Childhood memories

[Cerin]

I instinctively felt that I should put this in TE, even thought it isn't ostensibly religious in nature. But as children, our relationship with the world is so achingly intense and poignant, before we have discovered mechanisms for sorting our experiences; and our childhoods were so crucial in shaping who are we today, including our perceptions of the spiritual, I think.

So last night I was taking an herb in the form of small, round, hard pellets which I was to let dissolve in my mouth. And with the sound of those tiny hard balls with their faintly sweet taste clicking against my teeth came such a rush of memory and feeling!

In a word, candy. The candies of my childhood came back to me, and the games, and the sunlight and feelings and joy all came flooding back. I think I must have been remembering the jawbreakers, at their last stage just before you would give in and chew them up; and then there were the necklaces of candy that we would wear and suck on at the same time doubtlessly with all the attendant sweat and dirt (yuk!), and I seem to recall wax lips that when you were done playing you would bite into and there was some kind of (no doubt ghastly) liquid inside. And the Cracker Jacks!

This reminded me of a post Anthy had made in the recipes thread, where she talked about gathering berries when she was a child, and swimming and laying in the warm sun to dry off, and it struck me then that it was so different from my own childhood memories in particular, but that those joyous feelings of abandon and wonder are after all, the same.

I also thought of three beloved games we played endlessly: hit the penny, where we'd put a penny on one sidewalk seam and stand behind the next sidewalk seam on either side and throw a spalding pink rubber ball and try to hit the penny; one point for each hit, and 2 if you turned the penny over. Hopscotch. And Seven-Up, which involved throwing a ball against the apartment wall while you tried to complete a series of increasingly intricate maneuvers with hands and legs before the ball came back. Alas, I can no longer remember the moves.

So, was candy a big part of your childhood? What physical games did you play? Are your memories enveloped in a rosy glow, or in shadows, of burdens that were too large for your little self to bear? How did your childhood affect the person you are today?

I don't mean to limit the subject manner in any way; I would just like people to feel free to share whatever childhood memories and associated topics come to mind, as you feel so inclined.

[Alatar]

Two games I remember in particular were "45 and out" and "British Bulldog".

"45 and out" was Hide and Seek with a difference. Normally played with a lamppost or tree as the "base". One player was "on" and the rest were hiding. The seeker had to find each player and run back to the base shouting "Primula Baggins behind the shed! 45 and Out" or whatever. The hiders had to try to make it to the base without getting caught and yell "Alatar! 45 and in!" Great game. Even taught rudimentary strategy! Wait for the base to be undefended so you can get "in".


"British Bulldog" was a schoolyard favourite. One person started in the middle of the yard while all the others lined up at one side. They would chant "Red Rover, Red Rover, Who do you call over". One name would be called, and that child had to try to make it to the other side of the playground without being caught. If s/he was caught, they then stayed in the middle to try and catch the next person. If a player made it to the other side without being caught, all the other children were free to run for the other side. Any caught in the crossing joined those who were "on".

We also played a sort of softball called "Rounders" that was played with Tennis Rackets or Hurleys, or whatever was available.

[Primula Baggins]

Primula Baggins has never been behind any shed. <sniff>



We played pirates. My brother and I and a mob of other kids, including a boy whose dad made us all wooden swords. (How cool is that?) We played in a patch of woods near our houses, which had a couple of treehouses that were the opposing forts. I don't remember any object other than finding chances to jump out at, or down on, someone from "the other side" and make them yield. And there were some great sword battles, with yelling.

One time my side did find the opposing fort empty and occupy it, but in the meantime they occupied ours, so not much was gained.

We played for hours in the summer, until it was pitch dark under the trees.

[vison]

!!!! We played Red Rover, but that's what we called it, Red Rover. And the rules were a little different: the calling side stood hand in hand, gripping hard, and the called child ran as hard as possible and tried to break through. If you broke through, you went back to your original side, if you failed, you had to stay and grab hands with your "new side". Eventually almost everyone was on one side and the game was over.

