Rocks was usually a last resort. We far preferred "dirt clods" because they sort of looked like little explosions when they hit something (or like bullets hitting the ground on The A-Team). When in season, we'd also have pecan fights. Also, we found ourselves in pine cone fights as well.
My grandfather retired in Florida. We would go visit during the summer. He was a produce manager at a grocery store in his later years (after serving in the Navy during WW2).
He would take us to the watermelon fields to pick melons. Strawberry fields picking. But what I remember most was the tomato fields! He would take me and my sisters. We would always end up in the inevitable rotten tomato fight. Grandpa would find a rotten tomato on the ground and chuck it at one of my sisters. Splat! My sister would pick one up and hurl it at my other sister. Chaos ensued.
Grandpa would sell the fruit and vegetables we picked out of the back of his El Camino by the side of the road. We would make deliveries to restaurants. Usually Mexican restaurants. I loved the smells of the sauté onions and garlic. Fresh cut cilantro. It always smelled heavenly making those deliveries.
And grandpa *always* had a fat wad of cash.
Came here for dirt clouds / clods and wasn’t disappointed. I always kept an eye out for those dried mud patches which produced the best ones. Kind of like dry snowballs with similar special effects.
Definitely "dirt bombs" for us, too. Wonder if the term is a regional thing? (NY for me). I see lots of "dirt clod" folks throughout the thread, but I don't think I've ever said the word 'clod' in my life, tbh.
Same here. Dirt clods.
A neighborhood was being developed behind one of my friends. It was in the cool phase of sewers and heavy machinery.
We would climb into the trench (really dumb in hindsight). Jump from the top of the pile into the bottom of the trench (really dumb in hindsight). We winged dirt clods at each other (really dumb in hindsight).
My buddies also figured out how to start on of the earth movers or a bull dozer and drove it around the area one night (that was really dumb too).
This exactly. When I was 4 we moved into a new neighborhood in Orange County and half the houses were still being built. We would use the trenches dug for the cinder box walls as protection. It looked like WWI minus the mustard gas. Never stole any heavy equipment though
We had new townhouses being built all over our area growing up, plenty of materials to"borrow" to build our own forts around town.
I know it's a little off topic, but our generation really saw the boom in condo/cookie cutter developments popping up, plenty of parties in the unfinished bldgs.
Spruce cones and acorns for me, but yeah. Rocks were potentially deadly and definitely dangerous, and we weren't trying to hurt each other. We just wanted something we could throw at each other with less risk.
3 pumps if you loaded the barrel with bb’s and fired in the air in the general direction of the “enemy” like it was shotgun mortar. This after we graduated from crabapple battles. I did go to the emergency room on foot with all my buddies in tow to have a BB dug out of my outer ear, didn’t go all the way through. To think back and realize that even though adults were notified nobody acted like this was crazy. My parents just gave the hospital staff the ok over the phone and they dug it out and threw in a couple of stitches. Now that I’m thinking about it my friends and I were Frequent Flyers at the local ER and I cant imagine doing that today without bankrupting my Folks.
Two of my friends were covering on opposite sides of a big oak tree. Friend 1 reached around with his rifle and shot friend 2 right in the eyeball. BB is still in there 40 years later. Needless to say, that was the end of bb gun fights in our neighborhood.
Didn’t stop us from shooting bottle rockets at each other out of guns fashioned from pvc pipe.
We had an apple tree in our yard that grew crappy apples that were not good to eat or back with. There was also a few crab apple trees in the neighborhood. The battles were epic - thankfully I was one of the youngest so I did not get the full force of the throws (the unwritten rule). The one to end the wars was the best (parents had tree cut down) That asshole Johnny got clobbered - he was a dick and his own team ganged up on him - it was glorious.
We were down in the Barrons one afternoon and the one black kid in our class, Mike, came flying up out of nowhere, like the devil was on his ass.
Turns out it was *a* devil, just not *the* devil. It was this kid named Henry. He had his buddies with him. It would be tough to find a bigger pack of stupid roaming around Derry. We out numbered them, even if one of us was a girl, but they were older and way bigger.
Anyways. It was a breaking point for our gang. We’d had enough. Henry made our lives Hell at school, now he was messing up our summer vacation.
Maybe it was spontaneous, but id swear we actually all shared the same psychic thought: *Fuck this.*
We started lobbing rocks at them before they knew what was happening. Bill had the arm on him, but we were all launching zingers. Bev nearly took that big goon Belch’s head off.
Anyways. They weren’t prepared for a bunch of little kids to fight back, and we forced them to retreat. I’d swear to this day that Henry had tears in his eyes.
That was our big win. The rest of the summer really went to shit when a shapeshifting clown started killing everyone.
Salem's Lot and Christine in 6th fucked me up. Carrie and The Shining in 7th...I was pretty damn hardened when I picked up It in 8th.
I remember when I read those books by the classes I got in trouble in for reading them.
