By now, there can’t be anyone who hasn’t seen those comparison lists of unacceptable behaviors of students from the ’40s and ’50s and unacceptable behaviors of today’s students. Some samples:

No gum chewing vs. no packing assault rifles into school.

No running in the halls vs. no snorting coke.

No sassing the teacher vs. no beating the teacher senseless.

No talking during The Pledge of Allegiance vs. no burning the school to the ground.

No writing on the bathroom walls vs. no stabbing a school chum for his sneakers.

The times they are a-changin’ and I sometimes am not so inclined to think they’re for the better.

But way back, maybe somewhere between post-brontosaurus and pre-Tin Lizzie, some kids also misbehaved whenever they could get away with it — which wasn’t often. I know. I asked.

I had the honor of interviewing a number of oct- and nonagenarians a couple of years ago, and the question I most enjoyed asking was “What did you do when you were young to get into trouble?” The answers, when they came at all, were shocking.

Edith, aged 93, blushed, looked around to make certain no one was listening, leaned forward and half-whispered “Well, I’ll tell you. It all happened behind the barn. Yes! Really! That’s where all the most fun stuff went on, doncha know. Well, I’d get me some foolscap from a supply my father had in his big old rolltop desk, and I’d go out behind our big ol’ barn with some friends. We’d get a bunch of pine needles and we’d roll ’em up good in that foolscap, light ’em and smoke ’em.” She laughed at the memory. “Didn’t hurt me much, I guess. I’m still here!” Edith is proud to say that she never got caught.

Mary, 88. “Well, we had to wear those bathing outfits — heavy, itchy material, high necks and long sleeves on top, and certainly tights going to our ankles. Well, me and Sarah, we’d borrow my brother’s canoe and paddle out to the old abandoned lighthouse and didn’t we just take those long, hot things off and swim completely … well, you know.” And she blushes and giggles. “Never got caught, but one day we got awful sunburned and we had some explaining to do to our mothers. We told them the sun was so hot it just burned straight through the material. Dunno if they ever believed us, but we were suffering so from the sunburn, I guess they decided we’d suffered enough, so we never got a lickin’.”

Frances, 97. “Well now. Let’s see. Bad? I was usually a good kid. But I remember once, oh I guess I was in the third or fourth grade. A new snow had fallen and it had rained and frozen, leaving a wonderful, shiny crust on top, and oh, didn’t I want to slide on that. So, well, I’m ashamed to say that I told my mother I was sick that day. Golly, I still feel so remorseful about that,” and she laughs guiltily.

“Well, my parents both had to go out that day and so I snuck outside, got my sled and slid down the long hill into our meadow. It was glorious. But suddenly, my sled hit a hole and I was thrown from it and my face smashed into that icy crust. Didn’t I bleed! Got me huge cut across my nose and I just couldn’t stop that gushing blood! I ran home and found that my mother had just returned. She looked at me, patched me up and gave me hot chocolate. Never said one word about it. Guess she thought I’d endured enough for the lie I’d told about being sick.” Frances still sports a silver-thread scar across the bridge of her nose these 90 years later.

Merle, age 89. “All I can remember is telling my mother once when she was angry at me for deliberately spilling my oatmeal onto the oriental rug to not have a ‘duck fit.’ I got the Fels Naptha treatment for that one, I can tell you.”

“I’m still ashamed for setting free Farmer McDuffy’s prized cows,” said one ancient man.

“Bad? Let’s see,” said another. “Weren’t much time for bein’ bad, you know. Work to be done. But I do remember painting Mrs. Widger’s dog blue. I lied, said I didn’t do it, but the jig was up since I had blue paint all over me. It was pretty funny though, seeing that old dog wanderin’ around town, bright blue like that. Didn’t hurt him none, but we had to mow Mrs. Widger’s lawn all summer for that prank.”

“Well, I guess I can talk about it now. ‘S been about 65 years since we done it,” laughed another old gentleman who refused to tell his age. (“Guess!” he kept saying. I didn’t dare.) “Me and a bunch of kids once went around on laundry day and stole the female personals from all the lines and hung ’em on the church steeple. Whippin’? I can still feel it!” And he chuckles gleefully.

These were the only anecdotes I could wrest from these good people. Back then, they repeatedly explained to me, there simply was no time to get into trouble. There were too many chores. Families had to keep things running smoothly and everyone was expected to contribute. Each of these good people had to stop and think when I asked that question. Some could come up with nothing. Nearly all had to struggle trying to remember. Misbehaving, when they were kids, simply wasn’t done and the question mostly puzzled them.

But some could reach back and pull up an occasional apple stealing foray, a pumpkin smashing or two, or hanging May baskets on doorknobs and then knocking and running away to hide. And a few of the worst delinquents shot out those new-fangled electric streetlights with their Christmas gift BB guns.

Time. Too much of it today in this no-chores-for-kids society. It’s something to ponder while looking at great, loud groups of young people, clotted about malls and street corners, glassy-eyed with boredom and whatever else; smoking, preening, swearing and staring into their phones. I know it’s not all young people, but today many are killing time and each other, and have too many empty hours which they sadly seem to be successfully filling with creative self-destruction. I frequently wonder if they’ll every really get to live into their nineties.

LC Van Savage is a Brunswick writer.