Playing at Home, back in the day

Of course by know you know, I'm of the older generation.  Things were different when I was a kid.  I grew up in the country, actually back a long lane and in a woods.  We didn't have computers, or electronic games, heck, we had a little black and white TV that you had to get up and turn the channels.  There were maybe two or three channels.  Saturday mornings we got to watch some shows.  I also remember watching the Mickey Mouse Club. 

Mostly we spent our time playing outside. With three of us there were always ideas of things to do.   Because we had the long lane, we rode our bikes a lot.  We pretended they were our horses.  Even tied our bikes to trees so they wouldn't "get away".  We had horse names for our bikes too. 

We lived in a big woods, although today it might look smaller, our perspective changes when we grow up.

There were all kinds of things to do in the woods, we hiked around and explored the little creek.  Watch "things" move in the water, floated leaves and bark like boats.  We loved climbing the trees and just hang out awhile, another change in perspective, being up high. 

Sometimes we hiked out of the woods into foreign fields, as we got older, we explored further.  I don't ever remember anyone asking what we were doing or where had we been.   We always come home for the next meal, so I guess our parents didn't worry.  Could we do that today?   I guess if I still lived in that woods, it would be okay. 

We had a tree house and an amazing teeter totter that not only went up and down but around.  Our Dad built that for us, it had tractor seats on the end.  We also had a giant swing that hung on a branch of a tall oak tree.  The seat was wooden and could hold two little kids at the same time.  Hours I spent swinging.  We could easily stand on the seat and get going really good and then sit and enjoy the ride. 

Summers seemed to last forever, what happened to them lasting forever?