I can remember many games we played that kids don't seem to play any more. But one sticks in my mind and was brought to the forefront last week when I had news that my old elementary school was closing forever.

We had no proper playground, just a rough sort of ball diamond on the east side of the school and on the west, a patch of bush and hardhack that we called "the Swamp". The game we played in "the Swamp" was called "Chase" and it was very simple: the boys chased the girls and scarcely ever caught one. If a girl got caught, there was a lot of laughing horror, and the girl had to spend some time in a fort as a prisoner, but the game couldn't last beyond the part of noon hour we had to play outside. I guess the older kids might have had some other thing going on but I was always oblivious and only played when forced to. "Chase"! Simplicity itself, requiring no equipment but the willingness of boys to chase girls without really knowing why.

We played One, Two, Three O'larry which other school girls called One, Two, Three O'Leary, and it involved bouncing a ball on the cement floor of the girls' basement and as it bounced you had to do a series of motions before you caught it, rather like in 7-Up. We played Jacks, and Hopscotch, and we did a powerful lot of skipping. I was a really good skipper and knew all the rhymes. It always ended in "salt, vinegar, mustard, pepper" and the rope went faster and faster. We skipped Double Dutch, too, which was fun.

Much of my childhood was spent with my nose in a book, but when I wasn't reading I was outside playing, building forts in the back bush at home, making elaborate house outlines in mud and sticks, and then riding ponies and horses until we were all ready to drop. There was no TV in my childhood, for which I am eternally grateful. The radio was in the control of my Mum, who listened to it while ironing. Such fond memories of listening to the Yankees and Dodgers in the World Series! I still love listening to baseball on the radio. Dad listened to the boxing and we used to hear the Gillette razor ads, and the jingle for Wildroot Cream Oil. We weren't allowed to listen to Gangbusters, but I remember Jack Benny on the radio and the Lux Radio Theatre. We didn't listen to Fibber McGhee and Molly, and I don't remember ever hearing "The Inner Sanctum", but other kids did.

Man, I lived in the olden days, no doubt about it.

Thanks, Cerin. This is a great topic.

[nerdanel]

Wow, Cerin, what an incredible idea for a thread. I find that the memories are popping into mind faster than I can process, so I'll just give two, one pleasant and one...that has always made me think.

The first thing that attracted me to Tolkien's writing was his love of trees, because it was my distinguishing trait as a child. In the literal, not political sense, I was a treehugger. I grew up (between 2 and 14) in a suburban home with an unremarkable front yard, but a backyard of 23 mature trees plus the younger ones we planted - one pine, three ash, and five crepe myrtles. In much the same way as I saw other children talking to stuffed animals, I talked to trees. (hey, I've always been out of the closet about the weirdness bit ) Most of them were pine trees, which I feel an incredible affinity to - they are very peaceful trees...self-sufficient, unsolicitous of anyone's aesthetic approval, and prepared to reach for the stars and become the fittest to survive. In any case, I have more memories than I can count of playing near, in, and around the various trees in our yard. My sister and I would chase the squirrels away from our vegetable garden, and the squirrels (who thought it was great fun and weren't the least bit scared of us) would climb up the pine trees just far enough to be laughing at us as we unconvincingly waved brooms. Katy, our next door neighbor's daughter (two years older than me) and I used one gumball tree with a low split for gymnastics moves. I could read for hours just reading while leaning against one of the pine trees. Strategic planning was needed to hang a bird feeder suspended between the trees such that the squirrels could not get to it. THAT never worked; we strung a bird feeder on a narrow wire with 15 feet between each tree, and the squirrels figured out how to leap that distance, catapulting themselves off the trees, landing on the bird feeder, and shaking all of the birdseed onto the ground so they could play with it.

