I grew up in Brooklyn on Atlantic Ave., near Saratoga, (Bed Sty). I went to PS 87. I don’t remember a “Pinky” we all had Spaldeens. I remember the smell of a new one, just thinking about those games; stick ball, stoop ball, punch ball, box ball and hit the penny brings back fond memories. when we moved to Brownsville, all the kids there had Spaldeen’s too.
I grew up in northeast phila…in the ’60s we used to melt down solder and fill the bottlecaps to get some really deadly impact into the game. since the twistoff cap didn’t exist, the trick was to get the cap off the bottle without damaging the sides..this let you get the maximum amount of solder into the cap. We ended up making a rule (after some knock down and drag out fist fights) that the solder couldn’t crown over the top of the cap…it had to be flush…to try to equalize the game. My old man was an electrician, though, and the otherkids didn’t know that I was doping the caps with mercury. I would cast the lead around the mercury and my bombers were the B52’s of the block…
I grew up in Miami in the 80’s. I’m the only person I know who remembers this one: When Susie was a baby, a baby, a baby When Susie was a baby, she used to go like this: [Pretend to suck thumb and say Waa! Waa!] When Susie was a schoolgirl, a schoolgirl, a schoolgirl When Susie was a schoolgirl, she used to go like this: [???] I can’t remember what she did, but the verses took her through teenager, mother, grandmother, angel, mummy, skeleton, etc. I know the for the “mother” you’d scold your finger at the other girl, and the “skeleton” would place her arms over her chest. Anyone else remember? i know it differently, miss susie was a baby, a baby, a baby, miss susie was a baby, and she went like this wahh, wahh! miss susie was a toddler, a toddler,a toddler, atoddler, miss susie was a toddler, and she went like this mommy,mommy tie my shoe, daddy, daddy 2 + 2 miss susie was a teenager, a teenager, a teenager, miss susie was a teenager, she went like this, oo ah forgot my bra, left it in my boyfriends car, but he don’t care, he don’t care, he forgot his underwear! miss susie was a mother, a mother, a mother, miss susie was a mother, and she went like this, get your hands out of that cookie jar! miss susie was a grandmother, a grandmother, a grandmother, miss susie was a grandmother, and she went like this, are you hungry? want some ice cream? miss susie was dead, was dead., was dead, miss susie was dead, and she went like this, la-dee-da-dee-da, boom crack oww, alllllll miss susie went to heaven, to heaven, to heaven,miss susie went to heaven and she went like this, o wut the f*** is goin on up in here??? miss went to hell, to hell, to hell, miss susie went to hell and she went like this , hey, you, do you smell spmething burning, oh wait, you’re burning ah!!!!!!!! and that’s the end, of miss susie!!!!!!!!
I grew up playing skully on 57th street between 7th and 8th avenue in Brooklyn. My dad taught all the urchins how to play one day in the late 60’s. Stoop and stickball came later in life, I was only 8 at the time. We used chalk for awhile until dad came home with a 1/2″ paintbrush and a gallon of yellow line paint, (This was something special because at the time it was new… It had crushed glass in it for visibility) He worked for hours and routed traffic along the sides of the fresh paint until it was complete. Creating the sliding gems was fun for us but a disater for mom. she would spend hours scraping the wax off the stove after a gas bubble would splatter the liquid everywhere. Even our radiators had wax dribbles from making caps in the winter when we couldn’t wait to lay in the street again. Nickles were used to weigh the caps down, sometimes two were used. Then the polishing, endless circular swirls on the smooth asphalt street would be spent waiting for all steel bottom to show through the budweiser or mountain dew cap. We had poison traps on the field of play. The 13 was surrounded in the middle by a big poison trap that resembled a goofy looking skull. It was great fun and I’m considering putting a field in my basement or pouring a concrete pad out in the driveway so I can show the kids how to play.
I grew up in downtown Jersey City in the late 50’s around Montgomery and Varick Streets, a block away from Van Vorst Park. This was my favorite game growing up! We called the game “street checkers.” We either used checkers from a checker set, or screw top bottle caps filled with tar that had softened up in the hot summer sun. We didn’t flick the top with a finger, but squeezed it out between the thumb and index finger like a marble. We had a 15 number board, with odd numbers from 1-9 up one side, even numbers from 2-10 down the other, 11 and 13 on top opposite 12-14 at bottom. 15 was a small box in a larger box with four lines connecting the corners of the small box with the corners of the large box. The spaces within were poison but the lines were safe. If you landed in a poison area, you lost a turn. While playing, if you hit an opponent’s cap, you advanced a number. You had to go from 1 to 15, then back down to 1. After that you shot into one of the poison spaces, became “poison,” and could kill off any remaining players. I still have one of my tar filled caps on a little knick knack shelf in my apartment.
