We used to play a game called ‘elephant’ in which two boys would bend over butt to butt and clasp hands between their legs. A third boy would bend over at one side of the pair, place his head beneath the joined butts, wrapping his arms around one leg of each boy to form a steady foundation of humanity. Another boy would then run toward the ‘elephant’, and as he arrived, flip himself over with the top of his head down into the notch formed by the three backs and land back to back with the third boy who would hunch his back and try to throw the runner off balance. The runner would of course come down as hard as possible to try and collapse the elephant. I don’t remember the game having any point to it except the fun of the roundhouse play.

This game was introduced to our school by the physical education teacher. All kids played up to the 8th grade and as I remember no one got hurt. A girls team usually played against the boys team at this school. The girls came out as good as the boy’s team for some reason. This game was very popular.

When we played it is was called Johnny ride the pony. And the object of the game was to have the team that was jumping fall off the “pony”. If the pony couldn’t take the riders they lost. Usually the game didn’t last very long either, people would get tired.