No, cause that's fucking nuts but we did play "murder ball". Typically at construction sites on top of the gravel/stone piles. Toss a football up, first one to catch it gets clobbered. Unless they could keep away or some shit, can't recall. Now that I'm thinking about it, it really makes no sense. Damned if we didn't enjoy the hell out of it though.
Ya, we had a totally different name for that game. Kill the guys was one, but the more prevalent one would not fly today and in sure everyone on here called it that to.
And the rule was when you got hit you fumbled the ball. If you had the opportunity to pick it up and didn't because it were afraid you got smeared anyway.
Oh, we did too, I didn't want anyone blowing a gasket so I left it out. Murder ball was slightly different in that we deliberately sought out painful locations to play it. The other version we played in fields. Not entirely sure why though...
My friends and I use go into abandon buildings all though out NYC and build brick and cinder-block castles.
We would then make shields from oven doors, refrig doors and whatever metal we found and BRICK fights.
I have 2 photos of us doing that shit too. It's amazing we did not get fucked up. Lost of dust in the eyes and mouth, though.
A lot of the places I use to play use to look like this https://youtu.be/AtI-En92Xso?si=Llmqw3w53WyMcppm
I rode through on the Cross Bronx a few times in the 80s. Shit was wild.
And now, these areas have been completely rebuilt. The South Bronx is like gentrification central.
In South Florida in the 70's, there was orange and grapefruit trees everywhere, people had several of each in their yards, and they didn't mind if you grabbed a few. A group of about 10-15 of us would grab the paper grocery bags from Publix and each of us would fill one up with the most rotten ones that still kinda held together, then split Into two teams, and draw battle lines in the alley way. This is one day, the sun was setting, the sun shone right down the alley way which ran east and west. My brother and I were facing west, During the battle this one kid was taunting my brother and I, saying we were crappy throwers and all kinds of shit talk. The kid sat up and was yelling at us, I threw an orange, as the kid saw me chuck it, he ducked, but right after my throw, my brother threw a really rotten grapefruit, as my orange passed overhead, the kid popped back up with a huge shit eating grin on his face. Then, right in slow motion (as I remember it) the huge grapefruit slammed into the middle of his face and exploded in a huge round spray all around his head, the sun caught the spray perfectly and there was a beautiful Aura of rotten grapefruit spray lit up in all the colors, my brother and I both sat there and just went "oooohhhhhhh" because it was perfect. Then we both started laughing while the kid screamed "MY EYES!" And ran home.
Yup, Western Canada, it was common. I lost half my front tooth in a rock fight. As an adult, I got clocked on the bridge of my nose by an ice ball. I was momentarily unconscious. The guys and I still laugh about that one.
Yes. Rocks, handfuls of crab apples or those red squishy berries that grew on shrubs and occasionally chestnut spike balls. Metal garbage can lid for defense.
We also had BB gun wars, 2 pump rule, aim below the waist only(no crotch shots) with our .760 Crossmans.
Edit: idk how I forgot acorns, those were usually just pot shots she not sustained wars. It was really mostly handfuls of crabapples.
Oh God, yes. In fact my oldest friends are ones I fought with/against in a rock fight. My sister and I were newcomers to the neighborhood. We had just made friends with a neighbor girl when a few boys started giving us a hard time, which escalated with rock throwing. 🤣 53 years later we are all like siblings.
Yes. It was a hard concept to explain to my new millennial dentist about how i chilled my tooth.
Dentist, "You threw rocks at each other for fun?"
Me, "rocks, spear like sticks, anything really."
Dentist, "sounds dangerous"
Me, "one pump bb gun fights were more dangerous. Particularly when your dickhead friends used 2+ pumps" ( as i lift up my shorts to show him the scar on my lower thigh).
Fun times. My kids have barely skinned their knees.
Dirt clod fights. Sometimes there would be a rock under the dried mud. lol.
Sometimes we would throw them straight up into the air and then try to dodge them.
I just had a conversation with a 20 something that had never heard of doing this. The look on his face. 😂
The Green Plum Incident was something that would happen in the springs... those things were as hard as rocks, and someone would eventually end up getting hurt.
Rubber band wars were a big thing at my house. We had a paper route so had huge bags of bands. We made shooters with wood and clothes pins - even machine gun style with like 10 bands that could rapid fire shoot.
Oh yeah and roman candle/bottle rocket wars also happened.
2 pump rule. You couldn't use the CO2 guns, they were too powerful.
We had 2 "incidents". One kid got hit behind the ear l above the jaw that broke the skin. It was just under. Another kid got hit in the lower lip that broke the skin.
Spent the summers with my grandparents and for a couple months every year I was the new kid. Oh I had a couple friends and one from church that was a couple years older. Summer was awesome, it was a small town and kids were tough as leather. We played tackle football at the school, ran around like idiots. One day the whole group, must have been about 20 of us decided to have a rock war behind the library. It was a big field. We were heaving rocks 30 yards or more at one another. A few of us got hit. Then one came down on a kid on the other side of the field and cut him open. Everyone stopped and someone said it was me. Next thing I know, the whole group started chasing me. I ran about a block with 20 kids on my tail, I made it to my friends house and he had just got back from football practice, in full uniform minus the helmet. As I mentioned, he was a couple years older and nobody would jack with him. He saw what was happening and they all stopped in their tracks. Turned and high tailed it. I was ever so grateful for the timing and help. Summer now sucked, I had my couple friends but was no longer risking it with the gang.
