I remember “Heel” as someone earlier called it Potsie, six boxes, 3 and six were the “rest” boxes, I remember all of us going to the shoe maker begging for rubber heels!!! My gosh I thought we only played that!!!
We did it as… Miss Lucy had a steamboat, the steamboat had a bell, the bell went to heaven and the steamboat went to hell-o operator, give me number 9 and if the line is busy I will show you my behind the refrigerator there is a piece of glass, and if you step on it I will shove it up your ask me no more questions, tell me no more lies, boys are in the bathroom pulling down there flies are in the country, bees are in the field, boy and girls are kissing in the d-a-r-k, d-a-r-k, d-a-r-k dark, dark, dark!
Hello everyone. I’m looking for girls from 4th to 8th grade who play jacks at lightning speed for an art video project I am working on. I’m an art & design grad student at the University of Michigan and just got a grant for a one week lease of a really cool high-speed video camera. I’m using this camera to shoot a number of things that were around in my childhood including water balloons in the face (of myself and my now grown friends), jumping-jack firecrackers going off, and girls playing jacks. The camera will be able to slow all of these gestures down to superslow motion. Therefore, the faster and more skilled the jacks players the better. Any suggestions where I might look? I only have funds for a one week lease on the camera so I really want to find a source for this ASAP before I schedule the camera rental. Does anyone know if there is any sort of competative league for kids or clubs in the midwest area? The closer to ANN ARBOR, MI–the better. Please email me at By the way, I plan on shooting directly from above. So the girls will remain anonymous and iconic. The focus will be on the jacks and the hands.
I recently taught this game to my granddaughters. I had completely forgotten the “time” part of the game. The part I remembered, and loved playing, was after the correct time was chosen by one of the players. At that point, the two girls in charge would say to the girl who had picked the right time, “What do you want?” The girl could name any one thing she wanted – a gown, a car, food, flowers, a movie star, a cartoon, etc. The two girls in charge would go a distance away from the rest of the players so they couldn’t be heard. They would each make up a description of the item selected by the player who picked the right time. There was much giggling as the two girls in charge used their imaginations to make up something they hoped the other player would choose. (Like DonnaHW, I too remember knowing the personalities of the other players and making up something you thought they might like.) The two girls in charge then went back to the other players. One of the charge girls would give both descriptions to the player who had picked the time. The player would select the description she liked best. She would join the player who had made up that description. The girl whose description had not been chosen would sit down with the other players. Playing would start again with the guessing of the time. We played this game on the front porch. One of my favorites!
In Colonie, a suburb of Albany, NY the Statues we played was a variation of Tag. The game was played with approximately four to six players. The person who was “it,” chose a category (most beautiful, funniest, ugliest, most frightening, etc.) of statues before playing started. All players then began running. When the “it” person caught a player, he swung the player around and let him go. The player froze in the landing position, becoming a statue. When all players had been caught and turned into statues, the “it” person chose the best statue in the selected category. The player chosen best statue was then “it” and playing resumed.
Just found this site and noticed that most of the posts were from Brooklyn and the Bronx. I grew up on Staten Island in the ’60’s and early 70’s in the Stapleton Houses, and spent many days playing skully in the park. We had skully boards already painted on the park grounds by the housing management.Bright yellow! In reading the postings I noticed the names of other games we used to play:Hot peas and butter, red light-green light, etc. Brought back some good memories. One game I haven’t seen was called black tar, or cau cau, I think. I was only about 8 at the time. Anyway, thanks for a great site.
What a fabulous site. I was just talking to a couple of friends about A my name is Alice and my husband’s name is Al etc. A friend from the next generation (she’s almost 42 so about 16 years younger than me) said she left out the husband. She said A my name is Alice, I come from America, etc.
When I slept over, I would always wake in the middle of the night to find my best friend’s creepy little asthmatic brother hovering over my side of the bed, breathing heavily; caught up in a pre-adolescent fantasy freak fest. I had to beat him down until Valerie woke and joined in the fight.
At my friends party when it’s time to go to bed . The first one sleep would get tooth paste in their mouth.
forgot to add that we didn’t flick the caps with our fingers, but slid them along the tar with our index finger…not fair to cross the line, and a max of six inches displacement was allowed…By the way..ballentine beer bottlecaps wer the best…the beer of the Phillies !