Where I grew up we had the absolute PERFECT set up for Kick the Can!!!

I grew up in Co-op City, the Bronx NY (http://welcome.to/coopcity) in the late 70s. It’s a cooperative community full of 33 story buildings with pillars that supported the second floor above the lobby. Since the lobby wasn’t that big, it left a maze of pillars to sneak behind. Then to top it off there were long expanses of retaining walls and man-made hillocks to belly crawl behind. It wasn’t really Kick the Can anymore….not the way we played it. It was WAR!

There was a circular metal drain in the exact middle of the courtyard just outside the lobby. The building’s sides were a V surrounding it (with the pillars, don’t forget the pillars!).

The can was placed on the metal drain. The one of the benches in the courtyard was ‘Jail’ and the person that was ‘It’ had to stand outside of the octagonal brick work that surrounded the metal drain. (It was perfect! We couldn’t have set it up better ourselves!)

‘It’ would face away from the building, cover their eyes, and count to 20-30 and we would scatter under the building. The trick was to maneuver your way to the pillars closest the can with out being seen by ‘It’. Goodness was that hard! Once ‘It’ saw movement all they had to do was identify who it was and which pillar they were hiding behind. “Tap tap tap! I see so-and-so behind the third pillar!” Not only did you have to tap the can on the metal drain but you had to scream “Tap tap tap…” at the top of your lungs.
Lucky for us, most of the time they ID’ed the wrong people. Come to think about it…..we were some awfully honest kids. We wouldn’t play with someone if they didn’t come out when they were legitimately caught.

Given the fact that all that was needed was a proper ID, you couldn’t talk lest they pin point who you were and where you were hiding. But inevitably some stealthy and swift footed kid would free the slower ‘Jailed’ kids. If not, and we gave up (all the players were NEVER caught) the first kid would get to be the next ‘It’.

I’m tellin’ you it was perfect! So much so I never came upstairs when the street lights came on. And my mother always yelled at me for that. God forbid if I came home with grass stains all over myself. Diving for the ground so that you wouldn’t be spotted will give you plenty of grass stains that’s for sure!

I want to thank the webmaster for this forum! I’ve enjoyed it immensely!