Pete, Ron Heller mentions Chinese handball in a post of his in the ‘Running Around’ section. We used to play it in Queens, too, of course. Like regular handball, except the ball had to bounce once instead of everything being on the fly. As kids, we probably played more Chinese than regular handball, which was more for the older guys. We’d start to get more into regular handball as we reached HS age.
Pete,Sunnyside,Queens 1951-58 Two people stood on the edge of a sidewalk box facing each other,each having one box in front of them.On the line between the two boxes a “GOOD HUMOR,Popcicle” stick was placed at right angle to and on the line between the two boxes.The mission was to hit the stick and move it towards and at long last over the line at the edge of your opponent’s box.I don’t recall any points just win or lose. I came to this site via N.Y.TIMES story looking for CHINESE HANDBALL. I see ACE-KING-QUEEN which was the positions of the boxes but did not find anything. Any help anyone???
In Queens in the 60’s, we played the five box version of boxball described above. Two players stood with five boxes between them; you would first bounce it once in the box closest to your opponent (your fifth box), and then once in each of your fourth and fifth boxes, and so on. I’m not quite sure if I remember the ping-pong style of two box that Connie describes above. We didn’t play hit the stick, but I do remember playing hit the penny. I think you scored one point if you hit the penny, and two if you flipped it. Players stood with two boxes between them, and put the penny or other coin on the crack between the two boxes. We didn’t like to use nickels because they were heavy and more difficult to flip. :^) This was a mostly a game for younger kids, whereas I remember still playing boxball into early adolescence, when we weren’t playing wiffle ball or stick ball or just hanging out. Another favorite game of childhood was ring-o-levio, which I played from early childhood right through high school. Those later HS games were neighborhood-wide.
Most of the above songs are very familiar. Now I have a song that I have been trying to find the lyrics to for months. My mother (91 years old) used to sing it to my sons. I don’t know all the lyrics and would love any help anyone can give. If it is at all familiar, please send anything you know to me at esbock [at] juno [dot] com It is a song made up of product names from the 1920’s and starts, “Oh Castoria cures the measles It is the best in town.” Much further along is something about Purina and “Watch Lillian Russell wrestle with a pack of…..” Thanks for any help you can give.
I used to play Skully as a kid in Queens; there was a board painted on the schoolyard blacktop, but I don’t remember exactly how it was laid out. What I remember most about skully was making the pieces. We used to tie washer magnets onto the end of a piece of string to fish the bottle caps out of old coke bottle vending machines, and then melt broken Crayola crayons into them under high intensity lamps and let them harden in order to give them some weight. A good color pattern was considered cool. :^)
Statues! Sure, I remember that game and loved it. We played it in the 50s and 60s growing up in Queens. I hope kids are still playing it. As for the ball bearing roller skates, they were the best! If you couldn’t skate very well, they had enough resistance to hold you up and keep you from falling on your face, at least long enough to grab onto a fence post, lamppost or side of a building. I loved the sound they made, the little yellow “hubcaps” that were actually the ball bearings, and the ritual of tightening up the clamps to fit just so around your sneaker. I also loved wearing the key around my neck and feeling it swing back and forth as I went.
is skully the same thing as a game we played in astoria, queens which we called “mud”. if anyone knows what mud is (also played with bottlecaps, on the sidewalk where a chalk square was drawn with numbers inside) and if, in fact, it is different from skully i’d appreciate knowing. th
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
In our neighborhood in Queens we called it single, double, triple. There was no batter. The person up threw the Spaldeen against the side of a building (no stoop) and it would ricochet toward us into the “field” (cement and dirt). Of course, with a really good shot, we would all shout single, double, triple, home run! as we all scrambled in vain for the ball.