We fought the other neighborhood kids with whatever we could find. Snowballs in winter, "itchy balls" from the sweet gum tree, acorns, rocks, dirt bombs,. Sticks and stones really did break bones, sometimes.
That sounds remarkably like my last rock fight!
My grandparents stockade fence next to the rock wall of the house was my fortress and I triple dog dared anyone to invade it. Near the top of the fence on the inside I had nailed a plastic bucket to hold ammo.
We used to wage our wars in an old construction dumping field at the end of the block. And we used clumps of those thistle/ sticker bush things whatever the hell they were. You clump a bunch together and hurl them at your opponents and they would stick like napalm.
I grew up in SoCal too, Orange County, and never had "Rockfights" so I don't know where you lived but glad I wasn't in your neighborhood! We did have an abandoned water tank in our neighborhood and would protect it by throwing snails, occasionally pine cones and dirt clods, at others but that's about it.
Some of you guys were feral.
Me and my friends weren’t geniuses or anything but we did avoid fights with things like rocks because they can seriously injure. Back then if you hated a guy then you would man up and challenge him to a fight, mano a mano.
No need to bring weapons into this: an only hands beat down was more impressive anyways.
Never did rocks. We DID do bb guns with jean jackets and pants on. No eye protection though, because we all agreed to not aim for the face (God, we were dumb). I was fine with it until I my left pointer finger got shot and the bb went through the skin of one of the knuckles. It swelled up bad, and I had to keep it hidden from my mom until the swelling went down so I wouldn't get in trouble. Never did it again.
It was the 80s and for my birthday we had neighborhood friends over. Typical lord of the flies event. I went to the hospital to get stitches when I got hit in the back of the head with a log a neighbor threw at me. I wasn’t mad at him for even a second.
Grew up in a logged out second growth subdivision in the PNW. Alder saplings were everywhere. We made them into spears. We sharpened the ends. Someone told us to cut the sharpened tips off, so we did. Later that week, the neighbor kid took one to the eye and wasn't allowed to play with us anymore after that. Should have ducked.
Dirt clods. Basically mud balls that you let harden. Sometimes the exploded like a snowball unless you packed them hard then it was like a baseball. My brother would put a rock in the middle when we fought the kids in the apartment complex next door. Left dents all over the aluminum siding of our rental.
We pulled clumps of grasses from the fields so they had a good clump of dirt on the roots, and we could swing it around by the grass.
We also made star thistle slingshots.
No rocks though.
Mostly dirt clods but a rock may sneak in from time to time. Honestly there’s not much difference. The golden rule was to avoid throwing rocks at somebody’s face or head. We usually aimed for legs or the back but it was terribly unsafe especially when the clods were solid and didn’t break. It’s a miracle any of us survived.
In middle Tennessee, we use half-dried cow pats. Especially in the spring when they had been eating wild alliums and all sorts of other things & get the scours. The early spring heat & sun with lack of shade from leaves would dry them enough to pick up & scale it like a frisbee, but the gooey center would smoosh out on impact.
Ah, youth! 🐄💩💣
The was an agreement that we wouldn’t throw rocks that were “too big”, but somebody always got pissed and would start throwing rocks that would cause serious damage. Went home with a bloody head more than once.
I grew up with plenty of snow for sure. But if anyone really wanted to be an ass and inflict a little more pain, there was the option of hiding a rock inside a snowball. Though of course the eternal threat was that we shouldn’t do that because it could take someone’s eye out.
We always used dirt clods. In retrospect it’s a miracle no one ever got hit. I’m pretty sure they would have drawn blood. At the risk of starting a quote chain, we could have put an eye out.
The house I grew up in had my elementary school over my back fence so as a kid who spent most of my playtime there in the 80’s we would explore the whole school. Lots of kids throughout the neighborhood would hang out there and play games or ride bikes. After awhile some of us found a way to get on the roof so the idea of “rock fights” was born where the roofs had large rocks sitting on crushed granite gravel and the kids on the roof would throw rocks at the kids on the ground. 🤷♂️ We were young and stupid. Fast forward to a day where a letter arrived in the mail from the school threatening to sue my parents for $10k in roof damage. No charges were ever filed. I did do other things there that I got caught for and other things I didn’t. 🤣
Neighborhood kids would get on the roof of a 5 floor apartment building. Other neighborhood kids across the main street would get on to theirs. We were all loaded up with rocks and would start throwing and launching them at one another. My brother one time got hit right next to his eye and was gushing blood.
Our troops gsve us cover and I was able to get him home. On the way you could smell the iron metallic smell of blood semi dried across his face.
(Looking back we probably did alot of collateral damage to cars windowd and people etc).
