10 Things That Kids Used to Carry That You Probably Still Should

When I was a kid we used to carry all sorts of things in our pockets.  These things would be interesting or useful and could even be put to use in a survival situation because back then (in the dark ages) if we weren't in school we would be outside. For the ENTIRE day.  I'm talking leave the house at daybreak and return at night fall with nary a parent actually knowing where we were.  I know this is a foreign concept to most people these days since nine times out of ten, if you are looking for your kid, they will be electronically tethered to you and/or parked on your sofa, but back then we were a bit more self sufficient.  Here's 10 items that I can remember carrying around with me most, if not all, of the time.

1. A pocket knife.  I got it from my grandfather, carried it everywhere, and no one in school freaked out because many kids carried a pocket knife with them all the time.  And no, there was not one single stabbing in nearly two decades of attending school.
2. Rubber bands.  Pick up a rock and you have an instant sling shot (unless we had time then we would find a good branch and make a nice frame for our slingshot).
3. A whistle.  It was a way to signal your friends and/or annoy people.  Generally we would signal in Morse Code which was a big deal back then.
4. A magnifying glass.  Usually for annoying ants and other small crawly creatures but also useful for starting fires (and by the grace of God we never burned anything down but it was close a few times).
5. Candy.  Usually some sort of hard, sticky candy.
6. Change.  While we rarely had actual dollar bills to carry around, we always carried coins for the rare occasion we came across a store.
7. A small, battery-operated transistor radio.  It was a big deal to have this kind of small radio that you could carry around with you so when they became reasonably priced my grand father made sure each kid had one (he was much into technology and I'm sure he would have been quite fascinated with computers which he never lived to see).
8. Matches.  Kids back then seemed to always have a book of matches in their pocket (which came in handy when we hit the age where sneaking a smoke became popular).
9. Something interesting to show your friends.  This could change day by day and range from a cool rock to a small toy to a frog.
10. A pencil and paper.  Well I may have been an odd kid but I always carried a stubby pencil and a small notebook of paper with me.

While old fashioned, many of these items would still come in handy in a survival situation today.