I don’t recall the “I buy Old Clothes Guy” except perhaps in my study of Charles Dickens …I DO recall those guys who walked all over the beach selling, “ICECREAM, GET YOUR COLD ICECREAM HEAH!” They carried huge square freezers strapped around their shoulders in 90 degree weather. I have no idea how they did that!
My family nickname was Pressy– short for Precious (ahhh….) because I was the first girl born into our family for several generations. All of my close and extended-family cousins called me Pressy. I must have been 11 years old before one first cousin (then twelve) asked his mom, “What’s Pressy’s real name?” To this day, a cousin by marriage who is at least 5 years my senior calls me Pressy– as does my dad.
Spalding were the rejected inerds of the elite used tennis balls. We inner city kids were, in a way, also societal rejects. No leagues, no lessons and barely any grass on which to play. But when the rejected balls were paired with the rejected kids magic arose from the mix. This special bonding of two of the worlds cast-offs could never be matched by anything called a Pensie Pinkie.
Punchball, running bases, kickball, and stickball were the popular games in our parkinglot behind our apartment building. The playing field was an asphalt driveway that was actually wide enough to place bases around the “field”. The driveway was on an incline and homebase was at the bottom of the driveway, so you were always kicking or punching the ball up the hill. The Spaldeen ball was the classic ball for punchball. I would always renew my supply at the candystore, but I would only use my one and only ball until it was forever lost (in the sewer, a car ran over it). My kids are 10 and 12 years old now. At that age I was playing in the street all the time, nothing was organized, no carpools… the housephone rang and someone told you to come outside in the back..We played for hours, going from one game to another, until Rudy, the super, would come chasing after us yelling in his thick German accent, scaring the crap out of us, and breaking up the games.. only for the moment. And then there was Building Tag, where the doorman was base The stories are endless, but I really want to find out where I could buy a Spaldeen ball? Laurie, orginally from Riverdale, the Bronx, now in Shaker Heights, Ohio.
Does anybody remember a game called “Time”? Two girls go out of the room and choose a time from 1 to 12 and decide if it’s going to be thirty or o’clock. They then go back in and tell the others whether it thirty or o’clock. The others, in turn, start guessing the time. When someone guesses the correct time, the two who picked the time both have to yell “time”. The correct guesser then gets to pick a catagory like girls names or flowers and chooses 1 or 2. The original two girls go out again and each choose 1 or 2 (depending on what was picked by the correct guesser) names in that catagory. The idea is to pick what you think the correct guesser will choose. The person who called “time” first gets to choose names first and also gets to be the one to say these choices to the correct guesser. They then go back in and give the correct guesser the choices. If your choices are chosen, you get to go again with the new person and the old person sits down and everything starts all over again. Does this sound familiar to anyone (or does it even make sense?) I recently taught it to a group of children that I was working with and they played for hours.
Great site. Bringing back alot of great memories. I’ve spoken to my brother to work on our rendition of the “skelzee” board as I called it. I do remember that we used mostly street tar to fill our caps. Then we would spend alot of time rubbing both sides of the cap against a rough sidewalk to perfect the “glide”. Can’t wait to see the layout. So I can teach my son. Since I live upstate, looks like I’ll be teaching the whole town. Hey, by the way, I just got some cool spaldines and turned my 8yr old son onto off the point, he loved it. I’m working on the bat next!
I’ve read through some responses, they’re great…brings back alot of memories. In South Brooklyn, we must have been poorer or somethin’ ’cause we used the street tar for cap fillers and rubbed the cap down (both sides) on the sidewalk, preferably a rough one, to get them smooth as silk so they could glide across the court. Anyone else remember that?