I grew up in the Bronx. I remeber that when you heard the “ting-a-ling” from the ice cream truck every kid in the projects would be shouting..” MOM…..BOB!!!!”. All the kids would be running to mom or waiting under the windows for some wraped change in TP. Doesn’t matter what the man who drove the trucks name was…to us kids it was BOB! Wonder if bob is still on time?
The Bronx Lives! I grew up on Webster Ave between 181st&182ND st. We played “around the corner” on 181st between Park Ave -with thre tracks- and Webster Ave as our outfield. Went to ps 59(1st Gd)(Washington Av@182St,then Our Saviors Grammar School@183St and then Cardinal Hayes(’66) and Manhattan College(’70). Born at Fordham Hospital(long gone).Miss everyone.Worked at Alexanders on the Concourse at Fordham Rd. Loved the LowesParadise and the RKO.Where’s Tommy Marron?,Jimmy Shand?Bernie Merillo? I’m at 9146816855.Remember TREFORD Little League?
I grew up in Manhattan, in what is now known as SoHo, in a loft. On the floor of our house we had a hopscotch board. We made it out of tape. My grandmother and I put it down on the floor one day so we could play the game together. Maybe she was embarassed to play this game in a playground with me. She was in her mid sixties. Now I look at my mother who is in her mid sixties and don’t think it’s too old to play at all. When my grandmother did it when I was a kid I understood why she hid it, because she seemed so incredibly old.
Man, was I surprised and excited to find this site!! First off to Hugh McNally…You’ve done an outstanding job of putting the rules together in an articulate manner. Very professional. (It reads like it was written by a technical writer.) Anyway, I played Skully (or Skelly?) growing up in the Bronx and Queens. The game was slightly different between the neighborhoods I grew up in. In lived in the Bronx until second or third grade. I remember playing first with the broken necks off Coca-Cola or Heinekein bottles which we removed by running the neck-end of the bottles over a manhole cover. Eventually we began using the glides off of the bottoms of chairs and desks. (The desks had large glides, while the chairs had smaller ones.) I remember melting down Crayola crayons into the gliders. (It was pretty cool trying to customize the colors in your cap for that unique look.) I remember just using the plucking technique. There were two: 1)Flicking the middle finger from contact with the thumb (for power shooting, i.e.- Blasting or for long-distance shots) and 2)Flicking the index finger from underneath the thumb, while using the other three fingers as a brace (much like when shooting pool). This technique worked best for finesse shots (i.e.- hitting your opponent soft enough to keep him around for bait on your next shot, or when shooting around the Skully so that you didn’t get stuck inside, or overshoot your intened box.) After moving to Queens (Springfield Gardens area), I remember using the caps off the Dellwood milk containers. We started weighting them down with candle wax. Wax was surpassed by Playdoh or clay later. But eventually the preferred top came to be the bottoms from Push-Up ice cream. We’d weight them down with multi-colors of clay and scrape them against the ground to help smooth them down underneath. They were awesome!!! We would even put a chrome tire valve cap (taken from a car or bicycle) in the center of the cap and use it as an aiming site! The other technique that I was introduced to in Queens was called, “Flying your cap”. This was usually used for covering very long distances (i.e.- shooting back into town to become (or after becoming?) a Killer.) It could also be used to shoot at any time. (It was preferred when shooting from corner to corner across the board.) This is how we did it: 1)Place the cap in between your thumb and the first digit of your middle finger 2)While keeping your forearm parallel to the ground and against your waist, pull your arm back 3)Push your arm forward briskly, while flicking the first digit of your middle finger forward (much like when some flicks away a cigarette butt) The top should now be propelled forward as it rotates (from the flicking of the finger) and should cover a long, or short distance (dependent on the force of the forwrd arm thrust and the flick of the finger). Using this technique you can hit your opponent from long distances. (Think of the little pistol with the rifle stock that Lee Van Cleef used in “For a Few Dollars More”). I also remember the start line being far enough from the “1” box that you’d be better suited trying to “fly your cap” than to pluck it. The shooting sequence of players was determined by the closest one to the “1” box. I also remember the fun of blasting your opponent so hard that he’d start rolling on his side all the way out of town (he wasn’t allowed to stop it on his own.) I live in California (Bay Area) and am 33 now, but still love to play. I’ve shown this game to my nieces and nephews and they all love it!! I’ve also shown it to a few of my buddies and they love it too! It’s like being a kid all over again. I just moved to a smaller town outside of San Jose, and intend on teaching the kids in the neighborhood and in my new congregation how to play this truly timeless game!!! Anyone out there, please feel free to e-mail me at: thunt [at] obsidianinc [dot] com or NYsquared [at] aol [dot] com P.S.- I also have fond memories of playing Stickball (played in the street or between two walls of a school builing), Ring-O-Leavio, Punchball (with the sponge ball or Pinky), Roundup, Freeze Tag, Dodge Ball, and the favaorite with the girls…Run, Catch, and Kiss.