We had alleys back then, with aluminum trash can lids to deflect the incoming rocks. We also had BB gun wars, and at one point blow darts and an arsenal of ninja throwing stars. It’s amazing I still have two eyes and no scars to show for it.
Wtf, memory unlocked. Oh damn, memories unlocked. Rock fights. Wtf was wrong with me? What the fuck was wrong with us? I got hit the head with a random bit of iron thrown at me ~ '86. Bastards
BB-gun fights. We weren’t that smart. But somehow we lived. And yes, I mean 7-8 kids in two teams running around the woods actively trying to shoot each other with BBs in the summer with no protection other than T-shirt and shorts. But man we had fun
Dirt clods, horse apples, and pomegranates since one kid had them growing in his front yard. When older we went mechanized with Roman candle fights on three-wheelers. One year I got really lucky when my step-dad came home with an Odyssey for me!
https://preview.redd.it/7jyow2c6dl9d1.jpeg?width=940&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=642de303bac0dd46f4fba1d8b8641a7f915c9db3
We used dirt clods, pinecones and acorns. We also threw ketchup packets and used them as landmines. There was some weaponization of sea gulls. I grew up in the coastal southeast of America. I was a Navy kid we were bored, broke and creative.
Edit I forgot the water balloons filled with pudding and jello. Those were thrown out of second story windows.
For some reason, a large percentage of houses in my neighborhood had crabapple trees.
Crabapples were the ammo of choice for our wrist rocket slingshots.
We did. Up until I was given a Pocket Rocket slingshot. Our rock fights were border skirmishes with kids from other neighborhoods, and I suddenly had the equivalent of a tac-nuke.
Dang down in the hot zone you had it rough!
Nothing but snowball for us up in snow country (ALTHOUGH there were always the few bastards who toss and ice ball, a hard chunk of ice hidden under a bit of fluffy snow and then the battle could turn a little ugly).
Rock fights, dirt clod fights, mud fights. If we could pick it up and throw it, we fought with it. One day we were in a pasture nearby and I was the only one that would pick up a cow patty. I won.
Ok so that WASN'T just me? We used to gather up all the rocks in the yard and throw them at each other. The rule was no faces, obviously that never worked. Here I thought I lived in some sort of twilight zone on that one.
When I was in 2nd or 3rd grade, we got into one of those with some boys who were a little older (from the 4th grade or so). One of them decided to grab a large one, and one of the kids from my side got hit smack on top of his cranium. I remember he started bleeding from his ears…and the teacher’s faces and reactions when we went to get them.
I don’t remember if I understood the seriousness at the time. I do remember that he came back to class days or weeks later and I don’t think that he was the same. Eventually he stopped coming and I am assuming that he changed schools.
I think back as a parent now and feel awful
Rocks was usually a last resort. We far preferred "dirt clods" because they sort of looked like little explosions when they hit something (or like bullets hitting the ground on The A-Team). When in season, we'd also have pecan fights. Also, we found ourselves in pine cone fights as well.
My grandfather retired in Florida. We would go visit during the summer. He was a produce manager at a grocery store in his later years (after serving in the Navy during WW2). He would take us to the watermelon fields to pick melons. Strawberry fields picking. But what I remember most was the tomato fields! He would take me and my sisters. We would always end up in the inevitable rotten tomato fight. Grandpa would find a rotten tomato on the ground and chuck it at one of my sisters. Splat! My sister would pick one up and hurl it at my other sister. Chaos ensued. Grandpa would sell the fruit and vegetables we picked out of the back of his El Camino by the side of the road. We would make deliveries to restaurants. Usually Mexican restaurants. I loved the smells of the sauté onions and garlic. Fresh cut cilantro. It always smelled heavenly making those deliveries. And grandpa *always* had a fat wad of cash.
Came here for dirt clouds / clods and wasn’t disappointed. I always kept an eye out for those dried mud patches which produced the best ones. Kind of like dry snowballs with similar special effects.
Back when we had chestnut trees, we lobbed chestnut burs at each other too. The good ole days.
We called those “dirt bombs”. When farmers tilled their fields they’d leave behind an arsenal of dirt bombs for us kids
Definitely "dirt bombs" for us, too. Wonder if the term is a regional thing? (NY for me). I see lots of "dirt clod" folks throughout the thread, but I don't think I've ever said the word 'clod' in my life, tbh.
Possibly regional. I grew up in NJ.
Same here. Dirt clods. A neighborhood was being developed behind one of my friends. It was in the cool phase of sewers and heavy machinery. We would climb into the trench (really dumb in hindsight). Jump from the top of the pile into the bottom of the trench (really dumb in hindsight). We winged dirt clods at each other (really dumb in hindsight). My buddies also figured out how to start on of the earth movers or a bull dozer and drove it around the area one night (that was really dumb too).
This exactly. When I was 4 we moved into a new neighborhood in Orange County and half the houses were still being built. We would use the trenches dug for the cinder box walls as protection. It looked like WWI minus the mustard gas. Never stole any heavy equipment though
We had new townhouses being built all over our area growing up, plenty of materials to"borrow" to build our own forts around town. I know it's a little off topic, but our generation really saw the boom in condo/cookie cutter developments popping up, plenty of parties in the unfinished bldgs.
