Hello I am from Iowa. I am looking for those who played Jacks the way I learned. We had four jacks and a ball. The game went all the way up to twelveies which actually meant you had gone through twelve rounds of all kinds of challenging feats. Here are some things I remember. African Americans may remember this style.

After the ones through fours. All these happen while the ball is in the air with one bounce.

fives: pick up one jack and put down another
Sixes: Dot each jack with your fingers
Sevens: pick up each jack put it in your other hand
Eights: pick up a jack and knock on the floor
Nines: slide each jack into a cave made by your other hands
Tens: put the jacks separately between the fingers of the non ball hands. Then drop them into your ball hand during each bounce
Elevens: move them from one to side the other
Twelves: This could be done 2 ways: One was the around the world in which you must pick up the jack and circle the ball before catching it. The second was more challenging. You would pick up one jack and throw it up with the ball your other hand must catch the jack and put it down then grab another jack —yes with only one bounce of the ball.

After that you would be in the twos. You would start from your twelves and work your way backwards to the twos ( you don’t do level one in round two) In round three you would do everthing with three jacks and then the one extra. When you got to round six you would do all kinds of tricks and stuff.

No fixies, touchies, no doovers.

Does anyone remember this kind of jacks? We used to have serious tournaments at my day care.

you can reach me at bettycandrews [at] yahoo [dot] com.