I remember both Seven Up games. The indoor version had the seven up kids going aroud the class & tapping a student (who had their heads down with eyes closed) lightly on the head. If you were tapped you’d raise your hand in the air & would later guess who tapped you.I remember once getting whacked on the head pretty hard-someone wasn’t following the rules!
Grown men and women wept. Children were amazed. About seven years ago, I was a Cub Scout Den Leader, and seeking something dangerous to do with the guys, I had them fill a supply of beer caps with candle wax, colored with a few drops of Crayola (not including “flesh”). I didn’t tell them why. They didn’t care, ’cause it was fun burning eachother with the wax. The following week, I drew a board in my suburban driveway, and introduced the game to the group. The next step was to set up a demo for the whole Cub Pack, but since the meetings were indoors at night, I had the boys make a board on a 4’x4′ piece of masonite, using black paint & stencils for the boxes & numbers. We took the board to the next Pack meeting. The results were as stated at the top. I even brought the board to a company picnic. Imagine Skully & grass coexisting! Best of both worlds.
When we didn’t have chalk to draw the skully court, we would pull a handful of leaves from a boxwood bush or something and bunch it up into a tight ball and scrape it against the ground to draw the court. It was just as good as chalk for a little while, but it wore off fairly quickly. We had a little technique we would use called “five finger stretch” when the caps got jammed against a curb or some other object. You could stretch your fingers out on one hand to move the cap toward the court away from the object. I had three caps. One was empty for really long shots, the 2nd was half full of wax for medium shots and the third cap was full to the brim for short shots and to make the cap heavy and slower. I replaced one cap for another during the game depending on the shot needed. If you turn the heaviest cap upside down when someone else’s cap was about to “hit” yours, that would prevent the cap from being hit very far. (An opponent could really send you sailing if he wanted to!)
I know the game originated in one or all of the 5 boroughs, but I learned the game from friends in my neighborhood on Long Island. I have fond memories of hot summer days playing ‘skelly’. I wish I could have had this information 20 years ago when my own kids were growing up – I guess I’m going to have to teach my grandchildren! Thanks for the site.
There must be an old 9 box (with 4 trapezoid) skully board still around somewhere. If anyone finds one, please get exact dimensions. A photo would be great. “Thegrape”‘s diagram above is pretty close to what I remember. The dimensions of the boxes, the distance between them and the starting point are all key. Perhaps after we get the game layed out, we can work on finding some old bottle caps to melt crayons in. Hopefully then the rules will come back to us.
They’re also called Cootie Catchers in the US. There’s a book out by the Koosh people called The Cootie Catcher book. I bought one. They have directions on making your own, and ones that are printed that you just pull out and fold up. I have to say the home made ones are still more fun than the printed ones from the book… There was a funny episode of “Arthur” (the kid’s show) about a Cootie Catcher…