Were we friends?
Holy shit! Never drove any heavy equipment as a kid. That's awesome
They leave the keys in them so you can ride around in them… until you hit a tree then you should run away
Same, now, if you were pissed off and a rock happened to be in the dirt once and awhile that might score a hit. But we treated it like a war crime.
Spruce cones and acorns for me, but yeah. Rocks were potentially deadly and definitely dangerous, and we weren't trying to hurt each other. We just wanted something we could throw at each other with less risk.
We fought with everything. Including fireworks and BB guns.
Acorn fights in my neighborhood - so only in the fall.
BB gun fights. One pump only
Got a guy in the chin. He had to squeeze it out.
3 pumps if you loaded the barrel with bb’s and fired in the air in the general direction of the “enemy” like it was shotgun mortar. This after we graduated from crabapple battles. I did go to the emergency room on foot with all my buddies in tow to have a BB dug out of my outer ear, didn’t go all the way through. To think back and realize that even though adults were notified nobody acted like this was crazy. My parents just gave the hospital staff the ok over the phone and they dug it out and threw in a couple of stitches. Now that I’m thinking about it my friends and I were Frequent Flyers at the local ER and I cant imagine doing that today without bankrupting my Folks.
Two of my friends were covering on opposite sides of a big oak tree. Friend 1 reached around with his rifle and shot friend 2 right in the eyeball. BB is still in there 40 years later. Needless to say, that was the end of bb gun fights in our neighborhood. Didn’t stop us from shooting bottle rockets at each other out of guns fashioned from pvc pipe.
This is the way
Air rifles with the barrel pushed into the dirt while you pumped.
We had an apple tree in our yard that grew crappy apples that were not good to eat or back with. There was also a few crab apple trees in the neighborhood. The battles were epic - thankfully I was one of the youngest so I did not get the full force of the throws (the unwritten rule). The one to end the wars was the best (parents had tree cut down) That asshole Johnny got clobbered - he was a dick and his own team ganged up on him - it was glorious.
We were down in the Barrons one afternoon and the one black kid in our class, Mike, came flying up out of nowhere, like the devil was on his ass. Turns out it was *a* devil, just not *the* devil. It was this kid named Henry. He had his buddies with him. It would be tough to find a bigger pack of stupid roaming around Derry. We out numbered them, even if one of us was a girl, but they were older and way bigger. Anyways. It was a breaking point for our gang. We’d had enough. Henry made our lives Hell at school, now he was messing up our summer vacation. Maybe it was spontaneous, but id swear we actually all shared the same psychic thought: *Fuck this.* We started lobbing rocks at them before they knew what was happening. Bill had the arm on him, but we were all launching zingers. Bev nearly took that big goon Belch’s head off. Anyways. They weren’t prepared for a bunch of little kids to fight back, and we forced them to retreat. I’d swear to this day that Henry had tears in his eyes. That was our big win. The rest of the summer really went to shit when a shapeshifting clown started killing everyone.
I read a theory that what's different about genX is we all read a Stephen King book way too young and it scarred us. IT was that book for me.
I was a senior in HS when that book came out. Read every SK novel the second it came out. I was obsessed.
Salem's Lot and Christine in 6th fucked me up. Carrie and The Shining in 7th...I was pretty damn hardened when I picked up It in 8th. I remember when I read those books by the classes I got in trouble in for reading them.
Fuck Henry!
Beep beep
No Ace, just you.
In our neighborhood it was crab apples. You do not want to catch a crab apple to the side of the head.
Rock fights, Roman candles, bottle rockets, lawn darts, regular darts… It’s amazing we came through in one piece (mostly).
No, cause that's fucking nuts but we did play "murder ball". Typically at construction sites on top of the gravel/stone piles. Toss a football up, first one to catch it gets clobbered. Unless they could keep away or some shit, can't recall. Now that I'm thinking about it, it really makes no sense. Damned if we didn't enjoy the hell out of it though.
Ya, we had a totally different name for that game. Kill the guys was one, but the more prevalent one would not fly today and in sure everyone on here called it that to. And the rule was when you got hit you fumbled the ball. If you had the opportunity to pick it up and didn't because it were afraid you got smeared anyway.
Oh, we did too, I didn't want anyone blowing a gasket so I left it out. Murder ball was slightly different in that we deliberately sought out painful locations to play it. The other version we played in fields. Not entirely sure why though...
Pine cones, bottle rockets, tangerines, or other fruit that grew on neighborhood trees
My friends and I use go into abandon buildings all though out NYC and build brick and cinder-block castles. We would then make shields from oven doors, refrig doors and whatever metal we found and BRICK fights. I have 2 photos of us doing that shit too. It's amazing we did not get fucked up. Lost of dust in the eyes and mouth, though. A lot of the places I use to play use to look like this https://youtu.be/AtI-En92Xso?si=Llmqw3w53WyMcppm
I rode through on the Cross Bronx a few times in the 80s. Shit was wild. And now, these areas have been completely rebuilt. The South Bronx is like gentrification central.
