Category Archives: Other Games

Wow. Much thanks to Hugh…

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Wow. Much thanks to Hugh for inviting to this outstanding site. Just read through the discussions and glad to see so many remember the game. I played in “Da Bronx” in the seventies. I took a picture in ’94 of the old scully board we played on as youths in the Bronx Park near 219th Street. The URL is: http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Studio/2561/scullpic.jpg While some used the sodatops with wax, the cap of choice was the “Push-UP” which we filled with clay. I had various caps (some heavy for blasting, others lighter for traveling great distances) but my primary cap was the “king checker.” The king checker was made of gold/yellow clay with a small plastic crown. We kept records and I was #3 on my block with a pair of Jamaican brothers as the two best. I once had the eldest trapped in ‘scully’ and would have easily beaten him but alas I was too kind, knocked him out of scully, and he came back to beat me. Every once in a while, like a habit that won’t die, I throw down a cap on the ground and see if my accuracy is up to par. I would certainly like to see in the future, an event of sorts where old time players could come together and compete. Maybe someday an Olympic sport? Okay, I’m reaching — but a competition would be very exciting.

PS186 in Brooklyn: Sponge…

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PS186 in Brooklyn: Sponge Ball: Basically a pitcher and batter. Box painted on the wall represents strike zone. Baseball wiht no running, the father you hit the ball the bigger hit you got Other huge games Ace King queen wiffle ball triangle ringolevio off the wall i declare war In winter, skitchin as well as bombing passing cars withe ice balls from the corner

There used to be a game…

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There used to be a game called error. A bunch of us would throw a spaldeen against the wall and catch it. The person who misses it would the have to run and touch the wall before someone picks up the ball and hits them with it. The game continues until someone makes 5 errors thus spelling the word error. That person would get “booties”. Booties is done by the loser leaning aginst the wall with his rear end protuding, while the other players are across the street trying to hit the loser with the ball in the buttocks. Hence, the name booties. Error suicide is a variation of error. The only difference is instead of getting hit with the ball the person gets punched in the body until he touches the wall.

I don’t remember SPIT, but…

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I don’t remember SPIT, but I do remember playing “War” on the top step of my stoop. This was a two-person game. You dealt 26 cards to each player, face down, and you each turned over one at a time. The player whose card had the higher value took both cards. If you both turned over a card with the same value, you had a “War”–you piled three cards on top (face down) and turned over the 4th card. The higher one took all the cards in the war. Sometimes there was a double war–really exciting! My friend Starlet and I sometimes had games that lasted for days.

I lived in Fresh Meadows…

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I lived in Fresh Meadows Queens and we had an enormous group of boys and girls who would play together after school for hours and hours. We created an elaborate ongoing saga based on the TV show Lost in Space. We each had steady roles (I was Penny), a boy named Steven was my space monkey. Our game wasn’t based on the episodes, but our characters were from the show. We’d create our own experiences. The guy who played Don the pilot and the girl playing the older sister (what was her name?) absolutely had a relationship going, but we were kids so, what would you call it? Whatever it was, the roles gave us the freedom to play out what we wanted to do and say in real life.

For my tenth birthday, in…

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For my tenth birthday, in 1946, my parents surprised me with the best gift of my life, a second-hand bicycle which my older brother had painted bright yellow with red racing stripes. It enabled me to graduate from my well-worn roller skates and to travel beyond the sidewalks. My world had expanded! This priceless bike had no gears or manual brakes, but, with that bike I could join the older kids who would gather at dusk and play hide and go seek …in and out of the alleys that cut through our neighborhood, behind Wilson High in Washington, DC. Open garages were safe spots to hide back then. One summer we made the game a bit more interesting by taking a piece of chalk along and leaving a trail of arrows on sidewalks, trees, and telephone poles… as clues to be followed. An “X” marked the final hiding area, and the game was over when it was too dark to play. A few years later my bike was stolen one night from our garage, and it wasn’t until I bought myself another bike after many years had passed, that I realized once again the joy a bicycle can be….and still is.

In the East End of London,…

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In the East End of London, we called it Conkers too. Conkers were the fruit of the Horse Chestnut tree came out in the fall. We’d throw branches into the trees to get them to drop. They were green prickly things, which when you opened up you’d find a big brown acorn type of nut. You’d skew a hole through the center and tie a knot to create the conker on a string. We’d have battles with our conkers. You’d go to school with them and play in the playground. One guy would hold his conker up and the other guy would whip his over and try to break the oppnent’s. Whoever’s conker lasted was the winner. Everybody had different ways to make their conkers stronger. Some people would soak their’s in vinegar, others would bake them in an oven. If you had a really good one you’d give it a name to reresent each of it’s victories. (this is a sixer – meaning it had defeated 6 other conkers – this is a twelver – it had beaten twelve).

Let’s not forget about shining…

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Let’s not forget about shining up those bottlecaps by scraping them on the cement sidewalk till the name was erased. Then we’d choose our favorite crayon colors and melt the crayons in the caps over the stove. (What a mess for Mom!) The crayons really made the caps soar smoothly down the cement. Between handball and “skelly” I went through a pair of sneakers a month. And our fingers bled too until they became calloused from the caps. Winners kept the looser’s caps! Woodhaven rules!