Category Archives: Other Games
I grew up in New York on…
I grew up in New York on the upper West Side, and we played stickball against the Firemen’s Monument at 100th Street and Riverside Drive. We drew a strike box on the side of the monument with chalk, a pitcher’s mound about 50 feet up the street, and a batter’s box on the street. We used a broom handle (usually wrapped with electrical tape on the handle) and pink rubber balls made by the Spaulding Company (which were universally known as Spaldeens). A single was a ball hit past the pitcher’s rubber on the fly, which hit before the doorway of a building about 75 feet up the street; a double had to be hit on the fly between the marker for a single and another building about 150 feet up the street; a triple had to be hit between the end of the marker for a double and the top of the hill; and a home run was a ball hit over the top of the hill on 100th Street. When I went to buy Spaldeens at the candy store, I looked for ones that had a little extra rubber at the seam from the molding process, because I was one of the few guys who could throw a curve ball with a Spaldeen. There was this one guy I played against, who every time I threw curve balls to him and he swung and missed, who would scream at me, “You cheated! You threw a curve ball!” He could never hit a curve ball, and he was a patsy every time he came up to bat against me. I would set him up with pitches low and inside just over the corner of the plate, then strike him out any time I wanted to with a curve ball that started outside, and broke in at his hands. And you could guarantee that he would be yelling that I cheated, because I threw the curve ball he couldn’t hit. The funny thing is that 45 years later I am now a senior scientist at a major corporation, and he is a big-shot Wall Street lawyer pulling in megabucks, and every time I see him (about twice a year), I can still piss him off by reminding him that he could never hit a curve ball. And you can guarantee he will still be complaining that I won because I cheated, throwing him curve balls.
On Grand Ave. in Da Bronx,…
On Grand Ave. in Da Bronx, we called it Skully, though the variants mentioned here weren’t uncommon. Our game-play equipment evolved over the years like one of those “tools made by man through the ages” charts you’d see in your 4th grade history, I mean, social studies textbook. At first we used the bottlecap, specifically from beer bottles (the twist-off variety, which didn’t get dented by a bottle opener upon removal). Lots of glide, but very light, blastable, and didn’t hold up great under car tires. We found that new bottlecaps had new paint on them, and they glided better. We then filled bottlecaps with wax, usually from a crayon. They were still fragile, but still glided well even with the additional weight. A weighted cap was good for blasting an unweighted cap, but when everyone’s cap was weighted, it didn’t much matter (physics and all). Since some labor went into putting wax in a cap, we began to scratch an “x” underneath the cap, using the cap itself, and then picked it up from the street if a car was coming so it wouldn’t get damaged. This is akin to what golfers do on the green; I think we invented the technique and the PGA picked it up. The next step in skully cap evolution was the “push-up ice cream pusher.” Back in the day, Good Humor sold ice cream in a cardboard tube called a “Push Up” (I think). The plastic thing that pushed the ice cream made an excellent skully cap (excellent glide), but it wore out quickly and was very fragile. Luckily, you could replace them by buying more ice cream. There were a spate of bizarre caps at this time of evolution (mayonnaise lids, Heinz catsup bottle caps) but one was notable: the glass cap. The glass cap was obtained from the ring atop the neck of a non-twist-off beer bottle. To get this cap involved much labor, as you would rub the top of the bottle repeatedly over the bumps of a manhole cover, hoping that the ring would crack off just right. It did about 10% of the time. This cap would glide like crazy, had no blasting power, and worked until it broke. Cars running over this cap didn’t much hurt it, but the final step in Skully Cap evolution did: the steel chair glider. The steel chair glider was found underneath your desk in school. You removed it using a bottle opener you sneaked into school. If you were smart, you’d liberate all four gliders so your chair wouldn’t rock. It was the perfect skully cap. Impenetrable to all elements, great glide, and blasting power. Some of these caps were big, some were small–if you were lucky, you had more than one size cap. I still have mine to this day! Let’s hear some more skully cap lore!
My brother and I were quite…
My brother and I were quite lucky to grow up surrounded by tons of children our age. Most Friday nights our parents would get together for cocktails at one of their friends houses. There would be eight or nine couples and all their children. When the cocktail party was at our house my father would set up a card table in the garage for all the kids with cokes and snacks and we were pretty much banished to the outside. We loved to play a game called “Sardines”. We’d give an “it” person about 3 minutes to hide in the yard while we all stayed in the garage. Then we’d yell “Sardines” and we’d all take off trying to find the “it” person. If you found the “it” person you’d nonchalantly sneak into their hiding place with them. The last person to find everyone would be “it” the next time. One time about seven of us were in an azalea hedge, trying to be quiet when my father came outside to pee. He started to pee in our hedge. This provided hours of amusement for all the kids (except my brother – who was mortified).
We in our neighborhood would…
We in our neighborhood would get together and play a game called “Run sheep,run.” If I remember correctly we devided up into 2 groups. A leader would be chosen from each. The leader would take his group and hide them. Then go back to the other group and they would start looking. The leader of the hidden group would stay with them. As the looked the leader of the hidden group would call our prearranged color code to let them know if they were close or not. Such as yellow, yellow, meant they were going away ect. If and when they were discovered the leader yelled Run sheep run and we would all run back to base hoping to beat the other team home. Did anyone else play this and if so please correct any faulty memorys or deviations as to how you played.
I grew up in the Bronx in…
I grew up in the Bronx in the ’40’s and one of the things we did was rollerskate. My friends and I did this for what seems like hours. Those were the days when you could skate on the street because there were not many cars since gasoline was rationed because of the war and driving was saved for Sunday drives with the family. We used to skate down Burke Avenue to Bronx River Parkway which was quite a big hill and we must have climbed it 100X at least as I remember. Also, those were the days when we wore metal skates and wore your skatekey around your neck on a shoelace. I bet lots of you who grew up around that time have some of the same memories. Please add yours here – I’d love to read them.
All you young folk there,…
All you young folk there, telling of your memories. Back in the late twenties, early thirties we played kick the can. Our variety – we got two empty cans, put a hole in each near the top, tied a long piece of string between, and after dark placed these across the sidewalk, one can on each side in the grass, cans filled with water. We hid nearby and waited for adults to walk by,connect with the string and get their pant legs wet. We thought it was great fun.
When we were about 13 to…
When we were about 13 to 16 we played kick the can every evening about dusk. We had a group of about a dozen or so that gathered near my house for the game. The best was if you could be in the dark with your current heart-throb. Not that anything happened it was just the idea of being hidden in the dark. We yelled and argued, kicked the can and tore through peoples yards and bushes until my dad got tired of all the noise and made us come inside. Fort Wayne, IN 1956 to 1959
I’m like any other kid from…
I’m like any other kid from Brooklyn and remember skelly very well. I remember the set up – a large square – usually a cement square on the sidewalk of our dreams – we’d chalk several small squares in each of the four corners, additional small squares on each of the four sides of the larger square. Then a smaller square in the center. We’d use bottle caps, and yes, sometimes we’d melt wax in them to give them extra weight. It brings back memories of my Brooklyn of the early 50’s on Pennsylvania and Belmont Avenues, before moving into the Boulevard Projects, where we’d also play the game. Do our children even understand the dynamics of the game?