I grew up in Bayside, Queens,My Mom still lives in the same house.It was ringoleevio.I don’t remember thr rule. We also playe stickball with a broomhandle and a spaldeen.We also played punchball.skelly,boxball,stoopball and Chinesehandball The girls and sometimes th boys played Hop scotch,potsie?, jacks. Then there was Johnny on the Pony also known as Buc-Buc. I think all of this is almost gone
Rather than a key chain, I used to use my house key to play hopscotch with. It was just the right size and weight and, conveniently, was hooked onto a lanyard hanging around my neck (high fashion in the 60s). I’d just unhook the key and throw it. Easy. It was a little difficult to pick it back up from the ground when I was on one foot, though, but that made the game more fun.
A quick note about a small story related to the Semi-Finals. The field was on Vanderbilt Ave, next to Grand Central Station. THere were pedestrians strolling in and out. I saw one lady, walking with a cane and told her that we might need it for a bat. She stopped and handed it to me, saying “take it.” I was stunned but she insisted, saying it was meant to be. We received the following note about it today – Thanks “Stamstar.” I showed & told a lot of people about it. – Mick so this is the story…slipped on an acorn going down the stairs outside my house and tore a ligament which required surgery. after four wonderful weeks of peace and quite my boss said get back to work or else. my doctor said take the cane. it will give you balance. since i live in commecticut and work in new york i must be unbalanced anyway. however the cane became a pain and was really getting i n my way when i saw your game being played. It brought back a bunch of memories of my old neighborhood on Loring Place in the Bronx. It was mostly the boys that played ball. Richie Hoffman had the best stoop. Girls played potsy or jump rope. we were pretty tame back then. Anyway it seemed that there was a calling from above for me to donate my cane to your cause. I hope by now it hase been used many times and given many people pleasure. sincerely, stamstar
I grew up in Manhattan, in what is now known as SoHo, in a loft. On the floor of our house we had a hopscotch board. We made it out of tape. My grandmother and I put it down on the floor one day so we could play the game together. Maybe she was embarassed to play this game in a playground with me. She was in her mid sixties. Now I look at my mother who is in her mid sixties and don’t think it’s too old to play at all. When my grandmother did it when I was a kid I understood why she hid it, because she seemed so incredibly old.
I grew up in Crown Heights. I’m from a family of 7 children, 5 boys and 2 girls. My brothers would never let me hang out and play stickball, probably because i was really and I could beat them. They wouldn’t let me play – but I played anyway. i plaed hopscotch, stoopball, all those games you have. Some of my best times was doing that. I enjoyed being a Tom boy.
Just think of the condition we could all be in if we could double-dutch now. I would love to be able to do it again – at the age of 47. Jumping rope is supposed to be great to lower cholesterol. Maybe I’ll go buy a rope. The kids in the city of Baltimore don’t quite do d/d the same as we did as kids. They jump on one foot at a time, alternating feet back and forth. We jumped from side to side, both feet together. For the lady looking for chinese jumprope – I bet if you went to the library you could find some illustrations. Don’t they have everything in the library? Jumprope, hopscotch and jacks were my favorites. Board games came in second. I guess I was a cheap kid.
I remember playing hopscotch with 8 boxes (no rounded top.) We used key chains to throw into each box but not to touch any of the lines or your turn is over. After you successfully hop thru all 8 boxes you continued back to the 1st box.Once that is completed we now played the 2nd half of the game called “potsy” which entailed hopping on 1 foot only! Also with the same rules of not steping on the lines. That’s how we played hopscotch in Bay Ridge Brooklyn in the 60’s.
Where I grew Hopscotch was not only for girls, boys played too. The summer playgrounds had a tournment at the end of the summer. The boys that won ended up being the stars on the high school sports teams. Hopscotch was serious business for the boys. And by the way the boys almost always beat the girls.