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>>Definitely so. My mom was on the overprotective side but my brothers and I still had the run of the whole city from age 11 or 12. It had a population of 35,000 - 40,000, no Toronto or Philly, but still a good sized place that had its rough parts. During the summer I was gone all day except a quick pop-in for lunch, playing ball or hanging out with friends. Idyllic is a good word for it. One difference is there was no dinner bell, nor was one needed -- I always seemed to show up when it was time to be fed, like a dog.
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>I can even remember playing pick-up baseball all day until it became too dangerous to play any more because of fading light. Somebody could get killed by the ball. I doubt that would work well today.

Just to show my age, I can remember that I was between 5 & 7 when I had free run of a town with a population of appr. 25,000.

I'm sure of the age because WWII was over in 1945 and I was 7 that year. For a couple years I had been pulling my wagon around town, collecting newspapers and junk metal and taking it to the local junk yard collection point.....no pay, this was the War effort that most people were participating in.

By the time I was 10, I had been trained by my brothers how to shoot and care for a 12 ga. shotgun and a 22 rifle. I hunted by myself, usually gone all day. I'd come back to town with the shotgun over my shoulder, walk into a grocery store and sell the game birds I'd shot to the owner.

Nobody paid any attention to a kid walking into a store with a shotgun:) Try that today and the SWAT team, newspaper reporters and crowds of people would be shivering in their boots.

Fireworks were illegal in my home state, so, starting about the age of 12 I would hitch hike about 50 miles to the neighboring state to buy my firecrackers.

Those were the "good old days"! Would I let my 12 y.o. grandson do things like that today....where I presently live....NO! Other places that I consider relatively safe....some things Yes, other things No.

I would love to be able to let him have the kind of freedom I enjoyed as a child, but those days are long gone.