Rosedale and NW Detroit

[SMRJim]

Remember when skate boards first came out?
Must have been hundreds of kids falling down at the end of their driveways.
Who would have thought it would make a come back?
Even better than the hula hoops.

For us it was all about the stingray bike. You had to have a stingray with a banana seat, possibly with a 'sissy bar' on it. You'd sometimes adjust the handlebars so that they were down low or way up high. And the baseball mitt was often hung over the handlebars. After Evel Knievel got big, we'd make little ramps in our yards and try to jump over things. Sometimes we'd ride over to Devils Hills and ride on the dirt paths there - the had some decent hills to ride up and down. I still remember getting my bike over at Great Western Auto.

[daddeeo]

After a few jumps with your bike you wished you had a girl's bike. Now too many rode wearing a cup in those days.

[agirlintheD]

Wow...what wonderful memories. Simple basics that certainly last a lifetime. I wouldn't trade how we grew up or where we grew up for the way things are today!!! No comparison at all. Thanks for sharing all your memories and stirring mine!

[SMRJim]

Wow...what wonderful memories. Simple basics that certainly last a lifetime. I wouldn't trade how we grew up or where we grew up for the way things are today!!! No comparison at all. Thanks for sharing all your memories and stirring mine!

It's definitely a whole different world today. With the internet, cell phones, IPODs, video games, etc., things have certainly changed. I'm glad I grew up when and where I did. How often to see you see a big group of kids from the neighborhood doing activities together, outside of organized sports, etc.? One of the big things for us [[for the boys mainly) was to go up to the park with our gloves/bats/ball, sit around and wait for enough kids to show up [[could be anyone from the neighborhood), pick teams and have a baseball game. No adults, just the kids. We'd play all afternoon. A friend of mine does something like that for the kids his son knows, so they can have that same fun we did. He goes to the ball diamond and provides the equipment, then sits over on the other side of the park and reads and lets the kids go at it on their own without any intervention from him.

We put on plays in our basement and in a neighbors garage [[we made it all up, 'improvised') - we'd sell bags of popcorn, had a sno-cone machine one time. Made our own spookhouses in our basement. We had a neighborhood circus one time in Debbie Richmond's backyard. We used our backyard and made a little putt-putt golf course. Sure beats sitting around playing video games!

[ggores]

It's definitely a whole different world today!

Yep.

Over in that ghetto those kids still are outside alot, they are impoverished so no X-boxes. What they actually DO outside.... not quite sure..... but they are out there. Even in winter.

Those were pretty fun days, those ones more than 20 years back!

[65memories]

Actually, Rosedale Park has one of the best organized Little Leagues in the Metro Detroit area in the Spring/Summer and for the last 20 years, a very, organized Soccer League in the Fall. Games for both are played at Stoepel Park, N. Rosedale Community Center and St. Scholastica. The baseball teams have won numerous State District championships. Basketball is offered in the Winter and Jack Adams has organized hockey. The parent participation is high with hundreds of kids involved.

[reddog289]

By the time I had become a teen, My favorite thing to do was to go to Northland and play the newest home video game systems in the basement at Hudsons.Northland was better then Westland because me and my cousins didn't get ran off there for spending too much time on the games.
After I got my own system in "83". The days of me playing in the backyard of my Grandparents house were done. Which was fine by me. There were not many kids my age on that block, None of which I could call my friends. So other then mow the lawn, Watch my Grandpa work on the car, or take the bus to Livonia Mall with my Grandma. There wasn't alot to do.
That era pretty much was insync with the way it was at my Moms in Garden City or my Aunt and Uncles in Pinckney.We got into the video games.Looking back that time was an uncharted territory. About 15 years ago while riding down an alley in Warrendale, I happened to think about the alleys of my youth.How much fun they were and how sad I was , yet the joy of the older members of my familywhich ment ,"one more thing I can block off"
That alley betwen Pierson to the west, Braile to the east, ment more to me then my video game system.

[vetalalumni]

For us it was all about the stingray bike. You had to have a stingray with a banana seat, possibly with a 'sissy bar' on it. You'd sometimes adjust the handlebars so that they were down low or way up high. And the baseball mitt was often hung over the handlebars. After Evel Knievel got big, we'd make little ramps in our yards and try to jump over things. Sometimes we'd ride over to Devils Hills and ride on the dirt paths there - the had some decent hills to ride up and down. I still remember getting my bike over at Great Western Auto.

Schwinn bikes! Heck yeah.

Post Big Wheels and prior to getting a 10 speed, Schwinn bikes were the bomb!

Remember wrenching bikes into choppers? Mom hated my dangerous habit of stringing 2 or 3 forks together to make a chopper Fragile, you could not do wheelies lest the forks crumble and you go over the handle bars and get bloody. Such fun. I have the scars and memories to prove it.

[vetalalumni]

Neglected to mention this was not my own personal bike. It is just a googled image that is similar to a bike I had. Mine was not as nice looking as this one though. Nonetheless, I should have properly credited or mentioned in the previous post.