We threw anything we could get our hands on. I loved this game growing up on the Lower East Side because you didn’t need to find a playground that already had a hopscotch “board”. Anyone who wanted to play would just go to the store and get a piece of chalk and draw right on the ground. We used bottle caps (when we weren’t playing skully with them), rocks, even pieces of glass in a pinch. – webdiva
Does anyone remember this one? Have you ever, ever, ever in your long legged life Seen a long legged sailor with a long legged wife? No, I never, never, never in my long legged life Saw a long legged sailor with a long legged wife. The second verse began with: Have you ever, ever, ever in your short-legged life seen a short legged sailor with a long legged wife…and so on… The third verse: Have you ever, ever, ever in your bow-legged life seen a bow-legged sailor with a bow-legged wife… The last verse: Have you ever, ever, ever in your long-legged, short-legged, bow-legged life seen a long-legged, short-legged, bow-legged sailor with…well, you get the idea. With each verse in the clapping game, you had to move your hands in a certain way that corresponded with the “long-legged”, “short-legged” “bow-legged” parts of the rhyme… and there’s no way I could possibly describe it here! 🙂 – webdiva
Hmmmm … I remember something a bit more sinister … SLING SHOTS. They were really easy to make .. All you needed was a tree branch shaped like a Y and a strong rubber band. My girlfriend’s brother (yes that SAME one that appears in some of my other stories) used to LOVE to hit us with his sling shot. Unfortunately, he was great at aiming too! We’d ride by on our bikes, and “POW!” we’d be hit. We’d rollerskate, and “BAM!” right on our derierre’s … Then he’d “POP” out of the bushes laughing. Wonder if Bart Simpson is his hero…. hmmmmm.
I went to college in Baltimore (pronounced Ball- mer) they had carts that would go around selling flavored shaved ice in a cup. The vendor had a big block of ice and a large sharp scraper. he would put the shavings in a paper cone then add the syrup flavorings you wanted. They aslo had lemons sliced in half and would use a hollow peppermint stick as a straw and you would suck the tart lemon juice through the pepermnt stick straw and it would taste real good on a hot sticky day-never saw that in Brooklyn
Kool-Aid stands were big in my neighborhood (upstate New York in the 60’s). But one day my friend and I tried a new angle… We got a hold of a refrigerator box, which we placed upright and decorated (with crayons? markers?) as a “Kool-Aid Machine”, just like a Coke vending machine. We cut a hole for the customers to insert their coins, and an opening from which the Kool-Aid could be dispensed. Then we got inside the box and waited for our customers. When they inserted their coins, we would pour the Kool-Aid (from inside the box), and a little hand emerged from the opening with a glass of Kool-Aid. What a “blast” we had!
Anybody remember Seven-Up? We played it (upstate New York in the 60’s) with a ball (probably similar to the pink Spaulding ball) against a wall. This is what I remember: It started off easy. You threw the ball against a wall 7 times, and caught it each time before it hit the ground, and called out 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 up! Then you threw it against the wall 6 times, and caught it after it bounced 1,2,3,4,5,6 up! Then you just bounced it on the ground 5 times 1,2,3,4,5 up! Then it gets a little fuzzy in my memory. Bounced it 4 times on the ground and under your leg??? Some variation all the way down to 1 up. If you could get through that entire set without messing up, you started all over again, each time making it slightly harder by adding a variation (like clapping once each time you threw the ball). Can’t remember all the variations. This was one of our favorite “girl games”, along with Red Light, Green Light, Mother May I, Freeze Tag, and Red Rover. But the best game to get boys and girls of all ages together in our neighborhood was kickball.