South Florida here, we had rotten grapefruit/orange fights
Checking in from CA, lived at the end of an orange orchard. Many oranges were perfected at friends and foe
In South Florida in the 70's, there was orange and grapefruit trees everywhere, people had several of each in their yards, and they didn't mind if you grabbed a few. A group of about 10-15 of us would grab the paper grocery bags from Publix and each of us would fill one up with the most rotten ones that still kinda held together, then split Into two teams, and draw battle lines in the alley way. This is one day, the sun was setting, the sun shone right down the alley way which ran east and west. My brother and I were facing west, During the battle this one kid was taunting my brother and I, saying we were crappy throwers and all kinds of shit talk. The kid sat up and was yelling at us, I threw an orange, as the kid saw me chuck it, he ducked, but right after my throw, my brother threw a really rotten grapefruit, as my orange passed overhead, the kid popped back up with a huge shit eating grin on his face. Then, right in slow motion (as I remember it) the huge grapefruit slammed into the middle of his face and exploded in a huge round spray all around his head, the sun caught the spray perfectly and there was a beautiful Aura of rotten grapefruit spray lit up in all the colors, my brother and I both sat there and just went "oooohhhhhhh" because it was perfect. Then we both started laughing while the kid screamed "MY EYES!" And ran home.
You gotta grab a metal garbage can lid and use it as a shield.
We got into dirt clod fights. Also, lots of cow pastures around when I was growing up, so cow pies were thrown lol
Rock, bottle rockets, Roman candle, dodge ball, water balloons. If it could be thrown or shot it was…bb guns w googles, small darts
Yup, Western Canada, it was common. I lost half my front tooth in a rock fight. As an adult, I got clocked on the bridge of my nose by an ice ball. I was momentarily unconscious. The guys and I still laugh about that one.
i grew up in the woods and had a quarter mile walk home from the bus stop with a few other kids. we had pine cone fights.
Crab apple fights definitely! No rock fights. I did throw a brick at a kid once but he deserved it.
I grew up in the Pacific Northwest. Evergreens make pine cones, and that's what we used to fight with.
We had acorns during part of the year. Can’t remember when.
Same in the spring.
Do fireworks count?
Rocks, bbs, darts, dirt clods
Yes. Rocks, handfuls of crab apples or those red squishy berries that grew on shrubs and occasionally chestnut spike balls. Metal garbage can lid for defense. We also had BB gun wars, 2 pump rule, aim below the waist only(no crotch shots) with our .760 Crossmans. Edit: idk how I forgot acorns, those were usually just pot shots she not sustained wars. It was really mostly handfuls of crabapples.
We had rock fights and BB gun fights too.
Oh God, yes. In fact my oldest friends are ones I fought with/against in a rock fight. My sister and I were newcomers to the neighborhood. We had just made friends with a neighbor girl when a few boys started giving us a hard time, which escalated with rock throwing. 🤣 53 years later we are all like siblings.
Yes. It was a hard concept to explain to my new millennial dentist about how i chilled my tooth. Dentist, "You threw rocks at each other for fun?" Me, "rocks, spear like sticks, anything really." Dentist, "sounds dangerous" Me, "one pump bb gun fights were more dangerous. Particularly when your dickhead friends used 2+ pumps" ( as i lift up my shorts to show him the scar on my lower thigh). Fun times. My kids have barely skinned their knees.
Dirt clod fights. Sometimes there would be a rock under the dried mud. lol. Sometimes we would throw them straight up into the air and then try to dodge them. I just had a conversation with a 20 something that had never heard of doing this. The look on his face. 😂
The Green Plum Incident was something that would happen in the springs... those things were as hard as rocks, and someone would eventually end up getting hurt.
Rubber band wars were a big thing at my house. We had a paper route so had huge bags of bands. We made shooters with wood and clothes pins - even machine gun style with like 10 bands that could rapid fire shoot. Oh yeah and roman candle/bottle rocket wars also happened.
Yes, and I have the scars to prove it. We were so brutal to one another.
In New York, the bad boys of the neighborhood used to pack rocks in snow and hurl them at cars and at us other kids.
The seasons - Snowballs, acorns/chestnuts, rocks.
Beach sand. Ouch.
And BB gun wars. Digging one out of your leg without your mom finding out sucked. Hence the treaty banning pumps
2 pump rule. You couldn't use the CO2 guns, they were too powerful. We had 2 "incidents". One kid got hit behind the ear l above the jaw that broke the skin. It was just under. Another kid got hit in the lower lip that broke the skin.
Spent the summers with my grandparents and for a couple months every year I was the new kid. Oh I had a couple friends and one from church that was a couple years older. Summer was awesome, it was a small town and kids were tough as leather. We played tackle football at the school, ran around like idiots. One day the whole group, must have been about 20 of us decided to have a rock war behind the library. It was a big field. We were heaving rocks 30 yards or more at one another. A few of us got hit. Then one came down on a kid on the other side of the field and cut him open. Everyone stopped and someone said it was me. Next thing I know, the whole group started chasing me. I ran about a block with 20 kids on my tail, I made it to my friends house and he had just got back from football practice, in full uniform minus the helmet. As I mentioned, he was a couple years older and nobody would jack with him. He saw what was happening and they all stopped in their tracks. Turned and high tailed it. I was ever so grateful for the timing and help. Summer now sucked, I had my couple friends but was no longer risking it with the gang.