I still remember the exact placement and feel of each tree, but none more so than "my" pine tree, a tree I picked up from the local nature museum when I was 3 for Earth Day. We grew up together, and by the time we moved away, the tree towered several feet above me. (FYI, Miracle-Gro works on pine trees. Don't tell my parents. ) I felt so incredibly peaceful just being near it and thinking how it had grown and changed. I can't bear to drive back to the home and see whether the tree is still there, or whether the tree haters who bought our home have had it "removed". Honestly, I'd end up knocking on the door and describing a series of anatomically incorrect acts to them if that happened. As it is, I know they have "removed" other trees that were my childhood friends, and they should be very grateful that I am 3000 miles away.

A memory that I've never known what to make of is this:

I went to a parochial school for kindergarten, just for the one year. Of course, we had morning and afternoon playtime. I don't remember what the girls did with their playtime, because I ignored them and spent most of it reading. But I know that the boys spent time making a series of intricately crafted Lego objects such as submarines and other boats. One day, a girl decided it would be fun to destroy one of the Lego toys, as a joke.

And so it began. War: Kindergarten Edition.

The boys quickly got clever, hiding the toys in every nook and cranny of the classroom. The girls got more clever, teaming together to find and destroy the figures. It was always gendered: boys vs. girls. There were no crossovers or Benedict Arnolds.

Stage II of the game moved outdoors. During afternoon playtime, which was outdoors, an elaborate game called "War" developed, in which the boys would take girls as "prisoners of war" (which they could only do under set circumstances) in retaliation for the atrocities committed on the Legos. To be taken a prisoner of war was to be required to stand against the playground fence in particular fashion, and not to move until and unless you could convince a (male) soldier to take pity on you and release you. The dynamics that emerged from the game were uncanny...

Girls would play together and not wander off alone, because there was safety in numbers; you could only be taken prisoner of war if alone (so the boys would always attempt to get the girls to scatter, e.g. by playing secondary games that required scattering such as hide and go seek.) Frankly, girls and boys alike also seemed to enjoy the post-incarceration drama of kindergarten-level flirting and flattery that resulted when a girl was trying to get a boy to release her. Some "savvy" girls managed to secure a promise of a boy's protection in advance as insurance - they could count on immediate release if "captured".

I think everyone had fun, and eventually the girls tired of destroying the Lego figures and a ceasefire resulted. I've just never known what to think about that game - the gendered dynamics mirroring some aspects of real life, the intense socialization that seemed to have crept in as early as 4-5 years old. I've always wondered how closely the teachers were watching and what they made of it all. Very weird.

grammar edit

[yovargas]

I have a terrible memory so usually can't remember details well at all but...did anybody ever get into those handclapping-with-with-rhymes type games? I used to do those with friends and remember some of them being really difficult and involved! Unfortunately, I can remember a thing about the specifics except that it was fun.

[TheEllipticalDisillusion]

I played "ghost in the graveyard" in my basement. The rules were that one person was the "ghost" and he or she had to hide. The other people then had to find the ghost. I think there was running back to base involved after finding the ghost, but I might be wrong. It's been a long time.

Another great game was "Ringaleevio". I played this one in Weeblos (pre-boy scouts). I remember there being a prison, and I believe the kids had to get to keep from getting caught and the fathers had to catch the kids by grabbing the neckerchief placed in your belt (like flag football). I think there was a chant for getting people out of prison. "Ringaleevio, ringaleevio, one, two, three" maybe.

There was always army soldiers, too. My bro and two of my friends would play army in one of my friend's basement. The basement became waterfalls, and desert terrain, and all sorts of jungles and such. We always fought imaginary badguys.

There was another game that I played that wasn't so much of a game with rules, rather just something our parents didn't want us to do. My friends T. and M. (sisters) had these cool basement stairs and a really long couch cushion which could fit the four of us (me, my bro, T. and M.). We rode it down many times much to our parents chagrin.

[Cerin]

We played Ringaleevio, too, and it was so much fun. I remember there were teams and two bases/prisons. Members of one team would try to catch members of the other and say 'Ringaleevio one two three, one two three, one two three' really fast before the other person could pull away; the caught person had to go under 'the' tree at the lower front end of the huge grassy rectangle we played in (where the grass was worn away in a big circle around it), or into the shrubbery area in the middle of the green and wait to be tagged and freed by a member of their team. I can still remember the exhausted satisfaction after a long game of Ringaleevio.


nel, that kindergarten war certainly sounds fascinating.

