A Kid's Pocket!

I was a collector from the start. I had rocks and random toys, small farm tractors and equipment, model trains, weapons made from sticks in the woods, baseball cards, goofy cheap prizes out of cereal boxes. I remember my mom yelling at me more than once when she found worms in my jeans pockets. I had oddball knives that came and went that I don't really remember, but I consider my first knife to be the one I decided I wanted, and saved my money to buy on my own. A SAW that had a sawblade, so I could really get to work on my fort in the woods! I think the knife is still in my mom's house somewhere.

I'm the oldest of a lot of kids, so most of everything I cherished slowly got broken or taken by all the younger ones.

Growing up in Northwestern PA, one of my favorite childhood memories is when Dad would take a day off work in early spring, so he and Grandpa could tap the maple trees for making maple syrup. I was about 7 or 8 and he woke me up and said if I was willing to work, he would let me skip school for the day. What a treat! We were out in the neighbors front yard tapping the maple trees when the bus came down the road, and Dad told me to get in the truck and hide so I wouldn't get caught. Thinking back now, I'm sure that bus driver couldn't have cared any less if I was in school or not 100 days out of the year, let alone 1. I really felt like a big deal getting to work alongside my dad and grandpa, all of us skipping our real world responsibilities for a day, eating peanuts and drinking grape soda. That would be one the days I would relive over again if I had my wish.
 
What a fun topic. I was born in 80. Got my first knife when I was 7 or 8, a low quality affair with probably a 2-1/4 spear blade, scissors, and a little spoon shaped thing used to clean your nails. May have been a nail file, too, but I digress. Couldn't carry it at school.

I had a thing for rubber bands. Used to make shapes with them all the time. Spare change, lunch money, a blue plastic flippy keychain with my house key. I'd smuggle a Hot wheel in my socks, occasionally.

I don't have many mementos from my childhood. Pictures in an album somewhere. A Sak Tinker from my grandfather for my 13th bday. From high school, I have my gaudy class ring with a bluestone, senior year book, a Lego Darth Vader, and a R2D2 that launches Luke's green lightsaber, from Return of the Jedi. Probably some other stuff that doesn't come to mind.
 
I’m fairly certain mine would look something like this, because this is my stuff from when I was a kid. Yo-yos, Gi Joes, and I was way into baseball cards. I still have a lot of my childhood things.
rRCYmo1.jpg

These are also the first two knives I ever had - a Bucklite and a SAK. I’m not sure which I got first, but had both around the same time as a kid. It’s funny, I haven’t used either knife for years, but when I opened them up for the picture, they both had grimy blades. I guess when you’re a kid you just use the knife hard and put it away dirty. I left them as is.
 
Sacto said:
I’m fairly certain mine would look something like this, because this is my stuff from when I was a kid. Yo-yos, Gi Joes, and I was way into baseball cards. I still have a lot of my childhood things.
rRCYmo1.jpg

These are also the first two knives I ever had - a Bucklite and a SAK. I’m not sure which I got first, but had both around the same time as a kid. It’s funny, I haven’t used either knife for years, but when I opened them up for the picture, they both had grimy blades. I guess when you’re a kid you just use the knife hard and put it away dirty. I left them as is.
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Methinks you and I are of an age. Those are the same players I remember watching as a kid. I even recognize Dusty.
 
kamagong said:
Methinks you and I are of an age. Those are the same players I remember watching as a kid. I even recognize Dusty.
Click to expand...
We probably are. I was born in 1977. Those players were pretty iconic when I was a kid. I was also very into hot wheels/matchbox cars, but those are not as accessible for the photo.

By the way, great thread, Charlie. It’s fun seeing a glimpse into people’s childhoods of different eras.
 
What a great idea for a thread. Brings back so many memories when I sit and think about it. My pocket stuff from my childhood are long gone now, but I remember most of it like it was yesterday. I am 57 years old now. I spent most of the 70's roaming the lake and woods around our house on what was then the "edge" of town. The first pocket knife I remember carrying was an SAK picked up at the tackle shop in Crystal River, Florida on one of the family's many trips fishing. Carried it everyday. Then I got a Normark folder that looked a little like the Case Sodbuster JR. my big brother carried. Sharpest knife I ever remember! My pockets had .177 cal lead pellets or BB's for my Crossman rifle. That changed to ammo for my Winchester 190 .22 cal rifle when I got a little older. Carried it everywhere. Boat, woods, everywhere. I don't have that rifle anymore, but I now carry my brothers old H&K 300 in .22 mag in my pick up. 8" grape fishing worms. Always seemed to have a couple of those in my pocket and a small white Beetle Spin. I kept them in a little metal box. I had little brush pile hide outs made from palmetto fronds all over the 300 or so acres of woods I played in. You could hunt squirrels or occasional rabbits. I had a little 12 foot V-hull boat and motor I kept at the neighbors dock and everyday after school it was a choice between homework or lake. Guess which one won out.....? I had that boat for years until way after I got married and thought I needed a bigger boat. I wish I still had it. A book of matches and a bit of string or twine. I picked up glass soda bottles on the side of the road on my walk or bike ride up to the Stop-N-Go and used the return deposit for a Zero bar or aa Coke and cherry Icee. Those are happy days gone past and I am really lucky to have grown up when and where I did. I had a good family and I believe I was raised right and respectful.
 
