Category Archives: Street Lifestyle

A very rough and popular…

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A very rough and popular English game for boys in High School is Bulldog. You’d have two teams starting with the same number, one attacking and one on defense. The attackers would try to reach the wall behind the defending team, but any attacker that got caught (tackled to the ground) would have to join the defenders team. As the game progressed, there would be less and less attackers. There was no winning, it was just a game of pure attrition, with lots of bruises. You’d get a good reputation in school if you were good at Bulldog. It was a great game for growing boys.

I grew up in the East End…

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I grew up in the East End of London. We were really into bikes, riding all over and beyond the neighborhood. We couldn’t afford new bikes so we made them out of parts we found scrapyards, or pieces we’d purchase Back then, in the early 70’s, Evil Knievel had just hit the streets of London. We all tried to copy him with our bikes. I remember one time I set up a jump in the backyard. It couldn’t have been more than 2 or 3 feet max, but when I landed I couldn’t stop. My mom wasn’t too happy when I came crashing through her back door.

I grew up in the western…

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I grew up in the western suburbs of Minneapolis. There were lots of kids hanging out, as we’d all get kicked out of the house all day. We’d usually play baseball all day in the brief summers, but the rest of the year offered other playtime activities. In the winter could have as many as 30 kids in a giant snowball fight. We’d be running from one block to the other, and build big snowball forts and you’d try to capture from the other gang. There were always these forts in different stagers of repair When we were young teenagers, 13-15, during the warmer weather, we could steal lumber from these new housing construction sites and build tree houses. Sometimes there would be 10 kids involved (there’s nothing you couldn’t do with a critical mass of kids). We would get these big sheets of plywood and cut them around the branches, creating these elaborate multi-storied houses. We wouldn’t have ‘official clubs” and didn’t really hang out as much as just build the things. Still no girls were allowed. The houses would last a couple of years although they might get taken over by gangs from another neighborhood or vandalized by kids who might be mad at you. One time a contractor who got mad at us for stealing the wood sent a bulldozer over. They wrapped a big chain around the house and pulled it right our of the tree. This was the biggest one we had ever created literally 5 stories high, skewed all around the tree to fit in. That house was the culmination of our architectural endeavors. When it was pulled down, we were ready to move on.

Behind Wilson High School…

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Behind Wilson High School in WAshington, DC there used to be a huge field where the neighborhood boys would gather for a game of baseball in the Summers. Mom must have asked my two big brothers to keep an eye on their little sister, because I remember them consenting to “let me play..” by backing up the kid who backed up the catcher. If the baseball made it by all of us, it was sure to roll across Nebraska Ave, into the SEWER! The reovery procedure required the use of a belt from one of the guys. It was guided into the sewey cover holes, and the cover was carefully raised. Then it was my turn to “play.” Guess who got to be hung upside down into the hole..to pluck the baseball out of the muck. Uck! I can still remember that odor. At least they made me feel like a hero, and I soon found that picking the butterflys off of my mother’s prize zinnias with another “little sister” was much more to my liking.

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.

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!

grew up in e.n.y. section…

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grew up in e.n.y. section of brooklyn.our sports equipment was,broom stick,can, spaldeen(correct spelling), stoop,alley way,one look out for the bad neighbor who would take our balls(no pun intended) lived on van siclen and belmont from 1943 to 1963. went to p.s. 158 jhs 149 and jefferson h.s. played punchball against other streets(hendrix st, miller ave,schneck ave,wyona street.) we were all poor but did not know it.every street had one “rich kid” who had parents with a car.now live in south fla.

Could anyone help me with…

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Could anyone help me with the names of some of the games? I’m a translator from the Czech Republic & don’t know what kind of games played in the 18th century were: 1) pitch-in-the-hole & 2) snap-the-whip. Thanks.