Ok, for me it wa only a couple years ago that I was on the playground. We did a lot of hand clapping and jump rope songs. "Oh the preacher went down" "Miss Mary Mack" "ci ci my playmate" were some of our favorites...but we also did "Yellow Submarine" "Waltzing Matilda" and anyting with a beat that we could play with.

Also, we had a bunch of versions of Yankee Doodle and "Krack Diddly O Ka" that had different "hand games" to them.

As for now...yes the kids still play in the street. I live in a very neighborhood type of NYC neighborhood on the first floor. I spend quite a bit of time at my window watching the local kids and -- boy can they play. Double Dutch and Jumping Rope mixed with break dancing. And one of my favorites from this past fall was a group of really little kids in a circle around one kid at a time singing "go _____ it's your birthday" which is a tag line in a popular rap song from this summer--it's actually a difficult rhythm that these 3 to 6 year olds had down perfectly.

And sometimes I hear old tunes that I know with new Spanglish lyrics...

Oh yeah, there is an ever-changing "Miss Mary Mack/oh you can't get to heaven" mix that I used to sing and I've heard some new "veses" to.


and there's this one that I've heard so many versions of:

A B C
it's easy as 1 2 3
yer mama's got funky feet
oosh ahsh I want a piece of squash
sqhash too sweet I want a piece of meat
meat too tough I wanna ride a bus
Buss too full I wana buy a bull
bull too black I want my money back
money too green I want a limosine
Limosine too long
I wanna write a song
song too old I want a pot of gold
gold to yella' I wanna kiss a fella
fella too fat
and that's the end of that

or
gold too yellow I'll Tickle you with a feather (and you reach out and try to tickle the person who you're playing with)

that's all I can remember right now...