Category Archives: Queens
In Bayside, Queens, during…
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In Bayside, Queens, during the early 1950s, there was a game played at PS 41. It was called “double wall” and was a variant of stickball. Two players, batter and pitcher, and the batter had to hit a ball that bounced between the two walls. The more the better. We also played punchball, and I always wondered if this game originated, or was popularized during WWII, with limited space/only one spaldeen required. Bob
Many things come to mind…
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Many things come to mind when I think of skelly. Here are a few: 1)New Jersey, 1964. We stopped at Tony’s Hot Dogs near lake Hopatcong on a Sunday as I recall. I asked the man behind the counter, actually my dad asked the man, if we could have some bottlecaps. I guess some meant all because he filled up a couple of paper bags full. It was a great ride home as a 7 year old digging out all of the cork and couldn’t wait to show my friends my motherlode of caps. 2)I can still remember the smell of melted crayons in my friend’s garage as we readied our bottlecaps for action. We lived in the Canarsie section of Brooklyn and if it wasn’t stickball or Spud it was all day skelly marathons. 3)About 1970 or thereabouts during my last glory days as a pre-teen and the end of skelly as a pasttime, I pulled one of the biggest miscues of my life, to that point. My dad had just bought me a new pair of Pro Keds and I proceeded to wear out the sides in a matter of days due to several skellythons. Needless to say, it was back to discount sneakers for me. I wish this generation could experience all of the great street games that I grew up with in Brooklyn and Queens.
Hey, CeeseV (re: dec 2000…
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Hey, CeeseV (re: dec 2000 message), lol, we had a different version (and you thought YOURS was bad!) Tra la la boom de ay, did you get yours today? I got mine yesterday from a boy across the way. He laid me on the couch and all I said was ouch. But boy was he surprised to see my belly rise! Here’s a couple more from Queens, NY: Milk milk, lemonade, around the corner fudge is made. (Point to the appropriate body part for each product.) Oh, I ran around the corner and I ran around the block and I ran right into a pastry shop and I picked up a donut and I wiped off the grease, and I handed the lady a five cent piece. Well, she looked at the nickle and she looked at me, and she said, “hey mister, can’t you pay your fee? There’s a hole in the nickle, there’s a hole right through!” And I said, “What do you know? There’s a hole in the donut too!” A couple of sixties songs: (Sung to the tune of the commercial jingle for the game “Fascination”) Suffocation, suffo-suffo-cation Suffocation the game we love to play. First you take a plastic bag, Then you put in on your head. Go to bed. Wake up dead. Drive your mother Sick in the head Whoa….. Suffocation, suffo-suffo-cation….(song can go on endlessly) All the girls in France do the hula hula dance And the way they shake It’s enough to kill a snake When the snake is dead, We’ll put tulips in his head When the tulips die We’ll put roses in his eye When the roses die It is 1965.
While we all played and…
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While we all played and had fun all year long, the Summer months usually brought special memeories. What are some of yours? I remember the distinct smell when it rained on a hot summers day – rain, and concrete and asphalt was a unique experience of the senses that one couldn’t experience anywhere else but in NYC. Remember the steam coming up from the streets? I also remember going to Yankee and Met games with the local PAL…I think we had to pay a buck which included transportation, lunch, and the ticket! I also remember the moths and bugs swirling around the street lights on a steamy, hot, Summer’s night…and Mr. Softee music and the light from its truck in the background. Banana boats were under a buck…wow! I also remember making genies by emptying the gunpowder from leftover firecrackers from the night before on the 4th of July…we called it the 4th. I also remember eating those freeze pops in the plasic sleeves…may favorite was blue ice, what was yours?….not to mention the chocolate eclair or creamsicles from the Good Humor man or Bungalow Bar. And what about jamming ourselves in the boys and girls entrances in the schoolyard until the rain was over….one last powerful Queens memory….going to Weiss’s and Lenny’s clam bar on the way back from Rockaway beach. Oh, Summer in NYC, I wish I could have just one day back again!
PS 66 in Richmond Hill Queens…
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PS 66 in Richmond Hill Queens had everything from punchball, stickball, slapball (“Slap”). basketball, off the wall, asses up, ringelevio, coco-monster, chinese, handball, whiffleball, errors, 5 boxes, hit the penny, strikeouts, to softball. I even remember the “non athletic” kids playing checkers, chess, or cards off in some corner. Out in the street were skelly games, I Declare War, Tops, and kids doing unbelievable things with yo-yos. Soemtimes we would use nearby Forest park fo ringelevio…and of course one of the Queens meccas, Victory Field. What memories. This experience of playing led me to my wonderful profession – a Physical Educator.
The US National Marbles Tournament…
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The US National Marbles Tournament is the oldest national contest for children in America. Discover the early history— “Kings (And Queens) Of The Ring” at The Marble Museum’s web site at http://www.marblemuseum.org/articles/kingofthering.html The Marble Museum is dedicated to creating the first national museum about just marbles in the United States.
I grew up in Queens (Sunnyside,…
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I grew up in Queens (Sunnyside, then Jackson Heights). It was always a “sliding pond.” When there was a parkie at the school playground (PS 149)we would get a Nok-Hockey set. I bought one for my oldest son some years back and we still have it in the basement and play it occasionally. The pucks are now plastic instead of wood. No splinters.
Another street ball game….
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Another street ball game. Where I grew up in Jackson Heights, Queens we used to go to the playground behind my elementary school (P.S. 149 for those in the know). There was a park house that was the home of the “parkie” who was supposed to give out equipment and keep everyone from destroying the playground. His “house” had a slanted roof of all sides. We would stand underneath it and throw the ball up onto the roof, usually at an angle and with some spin. The other player had to catch it on a fly off the roof. If he didn’t it was a single-double-triple-homerun depending on how many bounces. It wasn’t as easy as you would think, especially when the ball landed on the cobblestones and would shoot off into the monkey bars. We could play this, and all the other pink ball games, for hours.
Re: Chinese Handball Might…
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Re: Chinese Handball Might as well share with all. It’s been over 35 years since I played chinese handball in Queens, but here goes: Unlike handball, where you have to hit the wall on a fly, in chinese handball you have to hit the wall on a bounce. If you hit it on a fly you’re out. If you hit it on 2 bounces you’re out. If the ball bounces twice before you hit it, you’re out. You can hit it off the wall on a fly, but again you have to bounce it once before it hits the wall. You would decide how large the court was. If you hit it out of bounds you’re out too. Like handball, you could only score a point on your serve. It the ball hit off a crack and went at an odd angle, it was a “hindoo” and you played the point over. Hope this helps.