I grew up in Jersey City, NJ. I remember playing a version of hopscotch that we called “kick the can”. Same basic rules, but you threw a flattened can into the numbered boxes. Then, on the way back, you didn’t pick it up. You had to kick the can back to home base while hopping on one foot.
I grew up in the Inwood section of upper Manhattan. One of the things only girls did with spaldeens was to bounce the ball while chanting certain rhymes, turning one leg over the bouncing ball on certain words. One of the rhymes went something like: Oliver Twist, can’t do this, touch his knee, touch his toe, (something something…) and over we go. You turned over on Twist, this and go. You’d touch your knee and toe where indicated. I can’t remember one of the lines. After you did this, you’d start all over, but this time you’d do everything twice: Oliver Twist Twist, etc. You’d go up until you gave up or got bored. Another bouncing game was A My Name Is Alice. You’d go through the alphabet: A my name is Alice, and my husband’s name is Al, and I come from Alabama, and I sell apples. Does anyone remember these games?
As a kid, I grew up playing this game. I’m now 36 with 2 boys and I thought that they’d love it. I grew up in Newark, NJ and we called the game “tops”. I never heard of scully until I started researching to refresh my memory to teach my boys. I know there has to be someone out there who knows the game by “tops”. I now live in OK and I’m going to introduce it to my sons and their friends. It brings back good memories to read about the game.
I’m not sure of the proper spelling, but the part I remember goes like this: Two people stand facing each other, holding hands (one person has arms crossed so that an “X” is formed) and the song begins ( you also pull left, right, etc making a crisscrossing motion with joined hands): Here we go zoolio, zoolio, zoolio Here we go zoolio all night long. (release hands and start going backwards) Take a step back Sally, Sally, Sally Walk into the alley, alley, alley. I went to the country, and what’d I see? I saw a great big man tryin’ to “hypotize” me. I go way back (put hands on waist & lean back) Got a hump in my back (lean forward w/hands in small of back) Do the crab walk, do the crab walk (players “strut” towards each other, still in humped position, and trade places) The last part is what has me stumped…does anybody remember this at all? I grew up in South Jersey, if that’s any help. Please respond here or email me at: princessxena [at] surfree [dot] com
Many things come to mind when I think of skelly. Here are a few: 1)New Jersey, 1964. We stopped at Tony’s Hot Dogs near lake Hopatcong on a Sunday as I recall. I asked the man behind the counter, actually my dad asked the man, if we could have some bottlecaps. I guess some meant all because he filled up a couple of paper bags full. It was a great ride home as a 7 year old digging out all of the cork and couldn’t wait to show my friends my motherlode of caps. 2)I can still remember the smell of melted crayons in my friend’s garage as we readied our bottlecaps for action. We lived in the Canarsie section of Brooklyn and if it wasn’t stickball or Spud it was all day skelly marathons. 3)About 1970 or thereabouts during my last glory days as a pre-teen and the end of skelly as a pasttime, I pulled one of the biggest miscues of my life, to that point. My dad had just bought me a new pair of Pro Keds and I proceeded to wear out the sides in a matter of days due to several skellythons. Needless to say, it was back to discount sneakers for me. I wish this generation could experience all of the great street games that I grew up with in Brooklyn and Queens.
I grew up in Highbridge, 1944 -1966. Attended Sacred Heart, Manhattan prep and Fordham, then off to Vietnam and maturity!. It is impossible to explain to someone who didn’t exprience it what growing up in the 50’s – 60’s Bronx neighborhoods was like. I still remember the “checker” games we played on the sidewalk boards. Box ball and off the point with a pink “Spauldine” (25 cents!!) were simple games that I hope are recorded somewhere . George, 1210 Woodcrest 3C
I grew up in the Bronx near P.S. 76 and Evander H.S. we’d play just about everything: we had certain seasons when the Pea shooters would come out. Soda straws and chick peas, I think, and we would be shooting each other for hours. It’s a bit dangerous, but that was the fun. Not as dangerous and shooting paper clips and we did that to, with rubber bands. We’d normally play both of those shooting war games hiding behind cars. Not to many rules, just teams played until one side surrendered. We also played marbles, but we used elaborately designed shoe boxes with ramps and holes that contestants would have to roll their marble through or lose it. If they got their marble up the ramp and into the shoe or cigar box they won any number of marbles. This was Las Vegas before we knew it.
I guess I will be considered the “old fogey” compared to those who have submitted their messages here. I found this site by accident and read all the letters posted here. I was born Oct 24,1921 in the very old original Bronx Hospital on corner Fulton and 169th St. It originally was a beer brewers mansion. Lived at 813 E 170th St (which does not exist anymore) around the corner from the Loews Boston Road Theatre. Schools: PS40, PS61, PS98, Morris H. S. The Bronx will always remain the great passion of my life. The memories that have been stated by others here are equal to mine. Its not easy to erase the past when it was the best time of our lives. and I grew up during the depression whose only silver lining was that folks had more respect and showed more kindest to each other. That we had less is the reason we created those great games like stickball, stoopball, johnny on a pony, kick the can, hide-go-seek, even potsie, I played that too. Nice talking to “ya old Bronxsites” and thanks for the memories Max
I grew up in Queens (Sunnyside, then Jackson Heights). It was always a “sliding pond.” When there was a parkie at the school playground (PS 149)we would get a Nok-Hockey set. I bought one for my oldest son some years back and we still have it in the basement and play it occasionally. The pucks are now plastic instead of wood. No splinters.