No cell phones. No GPS. Your parents had no idea where you were from 8am to dinner. The only rule was: be home when the streetlights come on.
We would ride bikes to the creek, build forts in the woods, play kick the can in the cul-de-sac until it got dark. If you got hurt, you walked it off. If you got lost, you figured it out.
The streetlights were the universal signal. You would see them flicker on and every kid in the neighborhood would start pedaling home. No texts, no calls. Just the lights.