The experience that I still consider the pinnacle in my relationship with males came in the fourth grade. Our seating would be rotated, and I was put next to a dear boy whom everyone liked because he was so clever and funny and nice (who incidentally dated my 6th grade authograph book 'til the Mets win the World Series' because that seemed just as distant then as hell freezing over). We had a grand time as table mates. He was always disheveled, with his shirt untucking and rumpled hair. Well one time he was shifting around in his seat adjusting his underwear, and he glanced over at me and made a 'you know how uncomfortable it can be' comment before blushing and realizing what he'd said. He had forgotten I was a girl! A great triumph in my view, which I don't think I've ever experienced again.

edit: Although come to think of it, that is also part of the appeal of posting on a messageboard when you are not always sure whether the person whose idea you are replying to is male or female, so you are relating to someone free of that bias.

And then there was the time in 6th grade when a group of the boys walked me home past the usual spot where we would normally go our separate ways, all the way to my friend's apartment where I was stopping. They were growing more solemn and nervous the closer we got, none of the usual horsing around. Something was definitely going on, but what?! Well, finally we stood on the step saying goodbye and they could delay it no longer. S***** L***** stepped awkwardly forward with his hands behind his back, the others standing behind him shifting nervously on their feet. He cleared his throat a couple of times, and then said, 'We want you to know, we voted that you have the nicest legs. And Pat's are second.'



I said, 'I think Pat's are nicer, but thank you very much,' and went inside. I don't know what kind of reaction they expected, perhaps someone of our male members can explain it all to me now.


nel, the image of you and your sister waving brooms unpersuasively at the squirrels is adorable.

I loved trees, too; never in an individual sense but in an awareness of how their collective presence graced the predominantly concrete and brick environment.


I'm really enjoying reading these, thank you everyone for sharing.

[Erunáme]

Red Rover is a fun game. We'd play that in school....until a girl got hurt and the school banned it.

[Maria]

marbles

cats cradle

double dutch jump rope

hula hooping (I was a state finalist when I was 9!)

climbing trees

riding horses

I was into the handclapping with rhymes thing, too, yov, but I can't remember what it was called now, either!

I also built a small shack out in the woods out of fallen limbs and a piece of roofing tin. It was my place and I'd go out there and read for hours.

Speaking in Ubby Dubby: Did anyone else pick up this pseudo language from "The Electric Company" show? You put an "UB" sound before every vowel sound in a word. It's unintelligible to those who don't understand what you are doing. My family was quite fluent, and I eventually taught it to my kids. It drives even people who understand it crazy, though, when someone else gets stuck in ubby dubby mode and won't stop.

UbI dubon't ubunduberstuband whuby, thubough!

[TheEllipticalDisillusion]

"Butts Up" was another good game. Some called it "Wall Ball". You threw a ball against the wall, and if someone caught it before it hit the ground you got an out, or if you bobbled it (and it hit the ground) and you didn't make it to the wall before someone threw the ball at it, you also got an out. Three outs meant you had to go up on the wall and everyone got one shot to peg you. That game hurt.

"Battle Ball" was a game my dad invented during a trip with a the boy scouts. You get into a circle and you throw a ball around. If you dropped it, you got an out. Three outs and you were out of the circle. Play continued until there was one. There were a few rules about throws: they had to be reasonable or else the thrower got an out, and you couldn't throw to the person next to to you.

[Rowanberry]

Seems that games are rather similar all over the world. I remember playing various forms of hide-and-seek, and a ballgame like 7-Up, I just don't remember what we called it. Hopscotch and skipping rope are universal games.

Our variation of Red Rover was called the Black Man. One kid stood in the middle of the yard, the others on either side of it. The one in the middle shouted: "Who is afraid of the Black Man?" and all the others ran across the yard, with the "Black Man" in the middle trying to catch them. The ones that were caught stayed in the middle, and helped to catch the others, until everybody had been caught. A harder variation was that, the caught ones just stepped aside, and the Black Man had to catch everybody by themselves.