how about winters, we couldn’t afford the sleds with runners so we found some large pieces of cardboard, or cloth potato sacks and slid down the “slopes” in Crotona(sic) Park in da bronx – the highest hill was near the swimming pool right across from PS (i can’t remember PS what) where i took a “special” class (called cardiac class – cause i had rheumatic fever and a heart murmur), we used to have to take a nap while the other kids were out playing… & in the summer we used to use cardboard or sacks and slide down the same grass covered hills… that was back in the late 30’s – a few years ago i took my son to show him the tenements, schools and park where i grew up as a youngster (before movin to Boyle Heights in Los Angeles) ((now know as East LA))… the school and apartments were all boarded up—i almost cried!!
I grew up in the Bronx and we played games like “Hot Peas And Butter and Johnny on the Pony” but does anyone remember “kick the Can?” Someone would throw a can as far as he could and the person that was “IT” would retrieve the can and get back to base as fast as he could, “backwards”, while the other kids would run and hide. The object of the game was for the kid that was “IT”, to find everyone while protecting the can from being kicked. The kid that was “IT” would spot a hiding kid and run back to the can and while tapping the can would yell out who he spotted and where the kid was, thus capturing the kid. If a kid, who was not caught, kicked the can, which would free all the kids that were caught and keep the kid that was “IT” still “IT”.
In the two Bronx neighborhoods where I grew up there was no debate…the Spaldeen was the ball of choice. The Pinkie was a very inadequate second choice. Yes, a Spaldeen hurt your hand in punchball if you hit it wrong, but if you hit it just right, it would just take off. Same thing in stickball…seemed that the Spaldeen always flew off the bat a lot harder and faster than the Pinkie. Very very happy to see the Spaldeen has been revived. Now if they only sold ’em in the Atlanta area!
Where I grew up we had the absolute PERFECT set up for Kick the Can!!! I grew up in Co-op City, the Bronx NY (http://welcome.to/coopcity) in the late 70s. It’s a cooperative community full of 33 story buildings with pillars that supported the second floor above the lobby. Since the lobby wasn’t that big, it left a maze of pillars to sneak behind. Then to top it off there were long expanses of retaining walls and man-made hillocks to belly crawl behind. It wasn’t really Kick the Can anymore….not the way we played it. It was WAR! There was a circular metal drain in the exact middle of the courtyard just outside the lobby. The building’s sides were a V surrounding it (with the pillars, don’t forget the pillars!). The can was placed on the metal drain. The one of the benches in the courtyard was ‘Jail’ and the person that was ‘It’ had to stand outside of the octagonal brick work that surrounded the metal drain. (It was perfect! We couldn’t have set it up better ourselves!) ‘It’ would face away from the building, cover their eyes, and count to 20-30 and we would scatter under the building. The trick was to maneuver your way to the pillars closest the can with out being seen by ‘It’. Goodness was that hard! Once ‘It’ saw movement all they had to do was identify who it was and which pillar they were hiding behind. “Tap tap tap! I see so-and-so behind the third pillar!” Not only did you have to tap the can on the metal drain but you had to scream “Tap tap tap…” at the top of your lungs. Lucky for us, most of the time they ID’ed the wrong people. Come to think about it…..we were some awfully honest kids. We wouldn’t play with someone if they didn’t come out when they were legitimately caught. Given the fact that all that was needed was a proper ID, you couldn’t talk lest they pin point who you were and where you were hiding. But inevitably some stealthy and swift footed kid would free the slower ‘Jailed’ kids. If not, and we gave up (all the players were NEVER caught) the first kid would get to be the next ‘It’. I’m tellin’ you it was perfect! So much so I never came upstairs when the street lights came on. And my mother always yelled at me for that. God forbid if I came home with grass stains all over myself. Diving for the ground so that you wouldn’t be spotted will give you plenty of grass stains that’s for sure! I want to thank the webmaster for this forum! I’ve enjoyed it immensely!