Streetplay Discussions
It’s me again — the person…
It’s me again — the person who started this “ice cream, knish man, etc” topic. Just thought of something else. I remember the milk man, the Fuller Brush man, and the man who sold seltzer in big blue bottles. I remember going to the corner luncheonette (I don’t think they call them luncheonettes anymore), and buying egg creams after school. I haven’t seen one of those blue seltzer bottles in years. Several years ago, I decided to make an egg cream for my daughter (who has never seen or tasted a “real” one). I made it using Canada Dry seltzer. Wasn’t bad…but it wasn’t like I remembered. But now she’s a convert! But…she keeps asking me where the “egg” is in the egg cream. I haven’t a clue. 🙂
That was the question our…
That was the question our parents always asked….. We had great organized playgrounds when we were growing up in the 60’s in suburban Cleveland but for some reason we’d always end up in my parents back yard…. Even though we’d continuosly break windows with the baseball (or other things) we’d still hang out in the yard. It seemed a magnet for all the kids in the neighborhood too. Where else could you develop “Mat Rash” by jumping into piles of packing foam or play wiffle ball with a badmitten raquet or participate in the ever popular action adventure game “DIE”, which pitted one “shooter” against the entire group to see who could fall off the garage, from a tree, down a hill into a creek, or basically DIE the coolest!!!! The best dead guy was rewarded with the chance to be the next judge and killer….What a game!!!
How about salugee? (I have…
We played ringalerio in…
We played ringalerio in Howard Beach in the 1960s. It was played at lunch time in the schoolyard at Our Lady of Grace elemetary school. It was great – until someone got hurt and ringalerio was banned by the nuns. We still played after school for a long time. The rules were the defending team had to grab someone from the ‘it’ team and hold on until they said ‘ringalerio one two three’ three times. If you held on that person went to jail. You could free all your jailed team members by touching the jail before getting caught. When all of the ‘it’ team was in jail you switched sides. It was fun but also pretty brutal – lots of fat lips, skinned knees and bloody noses.
We used to play this every…
We used to play this every night in the summer after dark. It was great because the Hillary’s had 12 kids and we had a ton of kids in the neighborhood. Someone would be “it” and everyone would go and hide. When the policeman found you, he’d say “Mary” come to court. Court was usually someone’s front stoop. You could “escape” if one of the “uncaught” people came and tapped you. Pretty risky business. The game was over when everyone was caught.
In the Forties (around 47),…
In the Forties (around 47), in Hollywood. A salesman from Duncan YoYo would meet kids outside of school (elementary) and walk us, in a group, a long block up to the corner drug store. He would then demonstrate all the tricks he could do on a YoYo. He was very good at it, and of course you could buy a Duncan YoYo at the Drug store. I was able to do several tricks but could never to “rock the cradle”
what was kick the can about??…
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Hey Guys…Anyone wanna play “Saloogie”? Hunnh?Well d’ya hunnh? Whadya…CHICKEN? (note:please add any number of F words anywhere and if I remember correctly…everywhere possible,to authenticate the mood). In Bensonhurst,Brooklyn NY the Saloogie championships “uda world” were held everyday after school despite “My Mother said”‘s hanging over all our heads! Johnny B.though had a “My Mother told my Father” hanging over his, so he was only lightly “Nayaad”and excused from the big game,(for a couple of days). Periodically (once a week)intensely hushed rumors would float over the court(down the other end of the block,just not in front of the school itself …the nuns)that an unknown team of players from God knows where(they didn’t go to our school)was coming to challenge us to a real game.So a serious intent to toughen up our play would result.They never did show up, but I’m sure they periodically toughened up their play in case we showed up one day,too.No one could stop us from playing,not admonitions from parents ,nuns or even “Shoo gidouta here stupid kids” from the ladies who lived in the houses we played in front of.It was addictive.It was a test of courage,agility(you had better be or if not you had better be fast)and most of all it was above all else a true measure of stupidity(why none of us got “run over” dashing in and out of parked cars,being chased by 2 or 3 ,being cut off by another or ambushed by the big slow guys amazes me still. Does anyone remember the ‘chicken’pass thrown too early when the other team got ALMOST too close.Status was acheived when you got caught by the other team and amidst the punches(no punchin’ inna face man)and elaborately named “moves” reputedly used by wrestlers … you got free!!!!!!!!!!! In the end a force greater than we could’ve ever imagined destroyed our game.Not weather(year round play … no problem,slippery ice evened the play for the slower guys),rain (Mothers wanted to give us umbrellas to take to school but were afraid we really would poke each others eyes out since once out of a mothers sight ‘mumbrellas’ magically turned into weapons ‘with a sharpened point man …see’,no not even Dads(a bit tricky that one)no it was……….shool uniform pants!The Nuns desperate to end ‘the shame of our school’ finally came up with something.They announced that any boy whose uniform pants were ripped or even patched too much (mine had 2or3 hardly noticable(thanks ma)neatly sewn repairs on each knee)would not be allowed in school.They had the priest mention it in chuch even.It put an end to the regular game…er,championship.We never did play those other guys…bu “we wouda creamed em” for sure.
when we were kids we used…
when we were kids we used to play a game we called “dickball”- very simple rules; the bat was a little sawed off club called ‘the dick’ ( it was even labelled as such in black permanent marker on the side of it). play consisted of ‘juicing’ the end of the dick in the remains of a grapefruit, tossing it up in the air, admonishing the contestant, ‘don’t get the sh**** end of the dick”.. then the person who won the ‘dick toss’ was first to bat; ( the ‘ball’ was a crunched up empty beer or soda can). then the pitch. there really wasn’t any more to it than that. once in a while, play was momentarily interupted to let a car go by, then play was resumed. My favorite memory was whenever someone would hit a groundball and Jeff Haile would yell “nutroll!”… it sounds silly (and it was), but that’s just how it was.