We didn’t call the game Mother May I, we called it Giant Steps. We had a great group of kids living in our development (about a dozen four story buildings encircling a courtyard, which was our world). No one really got picked on; we all kind of just goofed around with each other good naturedly. We took turns being the king of the hill, and we took turns being the one being goofed on. Sometimes we’d get eight giant steps, sometimes we’d get one baby step. It was lots of fun. There was also a fenced-in lawn in the center of the courtyard. We’d run races around the lawn, starting at the same point, each runner going in opposite direction around the circumference of the lawn (which seemed enormous at the time). Who ever got back to “home base” first won. The stoop was reserved for more reserved games like house, horses and Barbies.

We had a deluxe stoop; it was almost like a cement deck. There was plenty of room to congregate and go into our little fantasy worlds up there. Once in a while we would get showered with pennies by some kind stranger who would throw them down to us in the middle of our play. We never found out who that was. We thought it was magic.