Streetplay Discussions
Incredible snow storm! …
Incredible snow storm! I remember being 16 and smashed in a crowded subway car against a tall, dark curly-haired, latin beauty-marked, olive-skinned guy, in his blue ski suit. I could feel every inch of muscled body (can they arrest 16 year old girls for this?), he turned and gave me the most amazing smile. I turned, blushing, to see that behind me was a bald, trench-coated, bad breathed, middle aged man smashed against me. Talking bout fire and ice! What a bummer.
Anybody ever been to Fisk…
Anybody ever been to Fisk or Quarry Hill commune, up near Burlington, Vermont? There’s a 300 ft. deep marble quarry beside the place. A friend flew us up from NYC. It was interesting, neat and hygienic (nothing like I’d been told a commune was like) but still not my cup of tea. I met George Fisk (I think it was him), but I wasn’t the type to get turned on by older mentor types. The kids of these aging hippies were my age, and since they lived in a relatively isolated area, visitors seemed were fresh meat. They were too eager; or maybe I was just too uptight. I like having my own stuff and knowing where it is when I want it; and locks on my door. Dead-bolt New Yorker to the bitter end. Great swimming in that hole, though; especially by moonlight. Maybe if I had taken a few tokes when it was constantly passed around and a few sips, I would have fit right in.
Ketchikan, Alaska in the…
Ketchikan, Alaska in the mid-80’s. I followed a boy from NYC to “the zone” only to be told when we arrived that the only job I could get being a woman and my race is either a go-go dance or a prostitute. Deeply wounded, I cursed this former friend out and descended the mountain. Within an hour of knocking on every business door asking for a job and cheap lodging(and getting rejected), I came upon a large German woman married to an Hawaiian (with 3 dogs-puff, malaia, and kopaah). She checked my arms for needle marks, checked my record (from the police dept.)for priors, then hired me to run her youth hostel, while she ran her restaurant in nearby Thorn Bay, by seaplane. Her place, located right on the waterfront beside the cannery and the Princess line cruise ship loading dock, was the only affordable lodging for the young college boys/cannery workers. It was a young woman’s paradise. One house for guys, one for girls (my house-hardly any other women visited). I was in charge of the running the entire show, and the guys were my own personal buffed body guards. I never mixed business with pleasure, I dated no one, no matter how gorgeous, just loved hanging out with them. Unfortunately, it was true, that most of the young women I saw there were imported meat, or had 5 kids. Single young women were a rare commodity. I felt that dating would turn me into just another pinata for the male majority out there. I had a 17 yr old local boy that was obsessed and followed me everywhere. I really liked that kid. He taught me how to run across slippery logs on the cold lake. I turned 19 out there, and the guys gave me the best party. We were family. Jim, the guy who dissed me when we first arrived, eventually had to come down from “his mountain” due to heavy rains (tent and sleeping bag wasn’t working in that weather), the only place he could afford to stay was where I worked. I had long told Kathy about this guy and what he said to me, so when he came to her door asking for help, she bluntly replied “No, I don’t take ____” He got a heavy dose of his own medicine. (2 years later I saw him in NYC and he apologized to me, said he had it coming.) It was on the 4th of July that I had my first taste of the freshest sushi ever. Pat, Kathy’s Hawaiian husband, had Japanese relatives that came up. They prepared fresh from that sea sushi and introduced me to every young woman’s culinary rite of passage.
In my neighborhood in Lincoln,…
Where I grew up many of…
Where I grew up many of the boys also played hopscotch (good for hanging out with a potential “sweetheart”). Because quite a few of the streets and yards were dirt, many players became quite proficient at drawing the courts in the dirt using a stick. Spent many hours at this game, especially with Suzanne Poovey!
I come form a neighboorhood…
I come form a neighboorhood with lots of kids also. It was in the 60’s and 70’s that we had agreat time playing “jail”. After dark we would play this for hours. Being from a small town in Illinois we could run around as much as we wanted and always felt safe in the neighborhood. The game started by picking two or three people who were “it”. The others would go hide and if found and tagged had to go to “jail”, usually the neighbors front porch. We used rolled up newspapers to tag, and you could throw them at someone to tag them if need be. I think this games been around awhile in some form or another, like Ringoleavio, etc. It would be neat to find out the origins of the game. What’s the earliest date anyone remembers playing this game?
I grew up in the 60’s, and…
I grew up in the 60’s, and used to play at a place called Branchport Park in Long Branch, NJ (it was one of the places with grass or dirt under the rides; everywhere else was asphalt or concrete). Anyway, there were the usual: huge, wooden-seat swings (don’t you hate the strap ones that cut into your hips?), see-saws where many young men got the pain of their life, a merry-go-round thing that you would run around, then jump on and hold on for dear life. But there was one piece that I don’t know the name of (we called it a pull-around). Basically, it had 4 seats in a cross, and you’d sit across from somebody else and pull a handlebar while pushing a big foot bar, and the ride would spin around. Kind of set up like the old EZ Rider exercise machine. Does anyone know what that was called? Also, does anyone know the name(s) of any of the old playground equipment makers? (Pre-“safety” era, I mean). Thanks!
Does anyone remember RCK?…
Does anyone remember RCK? Run, Catch and Kiss?! My husband and I laugh when we think about how much fun we had running around trying to catch or be caught! He is 2 yrs older, we lived in Brooklyn and we remember how fun it was! And how it always happened that the person you didn’t want to catch and kiss would always slow down to get caught on purpose, and you would fall down on purpose so you let them get away(and you didn’t have to kiss them!) Or others would Quit on the spot! Screaming out “I Quit!” when it was time to kiss the unwanted person! lol! We have 5 children and they have no clue how much fun we had before the days of Atari and Commodore 64!
Does anyone remember playing…
Does anyone remember playing Spud or War (same game) with a spaldeen? You needed a group of kids, the larger the better. “It” bounced the ball on the street really hard so it would go high straight up in the air and called another player’s name at the same time, saying I declare war on ______ using either a kid’s name or a country name. Then that person had to catch it while everyone else scattered. As soon as he caught it he yelled out Spud and everyone froze. Then the catcher could take 3 steps (as big as he possibly could) and fired the ball at the nearest kid trying to hit him. The kid that was hit was then “it,” if missed the same player was it again. This was a coed game, and we played it for hours on end. The best place to play was in the courtyards between buildings, there were lots of alleys and corners to run through. I grew up in East Flatbush in the 60s & 70s–Bedford and Ave D. Went to Farragut Park for the sprinklers, Farragut Pool until they put Pathmark there, and Brighton Beach by subway and Riis Park by the Green Line bus! Any memories out there?