Yes, but i was already older, had smaller siblings that i would play with. I was mon and they would ask me to come forward, I would let them take different kind of ateps, but remember that they had to do something else Like twirl while they were toaking the steps. But if they made the run for it and touched me . they won,
Does anyone remember Mother, May I? One kid is “the mother” and stands at one end, and all the other kids stand at the other end, about 30 ft. away. Mother says, “I want Jim to take six giant steps” and then Jim has to say “Mother, May I?” Mother says, “yes, you may”. If he doesn’t ask, he forfeits his turn. There were baby steps, scissors steps, banana steps, ??? The first kid to reach Mother wins. You could try to sneak forward, but if Mother caught you, you had to go back to the start.
We didn’t call the game Mother May I, we called it Giant Steps. We had a great group of kids living in our development (about a dozen four story buildings encircling a courtyard, which was our world). No one really got picked on; we all kind of just goofed around with each other good naturedly. We took turns being the king of the hill, and we took turns being the one being goofed on. Sometimes we’d get eight giant steps, sometimes we’d get one baby step. It was lots of fun. There was also a fenced-in lawn in the center of the courtyard. We’d run races around the lawn, starting at the same point, each runner going in opposite direction around the circumference of the lawn (which seemed enormous at the time). Who ever got back to “home base” first won. The stoop was reserved for more reserved games like house, horses and Barbies. We had a deluxe stoop; it was almost like a cement deck. There was plenty of room to congregate and go into our little fantasy worlds up there. Once in a while we would get showered with pennies by some kind stranger who would throw them down to us in the middle of our play. We never found out who that was. We thought it was magic.
Anybody remember Seven-Up? We played it (upstate New York in the 60’s) with a ball (probably similar to the pink Spaulding ball) against a wall. This is what I remember: It started off easy. You threw the ball against a wall 7 times, and caught it each time before it hit the ground, and called out 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 up! Then you threw it against the wall 6 times, and caught it after it bounced 1,2,3,4,5,6 up! Then you just bounced it on the ground 5 times 1,2,3,4,5 up! Then it gets a little fuzzy in my memory. Bounced it 4 times on the ground and under your leg??? Some variation all the way down to 1 up. If you could get through that entire set without messing up, you started all over again, each time making it slightly harder by adding a variation (like clapping once each time you threw the ball). Can’t remember all the variations. This was one of our favorite “girl games”, along with Red Light, Green Light, Mother May I, Freeze Tag, and Red Rover. But the best game to get boys and girls of all ages together in our neighborhood was kickball.
We called it mother may I? But to me this is real little kid stuff and the real hanging out came later on when you sat there or stood there thinking you looked oh so cool. Maybe some running around, like tag. Or maybe taking each other to the really dark parts of the block, and having someone already there to spook the person you brought there. Different kinds of dares to each other. I bet you won’t go down there and bring back whatever to prove that you actually did it. I never smoked, but that was part of what a lot of my friends did in those truely hanging – hanging out evenings. Oh you had your spot and you just knew if you passed by whatever spot after a certain time your buddies would be there.