I grew up in South Philly, in the 70s/early 80s … I STILL HAVE A PIMPLE BALL !!! I kept it knowing that one day, people all over would be looking for one — wish we could still buy em. I remember learning ‘Chink’ on the corners. We simply called it ‘Chink’ and it was the most simple, fun, yet competitive games ANYWHERE !! We played it on the corner, and we played to 11, or 21 if you played doubles and allowed ‘slams’ – meaning the ball could go PAST the curb and into the street, provided there wasn’t a parked car in front of that curb. My memories from the neighborhood also included: – Halfball (of course) – Handball – Running the Bases – ‘Atlantic City’ — which was a variation of Chink AND Running the Bases – very fun game – Jailbreak (surprised I haven’t seen this mentioned elsewhere – you had teams of people and you had to ‘free’ the person in ‘jail’ — which was someone’s front step – you would grab the railing, yell ‘jailbreak’ and all your teammates could leave jail. If you got caught by the other team, you were ‘dragged’ into jail. We usually had a member from each team ‘guarding’ the jail area!) – Wireball – Stepball – Fastball (a variation of stickball/halfball where you pitched a tennis ball into a ‘strike box’ painted on a wall and played with out and runs rules similar to halfball) – Wall/Suicide (simply throwing the ball against the wall, and having someone catch it – if you missed it you had to run to the wall and touch it and yell ‘Wall/Suicide’ before someone picked up your missed ball and BEANED it at your ass! – Dodge ball (played with the big red ball!) – Street football (we actually had an entire street block spray painted with yard line markers, logos, out of bounds markers, end zones, etc!) I’m sure there were plenty of others but this is all I can think of right now !!!
I grew up in the Longwood section of the Bronx back in the 70’s and early 80’s. During that time there was no such thing as a “playground” (at least not in that part of The Bronx.) Instead, we had school yards, abandoned lots full of bricks still there from when apartment buildings were knocked down and abandoned buildings. We made the best of what we had and turned everything around us into our own playground. Instead of going to a pool, we soaked ourselves in pump water. Yes, you may see it as poverty, which it was. To me, it is beautiful childhood memories, that I would not trade for anything in the world.
I grew up in Brooklyn New York and all we did, for the most part, was play handball. Whether it was the wall at P.S.290, I.S.302, Franklyn K. Lane or High Land Park, We were handball players! I have 5 sisters and we all played and some of us STILL play! It was always the best to step on the court and the guys feel obligated to hit the ball easy because we were females,and when we would swing and slam a roller it was like “Dang”! Handball, WE LOVE IT! Girls can play handball too!
I remember alot of these games. I grew up in North Philly (3rd & Bristol) near Feltonville. We played boxball, stickball, handball, chink ball, and buck buck. I haven’t see many messages on chink ball.The the way we played it you hit the ball either pimple or pink rubber if they didn’t have a pimple ball, against the wall on one bounce. You could juggle the ball three times, but then you had to hit it. You would try to fake your opponent out by pretending to hit it hard, then hit it softly. If he or she missed it, it was worth one point. First one to 5 won. Thanks, for the memories. Al.
I grew up on the Concourse (1055 Grand Concourse) between 165 and 166th, diagonally across from the Executive Towers and just a few blocks from the House that Ruth Built. I am talking about 1964-74, the Mickey Mantle era for the Yankees. Got to see the greatest Yankee teams of all time,: Mantle, Maris, Tresh, Richardson, Howard, Stottlemyer, Kubeck, Pepitone, Whitey Ford, Yogi. Man those were the days. Went to JHS 117 (Joseph H. Wade) and DeWitt Clinton High School. Went on to graduate from John Jay College in 1979 and Yale Law School in 1982 and am now an entertainment lawyer living in sunny Miami. Been back to the Bronx a few times. Man has it changed. My second profession is writing and I am currently working on a script for a Cable TV Serie called Grand Concourse which is about growing up there in the mid 60’s to mid 70’s. I have written a draft of the first episode (its titled “The Mick”, and is based on a real incident revolving around the day we moved from Brook Ave. to the Grand Concourse.) If any of you are interested in reading it, please drop me a line by e-mail: rvr912 [at] hotmail [dot] com. Take Care.