When you were a kid did you play freely around the neighborhood and then get "called in" for dinner or "called in" for the night? If so, how? (see details)

When I was growing up we played around the neighborhood all the time; after school, in the evenings after dinner and each mother had her own “call” like different species of birds. My next door neighbor’s mom had a voice that really carried so that she just yelled for her kids, one mom had a piercing, three note, two fingered whistle, we actually had a dinner bell, an old boat bell my dad had picked up somewhere and one of the moms had what I think was a Boatswain’s whistle. I guess we were kind of a nautical neighborhood.

Anyway, we could pretty much go wherever we wanted as long as we stayed in earshot of “the call.” If your mom or dad called you home and you couldn’t hear it and didn’t come home then you got in trouble. They would call you when it was time to come home for dinner and in the summer, if you were out playing after dinner, when it was time to come in for the night. In my neighborhood the only places you could be if you stayed within earshot were at someone else’s house or, most likely, in their yard. All the families knew each other and though our parents might not know exactly where we were at any given moment they knew we were somewhere close and under the supervision of someone’s parents. It seems like nowadays letting your children play outside and calling them home like dogs would be almost considered neglect and abuse but that’s the way it was when I was a kid.

Were you allowed to play outside freely as a child and did you get “called” home when it was time for dinner when you were growing up?