a filling station out that way and would stop there to get a drink and then head on down the road.Good times.
Last Edited by luv my dayton on Jan 05, 2015 9:43 AM
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olds88
304 posts
Jan 05, 2015
2:31 PM
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LMD-The fellows son that owned the station is still around and in the car business on Marco lane.You got further than I did on rt.48.That big hill after Monkeys scared me off a lot.I still mess with trains and have been on steam trips a few times even this year.Nothing its like going back in time going to a reds game or just chillin"
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KennyE11
245 posts
Jan 05, 2015
4:21 PM
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In the early part of my childhood, we lived on Oakes Road north of Trotwood. There was a creek at the back of our property (now known as Moss Creek, but I don't remember it being called anything but The Creek when we lived there) - there was a spot in the creek that was wide and deep enough to be used as a swimming hole. That was fun as a kid, but I don't ever swim in lakes, ponds, rivers or creeks anymore (we have alligators in Florida).
In the latter part of my youth, we lived near the Salem Mall. I used to spend a lot of time there, especially at Funway Freeway. In those days (when the arcade was on the outside of the Mall next to Winter's Bank), the games were limited to pinball, air hockey tables, and early digital games like Pong. I spent a lot of time playing games in those days, but at least I got out of the house, walking to the Mall. Not like kids today that never leave their room.
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Ared60
92 posts
Jan 05, 2015
5:31 PM
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This post was titled most unusual place to play but I haven't yet seen one posting that is really unusual, well, except for the sewer. Back then any creek, ditch, clump of trees, or abandoned building was a normal playground.
We played in a drainage culvert under the street, swung from wild grape vines in out little "forest" (probably 3 wooded, unused building lots) and dug foxholes when we played army.
Nothing unusual there.
Last Edited by Ared60 on Jan 05, 2015 5:32 PM
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historybuff
264 posts
Jan 05, 2015
11:45 PM
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Thinking of those play activities of our youth and biking also bought back memories of biking on Route 42 in Xenia traveling to Wilberforce and the hills around that area in Greene County. The distance is about three miles which was considerable for 11 or 12 year olds. One in particular west of Wilberforce, was called “Devil’s Backbone”. At that time we considered it a “monster hill” to bike and if you were successful, it was considered quite a feat. Having biked it later as an adult, it was actually a sizable hill, but hardly a “monster”. The World of our youth was always sometimes, a much larger and scary place than when we return as adults. On those bike trips on very hot and humid summer days, I remember stopping about half-way there at an abandoned one-room schoolhouse that had a pump in the yard from a well. You would pump the handle and the spout had a hole in the top that if you covered the spout outlet with your hand, the hole in the top, became a water fountain that you could drink from. And such a wonderful drink it was. Anyone ever remember or drink from those kind of pumps?…..As LMD often says “Good Times”…….
Last Edited by historybuff on Jan 05, 2015 11:48 PM
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donm
37 posts
Jan 12, 2015
12:12 PM
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Back in the 50's-60's, along North Dixie there used to be a rather high (for a 10 year-old anyway) embankment that faced the road. It was behind a store (K-Mart?)that provided some of the building material we used. Up the face of the embankment was a small "cave" (actually I think a large rock worked loose and left a hole) that we reinforced using pallet wood and turned into our observation post for playing soldier. It was a place no one else paid attebtion to and it was high up in the sky (well, maybe 20 feet or so).Kids wouldn't be allowed to play there today. It would be fenced off or bulldozed to protect us from getting hurt. Those were the days..............
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rdebross
134 posts
Jan 12, 2015
4:17 PM
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During the 1950's I spent a lot of time playing with friends in some vacant hillside land near Lincoln School. There were a couple of wooded acres behind homes between St. Paul Avenue and Nassau Street. We had pitched battles with hedge apples and ran up hill and down hill along paths deeply rutted from decades of rain runoff. The paths doubled as sledding runs during winter snows. In the early 60's someone bought the land and built Kool Pool. Aerial photos show that part of the land is now used as garden plots.
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johnfader
64 posts
Jan 12, 2015
8:32 PM
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Behind Grace A. Greene School, there was a steep(or so it seemed) hill that was full of ruts. Back in the late 40's, early 50's, we would ride our bicycles down it and many times couldn't make it to the bottom without wrecking our bike. What a high to make it all the way down. At the bottom, you ended up at the Kossuth Settlement or "The Stockades" as it was known. The fence was no longer there but several old cottages were and were inhabited. Every once in a while we would meet some hobos, who would camp out under the trees. They never caused us any trouble, but scared the heck out of us, as we had been warned about them.
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Billd1952
268 posts
Jan 13, 2015
12:41 PM
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rdebross, I remember that wooded area well. We refered to it as Lincoln Woods. My brother and I would go sledding there too. Our paths have had to cross at one time or another. As I recall, the alley that ran between St Paul and Nassau was named Silver Lane. Great memories there. I remember the hedge apples too. There were a lot of them.
Last Edited by Billd1952 on Jan 13, 2015 12:43 PM
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