DSC_2882.jpg

I always had all kinds of crap in my pockets.
Broken lighter (that one works!), knife, Hot Wheels (that Porsche 924 is actually too new!), maybe fifteen cents (enough for a soda and some gum) and whatever else I happened to pick up along the way.
The Metropolitan whistle is new, I don't know what I did with my old one. Out of vintage is the lunch token; that was issued during the Territorial days. We were a state when I was born!
In 1976 I would have been in the 5th grade.
 
I can't remember having much of anything in my pockets back in grade school days! :eek:

I'm guessing my mom made my brothers and me carry a handkerchief, and once I got a Colonial Forest-Master in 4th or 5th grade, that was in my pocket pretty much 24-7.
f-m.mark.Vopen.backyard.jpg

I owned lots of things others have posted in this thread (yo-yos, tops, baseball cards, army guys, "precious" coins, etc.), but I almost never carried them in my pockets.

There must have been times that I carried a loop of string, because I remember playing around with Cat's Cradle at school (and even in the barn milking cows with my dad).
And I remember that marbles were a big thing at school a couple of times. My dad dug through the "junk drawer" and found about 8 marbles each for me and one of my younger brothers, and somehow we parlayed those into hundreds of marbles each through a variety of marbles games where "winner gets the pot." So I must have had pockets full of marbles going to school in those times.

My coat pockets in winter usually had an extra pair of mittens/gloves in case the normal pair got too wet.

Once I got to high school, I started carrying a billfold and a little bit of cash (although there was almost nothing to spend it on), a comb, a folded-up brown paper lunch bag after lunch to be reused all week at least (during grade school, most of the kids took lunch in bags, but I always had a stupid red/black plaid steel lunch box).

I didn't start carrying keys until I went to college. We never locked our house, and kept keys in the ignitions of cars, trucks, pickups, tractors on the farm.

- GT
 
Did anyone ever get "Cherry Bombs"? They were the size of a good sized cherry, and water resistant!:rolleyes:
And if you lit them and threw them into water, they still went off!
Lotta dubious mischief went down in those days!!:eek:
 
waynorth said:
Did anyone ever get "Cherry Bombs"? They were the size of a good sized cherry, and water resistant!:rolleyes:
And if you lit them and threw them into water, they still went off!
Lotta dubious mischief went down in those days!!:eek:
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Cherry Bombs were a major step up from firecrackers. More like BOOM vs. crack
 
I keep some childhood stuff in my top dresser drawer that I staged for this photo. I've given my boys most of my stuff, but I recently stepped on General Lee late at night and figured he was due for a nice retirement.

The SAK was given to me around 8 years old or so. Got that coin out of a cereal box and find rnaome reason I have managed to hold on to it for 30 years.

Big baseball card collector as a kid. Very lucky to have met Bobby Richardson several times (played for the Yankees in the late 50s and 60s and played with some of the greatest of all time). He went to church with my grandparents and was very generous with his time entertaining a million questions from us kids.

Some fond memories in this picture.

I'll have to get a pic of my 8 year olds daily carry....he normally wears gym shorts and carries a backpack for his goodies when playing out in the field.

IMG-20200714-193245.jpg
 
JustinR said:
I keep some childhood stuff in my top dresser drawer that I staged for this photo. I've given my boys most of my stuff, but I recently stepped on General Lee late at night and figured he was due for a nice retirement.

The SAK was given to me around 8 years old or so. Got that coin out of a cereal box and find rnaome reason I have managed to hold on to it for 30 years.

Big baseball card collector as a kid. Very lucky to have met Bobby Richardson several times (played for the Yankees in the late 50s and 60s and played with some of the greatest of all time). He went to church with my grandparents and was very generous with his time entertaining a million questions from us kids.

Some fond memories in this picture.

I'll have to get a pic of my 8 year olds daily carry....he normally wears gym shorts and carries a backpack for his goodies when playing out in the field.

IMG-20200714-193245.jpg
Click to expand...
He holds the record for most rbi in a single world series game. He only hit 34 career home runs but that day he had grand slam and a two run single. 6 rbi, not bad!
 
joeradza said:
He holds the record for most rbi in a single world series game. He only hit 34 career home runs but that day he had grand slam and a two run single. 6 rbi, not bad!
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It wasn't until I was a little older that I could appreciate how good a ball player he was...we were just all strarstruck that he knew Mickey Mantle!

Great ball player, and an even better man.

I have some more signed cards and a ball I'll have to dig out. Haven't looked at that stuff in a while.
 
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