I think it was mostly because we as a society hadn't yet adopted the level of concern, distrust, and overprotective child-coddling that came in later years. Nobody thought twice about kicking their kids out the door and telling them to not come back until mealtime or bedtime. We just didn't have the worry then.
The fact that we lived in a little rural town with lots of room to play just added to it. We had empty grassy areas, empty roads, and storm water ditches to play in. The grassy fields that seemed to be everywhere were home to garter snakes and all sorts of interesting things. There were also pheasants that would scare the hell out of us when they flew up in our faces an instant before we might inadvertently step on them. In the warmer months the ditches that lined the little roads would dry completely up, providing the ultimate place to play as a kid. The tall grasses would be matted down by our play, and warmed by the sun provided a perfect lining for forts and other hidey-holes that we would come up with. Blackberry bushes grew everywhere too, and they always grow in big clumps and mounds. As kids, we learned that they were almost hollow underneath, providing us with secretive places to play. We had to make tunnels into them and avoid the dangerous thorns that covered every inch of the bushes and vine, but that made the forts all that more special. The underside of the bush mounds were bare and skeletal. There was nothing there but dry, crinkly blackberry leaves that had fallen from the plant, covering dirt, and punctuated with thick, dry, thorn-laden stalks growing out of the ground like miniature trees in an eerie forest. When we created our places of refuge we would bring dried grasses in to line the ground, and carefully break off all the thorns of those huge, vertical stalks that we might accidentally get caught on, making our little fortress even more enjoyable.
Yeah, spending childhood in a rural setting where exploration and creativity is your daily job is something that is being experienced less and less these days. With the onset of apartments, television, computers, and video games, children all over the world are missing out on the joys we had. The age of self-exploration than many of us were able to experience growing up in a small town shaped us and allowed us to learn and wonder about things ourselves instead of just watching someone else's perception of it unfold before our jaded eyes on a small, electronic screen.
Like all old people say, "Life was good then."
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