I have been desperately searching for a pimple ball to fulfill my good friends birthday wishes. He is a former player who would like to introduce his grandson to the greatest game ever invented – half ball. If you know where I could purchase one, please respond as soon as possible. Time is running out.
Hi, Until I was 7, my family lived at 3211 Park Avenue, on the corner of E. 161st. I started school at Sacred Heart in Highbridge (actually I went to the annex of Sacred Heart, St. Eugene’s) because I was too young to go to St. Angela Merici (our parish). In 1961 we moved to Pelham Bay where I lived in the “Co-op” on Hutchinson River Parkway. High School: St. Catharine Academy, Class of 71 and Lehman College, class of 75. The Bronx was a great place to grow up. We played Punchball (I was VERY good for a GIRL!) and Ring-a-levio. My brothers played stickball all the time around the corner on 163rd Street. Does anyone remember the rides that came around in the summer? My favorite was the Half Moon which rocked back and forth, higher and higher. I distinctly remember being on that ride and hearing the song “Shimmy Shimmy Coco Bop” Strange!!! When I moved to Pelham Bay, my friends and I hung out on “the corner” (Buhre and Pilgrim Avenue) outside of Joe’s Candy Store. Basically, we did nothing but hang around and drink egg creams (with a pretzel!) My friends from the corner are still my best friends although we’re scattered all over the country now. It’s fun looking back.
Anyone else put on “plays”? I was friends with this one girl and her 2 little sisters (still friends, actually they now live right across the street from me), and I used to go to their house almost every day, and we’d make up “plays”- it was a pretending game. We were obsessed with supernatural stuff like ghosts, so mostly they were about that. We started one play about ghosts, and it ended up with the same story running for a long long time (months), every day we’d either pick it up where we left off or re-do one part from a previous day. It turned into a pretty cool story about a mean mother whose kids meet a pair of ghosts, and we wrote it out and make it into a real play, then acted it out with scripts a few times. I still have the script… I think I was about 11 when we wrote that.
They’re also called Cootie Catchers in the US. There’s a book out by the Koosh people called The Cootie Catcher book. I bought one. They have directions on making your own, and ones that are printed that you just pull out and fold up. I have to say the home made ones are still more fun than the printed ones from the book… There was a funny episode of “Arthur” (the kid’s show) about a Cootie Catcher…