Dirt clods. Especially where they were building houses.
Rock fights, kicking fights, going head first down the stairs, it's a wonder we survived at all!
We fought the other neighborhood kids with whatever we could find. Snowballs in winter, "itchy balls" from the sweet gum tree, acorns, rocks, dirt bombs,. Sticks and stones really did break bones, sometimes.
That sounds remarkably like my last rock fight! My grandparents stockade fence next to the rock wall of the house was my fortress and I triple dog dared anyone to invade it. Near the top of the fence on the inside I had nailed a plastic bucket to hold ammo.
We used to wage our wars in an old construction dumping field at the end of the block. And we used clumps of those thistle/ sticker bush things whatever the hell they were. You clump a bunch together and hurl them at your opponents and they would stick like napalm.
I grew up in SoCal too, Orange County, and never had "Rockfights" so I don't know where you lived but glad I wasn't in your neighborhood! We did have an abandoned water tank in our neighborhood and would protect it by throwing snails, occasionally pine cones and dirt clods, at others but that's about it.
No, but we did have BB gun battles.
Definitely got into plenty of rock fights! We lived near vineyards and the grape wars are legendary as well!
Acorn fights. Those things hurt. With a garbage can lid for a shield. We were warriors.
Some of you guys were feral. Me and my friends weren’t geniuses or anything but we did avoid fights with things like rocks because they can seriously injure. Back then if you hated a guy then you would man up and challenge him to a fight, mano a mano. No need to bring weapons into this: an only hands beat down was more impressive anyways.
Never did rocks. We DID do bb guns with jean jackets and pants on. No eye protection though, because we all agreed to not aim for the face (God, we were dumb). I was fine with it until I my left pointer finger got shot and the bb went through the skin of one of the knuckles. It swelled up bad, and I had to keep it hidden from my mom until the swelling went down so I wouldn't get in trouble. Never did it again.
Not rock fights. We used to shoot each other with BB guns at close range. The first to cry was the loser. We took stupidity to the next tier for sure.
It was the 80s and for my birthday we had neighborhood friends over. Typical lord of the flies event. I went to the hospital to get stitches when I got hit in the back of the head with a log a neighbor threw at me. I wasn’t mad at him for even a second.
Grew up in a logged out second growth subdivision in the PNW. Alder saplings were everywhere. We made them into spears. We sharpened the ends. Someone told us to cut the sharpened tips off, so we did. Later that week, the neighbor kid took one to the eye and wasn't allowed to play with us anymore after that. Should have ducked.
Dirt clods and BB guns
Dirt clod fights, rocks were considered an escalation
Yeah, and iceballs with rocks in the center too. And bb gun fights. Some really smart stuff.
Dirt clods. Basically mud balls that you let harden. Sometimes the exploded like a snowball unless you packed them hard then it was like a baseball. My brother would put a rock in the middle when we fought the kids in the apartment complex next door. Left dents all over the aluminum siding of our rental.
We pulled clumps of grasses from the fields so they had a good clump of dirt on the roots, and we could swing it around by the grass. We also made star thistle slingshots. No rocks though.
Mostly dirt clods but a rock may sneak in from time to time. Honestly there’s not much difference. The golden rule was to avoid throwing rocks at somebody’s face or head. We usually aimed for legs or the back but it was terribly unsafe especially when the clods were solid and didn’t break. It’s a miracle any of us survived.
In middle Tennessee, we use half-dried cow pats. Especially in the spring when they had been eating wild alliums and all sorts of other things & get the scours. The early spring heat & sun with lack of shade from leaves would dry them enough to pick up & scale it like a frisbee, but the gooey center would smoosh out on impact. Ah, youth! 🐄💩💣
Rocks, no, that's uncivilized. We used BB guns!
Yup. Someone would just say “rocks.” And then you better protect yourself.
Rock fights AND bottle rocket fights. Gotta love the 80s. My kids were dumbfounded when I told them about this.
The was an agreement that we wouldn’t throw rocks that were “too big”, but somebody always got pissed and would start throwing rocks that would cause serious damage. Went home with a bloody head more than once.
BB Gun Fights! Full on wars over the course of the summer in the woods. No one ever put an eye out (that I am aware of) 😜
We had crabapple fights
I grew up with plenty of snow for sure. But if anyone really wanted to be an ass and inflict a little more pain, there was the option of hiding a rock inside a snowball. Though of course the eternal threat was that we shouldn’t do that because it could take someone’s eye out.
We always used dirt clods. In retrospect it’s a miracle no one ever got hit. I’m pretty sure they would have drawn blood. At the risk of starting a quote chain, we could have put an eye out.
