I remember those great fancies. Jacks was something that I was very good at. On a rainy day it was especially fun to sit and play. My friends and I would sit with our legs stretched wide because then the jacks would kind of stay within this area. Flipping was very funny too, because after a while everyone was very good at it and it could take a while for someone to drop a jack while flipping. Yeah – I don’t remember the rule about separating kissies – was it allowed? What happened when you were on onsies and had kissies – all these silly names – definitely girl names.

more fancies: Sweep the Parlor, Squeeze the Lemon, Strawberries in the Basket, Chicken in the Coop. Remember “flipping” for first? Haystacks? Great memories …

I didn’t play it quite that way. I remember there being time for the ball to bounce before you had to catch it. Who was yelling onezees? Most of the talk was just whatever about nothing except after you already went from ones to tens and back down again. Then after that there were these other methods of picking up the jacks and while you were picking up the jacks in all these ways there were little sayings or something you had to say – one of the methods was knocking before the ball bounced, another was putting the jacks in your other hand before the ball bounced – then there was this one method that I remember really well and it was picking up each jack individually before the ball bounced. I remember it really well because we played jacks on the sidewalk and could never just slide our hands across the ground to pick up all the jacks.