BS: Childhood Summer Games

Subject: BS: Childhood Summer Games
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 08 Jun 21 - 02:30 PM

Childhood Summer memories

Writing about walking in the grass in bare feet opened the door to a whole flood of Summer memories when I was a kid. These may not all match yours, because we didn’t grow up in the same place, or time. Here are some of mine, and a comment about if kids do these things today.

Playing in the Rain. On rainy days, we were outside as much as in. When we felt the first few drops, we’d all head home. Five minutes later we were back outside, playing in the rain. We had boat races in the rapid water running down the gutters on the side of the street. Any available stick would become a boat. Of course, you had to select the right size and shaped stick. If it had twigs coming off the sides, you had to break them off as close to the body as you could. You didn’t want twigs to hang your boat up at a critical moment.

Anther popular boat was made by weaving Popsicle sticks into a square… very seaworthy, but more likely to get hung up on clogged leaves or a stick.

I have never seen kids playing out in the rain where I live, although the neighborhood looks much the same. There’s probably an app for it.

Mumblety Peg. This game may have gone by a different name, depending on where you grew up. You needed a decent sized jack knife to play this. That was no problem… at least for boys. I’m not so sure about girls. Jack knives were one of the first rites of passage. If you were really lucky, your parents could be talked into buying you high cuts boots with a jack knife pouch on the side of one of the boots. I was born in 1935, and when I was a young kid, boys still wore knickers. Knickers were pants that had an elastic band to hold them just above the knees. They were all the rage in the twenties and thirties. In Wisconsin, they didn’t pass out of fashion until I was six or seven years old. I’ve been told that in England, knickers were girl’s panties, giving a different image of young boys in America in the early forties…

In mumblety peg, you lean over, balancing the point of your jack knife on the tip of your index finger of your left hand, and give it a little flip so that when it falls, it will flip over and the point of the jack knife will stick in the ground, with the knife standing up. It’s not as easy at is sounds. When you get it, you move on your middle finger, and work you way down to your pinky. Then you start on your right fingers. The grand finale is to balance the tip of your knife on your noise, and give it a good flip (but not too good,) until you get your knife to land point down, with the tip of your knife stuck in the ground. I think there was another step before you went to your nose… flipping your knife off each elbow.

I don’t remember girls playing this. Girls With Knives?! That would make a good title for a horror movie. ??

Coming up, Curb games, like ”I packed my mother’s suitcase,” or ”Truth or Consequences.

Girl games need to be described by GURLS. Any volunteers?

Subject: RE: BS: Childhood Summer Games
From: Donuel
Date: 08 Jun 21 - 05:37 PM

Poo sticks, pipe cleaner families, marbles that we imagined as something else, duck duck goose, redlight greenlight, hay bale palaces...

Subject: RE: BS: Childhood Summer Games
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 08 Jun 21 - 06:50 PM

"boat races in the rapid water running down the gutters on the side of the street. Any available stick would become a boat" (JR)...did similar in the suburbs of Sydney - only usually with bark.

Never known anyone pitching pennies in Australia (I only learnt of that whilst living in Newcastle, England).

And never known anyone playing (tennis ball) handball in England - but that was played almost every lunchtime at school in Sydney.

Subject: RE: BS: Childhood Summer Games
From: Rapparee
Date: 08 Jun 21 - 10:39 PM

Jousting by riding no-hands on a bicycle, one hand holding a metal trash can lid (shield) and the over holding couched clothes prop (lance). You did this against your brothers or anyone else foolish enough.

Subject: RE: BS: Childhood Summer Games
From: Mrrzy
Date: 10 Jun 21 - 05:40 PM

Kick the can, Sardines...

Subject: RE: BS: Childhood Summer Games
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 10 Jun 21 - 08:05 PM

Hopscotch, five-stones, skipping.
And endless handstands, cartwheels, no doubt showing our knickers!

Subject: RE: BS: Childhood Summer Games
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 11 Jun 21 - 02:24 AM

High jump in the field behind our house using a frame made by one of our Dads - no sand pit, can you imagine kids doing that today!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Childhood Summer Games
From: Jos
Date: 11 Jun 21 - 03:52 AM

When I was a child, girls did handstands, cartwheels and so on with their skirts tucked into the lower edge of their knickers. Very little underwear was on show.

Games came and went in waves - one week everyone was skipping, a few weeks later everyone was playing marbles, a few weeks after that it would be hula hoops, or jacks (5 stones), or throwing a ball against the wall and performing various variations (throwing it under the knee, clapping, letting it bounce, turning round before catching it ...). Some of it would be seasonal, such as conkers in October.

Nowadays there are newer crazes unknown in the last century but they may not come back so regularly. A couple of years ago, suddenly every child had a fidget spinner, but I haven't seen one for a while now.

Subject: RE: BS: Childhood Summer Games
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 13 Jun 21 - 05:33 AM

That all rings a bell, Jos, especially the changing fads for one activity or another!
I forgot “hide and seek” which could be played any time of the year in the house, but was more fun in summer when you could extend your hiding areas out of doors.
Into our early teens we played endless tennis, especially when Wimbledon fortnight came around, either on proper courts or hitting the ball again convenient wall in our school playground.

Subject: RE: BS: Childhood Summer Games
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 13 Jun 21 - 05:46 AM

In the suburbs of Sydney, same as Tattie just above - plus cricket with a tennis ball, often though tea until dark!

Subject: RE: BS: Childhood Summer Games
From: Mr Red
Date: 13 Jun 21 - 06:43 AM

Turkey - not that I was included in the "in" crowd. I would say this was a variation on "Tin can alurkey" - page 7 of my Grandfather's day and "Tin-I-aki"** of the 30's and 40's in Stroud, Gloucs.

** put "tin-i-aki" in the search box and click the "next 5" button. There are numerous audio describing "their" version.

Subject: RE: BS: Childhood Summer Games
From: Donuel
Date: 14 Jun 21 - 08:31 AM

When I was a kid there was a competition with Russiaa that was front and center with Russia being seen as being ahead in space technology yet we never played astronaut. There were variations of war games or master and slave. Some kids feared Russian invasion and would think of good hiding places. Well we won that ideological arguement when we landed on the moon first, showing a democracy could deliver better than an autocracy. Making that assumption was really just propoganda. With Russia you never knew if it would be led by Ivan the terrible or Peter the great, Stalin or Gorbochev.
Now the US has shown that we too are prone to the authoritarian threat.

Politics really effects kids games. I have seen youth soccer teams that were just white kids chant USAUSA when the other team had more hispanic kids.

Subject: RE: BS: Childhood Summer Games
From: Donuel
Date: 14 Jun 21 - 07:29 PM

Latency period be damned the best game was kissing Karla in the garage.