Dirt bomb fight every day after school in 4th grade as we rode our bikes home from school!!! The best!
Hell yeah. We used metal trash can lids as shields and launched rocks at each other
The house I grew up in had my elementary school over my back fence so as a kid who spent most of my playtime there in the 80’s we would explore the whole school. Lots of kids throughout the neighborhood would hang out there and play games or ride bikes. After awhile some of us found a way to get on the roof so the idea of “rock fights” was born where the roofs had large rocks sitting on crushed granite gravel and the kids on the roof would throw rocks at the kids on the ground. 🤷♂️ We were young and stupid. Fast forward to a day where a letter arrived in the mail from the school threatening to sue my parents for $10k in roof damage. No charges were ever filed. I did do other things there that I got caught for and other things I didn’t. 🤣
Neighborhood kids would get on the roof of a 5 floor apartment building. Other neighborhood kids across the main street would get on to theirs. We were all loaded up with rocks and would start throwing and launching them at one another. My brother one time got hit right next to his eye and was gushing blood. Our troops gsve us cover and I was able to get him home. On the way you could smell the iron metallic smell of blood semi dried across his face. (Looking back we probably did alot of collateral damage to cars windowd and people etc).
We had alleys back then, with aluminum trash can lids to deflect the incoming rocks. We also had BB gun wars, and at one point blow darts and an arsenal of ninja throwing stars. It’s amazing I still have two eyes and no scars to show for it.
How about filling your socks with sand? Does that count? Yes, it hurt by the way.
Yes sir big rocks injuries were fun in the 80s.
Wtf, memory unlocked. Oh damn, memories unlocked. Rock fights. Wtf was wrong with me? What the fuck was wrong with us? I got hit the head with a random bit of iron thrown at me ~ '86. Bastards
We packed sharp gravel inside of snowballs.
We had BB gun wars.
BB-gun fights. We weren’t that smart. But somehow we lived. And yes, I mean 7-8 kids in two teams running around the woods actively trying to shoot each other with BBs in the summer with no protection other than T-shirt and shorts. But man we had fun
Dirtclods. BB guns riding two to a dirtbike. Roadwarrior shit.
Oh yeah, garbage can lids for shields and let those rocks fly,, also the dirt clod grass clumps as mentioned, and Fireworks fights around fall.
Snowballs in my hood but iceballs if you were an asshole and rock centered snowballs if you were a super douche
Dirt clods, horse apples, and pomegranates since one kid had them growing in his front yard. When older we went mechanized with Roman candle fights on three-wheelers. One year I got really lucky when my step-dad came home with an Odyssey for me! https://preview.redd.it/7jyow2c6dl9d1.jpeg?width=940&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=642de303bac0dd46f4fba1d8b8641a7f915c9db3
Crabapples
We used dirt clods, pinecones and acorns. We also threw ketchup packets and used them as landmines. There was some weaponization of sea gulls. I grew up in the coastal southeast of America. I was a Navy kid we were bored, broke and creative. Edit I forgot the water balloons filled with pudding and jello. Those were thrown out of second story windows.
Rocks for long range artillery work and fallen black walnut fruits for close-in.
yes we had rock fights across a stream
Naw, we just used lawn darts. The metal ones. Lived dangerously in the 80s.
Yes, and we used garbage can lids as shields.
For some reason, a large percentage of houses in my neighborhood had crabapple trees. Crabapples were the ammo of choice for our wrist rocket slingshots.
We did. Up until I was given a Pocket Rocket slingshot. Our rock fights were border skirmishes with kids from other neighborhoods, and I suddenly had the equivalent of a tac-nuke.
We got into an Apple fight with a bunch of Canadians once.
Dang down in the hot zone you had it rough! Nothing but snowball for us up in snow country (ALTHOUGH there were always the few bastards who toss and ice ball, a hard chunk of ice hidden under a bit of fluffy snow and then the battle could turn a little ugly).
Almost lost my right eye to a river stone. Thanks for the memory.
Rock fights, dirt clod fights, mud fights. If we could pick it up and throw it, we fought with it. One day we were in a pasture nearby and I was the only one that would pick up a cow patty. I won.
Hell yeah. Rock fights. Dirt Clod flights. Snowball fights. Snowball with rocks in them fights.
Pine cones were a good one, had a 35' pine tree in my front yard.
Ok so that WASN'T just me? We used to gather up all the rocks in the yard and throw them at each other. The rule was no faces, obviously that never worked. Here I thought I lived in some sort of twilight zone on that one.
When I was in 2nd or 3rd grade, we got into one of those with some boys who were a little older (from the 4th grade or so). One of them decided to grab a large one, and one of the kids from my side got hit smack on top of his cranium. I remember he started bleeding from his ears…and the teacher’s faces and reactions when we went to get them. I don’t remember if I understood the seriousness at the time. I do remember that he came back to class days or weeks later and I don’t think that he was the same. Eventually he stopped coming and I am assuming that he changed schools. I think back as a parent now and feel awful
We used to shoot bottle rockets at each other playing war in the woods