Category Archives: Brooklyn

Never could get double dutch…

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Never could get double dutch either – also from Brooklyn. But jumping rope was a lot of fun. I remember the first time I was able to jump into the rope from the outside. It was some kind of timing issue. Some people looked so cool while they stood there getting ready to join in the game. Any one play chinese jump rope? If so how? Did you make chinese jump ropes out of lots of found rubber bands? Did you use double or single ropes?

I came from South Brooklyn,…

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I came from South Brooklyn, and we called it skellzees. In our neighborhood, in the late 60s, we only used bottle caps. Nothing larger was allowed. We weighted them down with melted crayons — in all colors. Some of the houses on our street had slate sidewalks, and they were the best to play on. The bottlecaps would just glide across. Makes me want to play again!!

Growing up in the East New…

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Growing up in the East New York section of Brooklyn in the ’50s and ’60s meant being out on the sidewalk after school and during the summer. One of the games that we girls played with a bouncing pink rubber ball; either a Spauldeen or Pensy Pinky, entailed crossing your leg over the ball as you “sang” verses that had changed names, places and products based on the letters of the alphabet. We started with: A my name is…….. And my husband’s name is……… We come from………… And we sell………… It went on as long as you didn’t miss crossing over the ball. We competed to see who could go through the whole alphabet with a mistake or repeating someone else’s choices. Lots of giggles accompanied this game as the choices narrowed and became more difficult. The letter “Q” was always a tough one. Ellen Grove

I grew up in Brooklyn on…

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I grew up in Brooklyn on a dead end street and I was a stickball fanatic. We pitched against a chalk drawn strike zone and hit down onto the freight train tracks. Up over the other side was a homerun. It was a pretty good shot–maybe 250 to 300 feet. I remember one time my friend Ralph and I were playing against “the big kids”—guys 2 or 3 years older than us. But we were getting to the point in life where those years didn’t mean so much anymore– physically we were catching up. We may have been 15 or 16. Anyway, we were holding our own–striking them out and scoring runs against them. They were getting annoyed. One of our opponents had an even older brother. He was probably in his early twenties. Ralph and I had actually never even seen this guy before that day–or since. Well, these older guys are getting more and more embarrassed that the former “little kids” are beating them, so they decide to let the older brother pitch. He starts warming up and man oh man did he have a fast ball. I literally could not see the ball as it exploded out of his hand. I am trying to time this guy while he is warming up and I realize he is just too fast for me to hit him. If you have ever been hit in the face with a spaldeen thrown with all of someone’s might, you can imagine my reluctance to get into the batter’s box. Right then and there I knew two things. Ra;lph and I are going to lose the game because we can’t hit this guy. And the only thing I can do is swing at the first pitch as hard as I can. I stepped into the batter’s box and got into an exaggerated stance with the bat held far back and high. Every muscle was coiled. As soon as the pitcher started his windup on his very first pitch I started my swing. I did not even look at the ball, I just swung with every ounce of enegy that I had. And I connected. On the sweet part of the bat. Dead center on the ball. I never saw a ball go so far so high so fast. I creamed it. I obliterated it. It was a pea in the sky. I will honestly never forget that shot. Everyone just stood there speechless. That was the only pitch they let him throw. He was immediately yanked from the game. If one of the “little kids” could do that to the first pitch, the “big kids” reasoned the pitcher must really stink. Thus saved from the unhittable older brother by what was really a lucky eyes closed shot, we won the game.

Hey, what about us girls??…

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Hey, what about us girls?? You guys may consider our games wimpy, but we hung out and played on the streets and stoops too! My memories are hazy and I haven’t thought about those days lately, so I can only provide titles and brief descriptions — perhaps it will jog someone else’s memory: I moved away from Brooklyn when I was 7, so I played the following at a tender age: 1. Red Light, Green Light, One Two Three 2. Giant Steps 3. Statues I can’t recall, though, just what these games entailed! Anyone remember? Of course, our basic sidewalk game was Potsy. Although it is generally known as Hopscotch, in Borough Park, Brooklyn it was always Potsy. And it was still Potsy when we moved to Old Bethpage, Long Island (of course, many suburbanites had emigrated to Long Island from Brooklyn…) Girls were into Spalding balls too. We bounced ’em off stoops and against walls, and of course did the classic “A, my name is Alice, and my husband’s name is Andy, we come from Atlanta and we sell anchovies…” You were supposed to go through the whole alphabet, but I don’t think I ever did. And now, a confession: there were times when I could be the annoying kid sister: Sometimes when my older brother played stickball or wiffle ball in the backyard with his friends, if I felt mischievious, I’d skip across their playing field, calling out in a sing-song voice, “Interference! Interference!”