It was weird. It was night and girls were literally attacked by older guys. How could any parent allow their 12 years old daughter to go out at night to deliver papers?
The 80's were a different time. I remember being nine and going with my grandparents to bingo halls with thick clouds of cigarette smoke and then I'd dip out to hang out at the chuckie Cheese across the street by myself for a couple hours. At godamned 9!
Doing that today would probably net a parent a child endangerment charge!
Dont know about riding bikes at 4:30 am, but yep, exactly what UncleRuckis said, I was born in '62 (Australia) and remember going to the beach with my little sister and neighbour when we were 8-9yo totally unsupervised for hours (granted we lived 100 metres from the beach, but the point remains).
In the summer we would also spend the entire day exploring things and only touching base for food / toilet. No mobile phones back then so parents would have no idea what we would get up to.
I'm childless, but even then I cannot imagine not knowing for a single minute where my child would be these days
Really was a different era back then.