Another game was the Tar Pot. A big ring was drawn on the ground, and smaller rings around its outline, one ring less than the number of players. The players stood in the small rings, facing the middle of the big ring, except one who walked round the ring behind the backs of the others, and dropped a token - a stick, stone, or something similar - behind one of the others. That player had to pick up the token, and start running in the opposite direction to the "outsider", trying to get back to their own ring before the outsider could get there. If the "outsider" got there first, the one who lost their "home" became the next "outsider". If the one at whose feet the token was dropped didn't notice it until the "outsider" was back at his/her ring again, he/she "got thrown into the Tar Pot": he/she had to go to the middle of the big ring and stay there until someone else suffered the same fate. The "home" of that player was unused until he/she could get back to it.

Then, there was the Mirror game. One player was standing at a wall, and the others at the other side of the yard. The one at the wall turned their face against the wall, and the others started moving forward. Suddenly, the "mirror" turned back, and everybody had to freeze; if someone was caught moving, they had to go back to the starting point. The one who got to the "mirror" first won the game and became the next "mirror".

We also built huts of sticks and branches, cardboard, construction waste, and whatever material was available; in the winter, we built snow castles, and snowball fights weren't uncommon. Comics and TV shows also had some effect on our playing; at one time, there were quite a few superheroes of both genders running around with cardboard masks and cloaks made from old sheets or blankets.

[truehobbit]

Lovely thread, Cerin (and all who've replied)!

It's awesome how games seem the same all the world round.

I wasn't a very physical kid, so I hated most physical games. We played a version of "Red Rover", too, don't remember what it was called, I only remember I hated it.

We also played what Rowan describes as "Tar Pot" - it was called "Plumpssack" (drop-a-sack?), from the rhyme that was sung while the one person went round the circle. ("Don't turn round, drop-a-sack is about, if you turn or laugh you'll get a whipping" - the token, ususally a hanky, had to be dropped towards the end of the rhyme, I think.)
I didn't do well in this game either, but there was a fashion for playing it in my seventh year at school, and it was the only time in my school career that the whole class played a game together, and I rather liked that.
Another game that for a time united at least all the girls of our class was rope skipping. I even made some progress in that and mastered skipping with double ropes.

yov, yes, we played those clapping games, but I remember tiring of them pretty soon, because they were too simple - the fun was in the gross rhymes that went along with them.

Hopscotch was completely out during my childhood, it wasn't played at all except twice or thrice in kindergarten.

Instead, we played something I'd call in translation "elastic twist" - I wonder if anyone knows an English name? You need two or three meters of elastic band (the kind you sew into briefs), you tie the ends together and two kids stand with the band stretched between their legs while the others perform a series of jumps of increasing complication. When someone makes a mistake they have to take the place of one of the kids who hold the band.
There were different "levels", depending on how high the band was held, and I was proud if I mastered fourth level (below the butt), and never managed fifth (on the hip).
However, I used to do really well in "narrow" mode (you could also vary the width of the band - "narrow" was having the band around only one leg), which some of those who were skilled with the high and wide jumps never managed.

But I think "candy" is a far more pleasant subject. (Surprised it got lost so soon. )
Mmmh, spending a couple of dimes after school about every day on penny candy at the kiosk at the train station.
Anything that would sizzle in the mouth, anything that "challenged" you with a sour taste, and just all those absurd forms and shapes and colours that were just fun eating - and which today, if you try it, you find quite icky.

[yovargas]

yov, yes, we played those clapping games, but I remember tiring of them pretty soon, because they were too simple

Then you played the wrong ones - I remember spending weeks trying to master some of them!

[Maria]

And the fun of them was seeing how fast you could go. It's pretty awesome when you have a complex pattern going at high speed and/or with multiple people.

[yovargas]

Oh, yeah! There were four-person ones where the patterns criss-crossed and weaved through each other! Hee hee.

*need nostalgic smilie*

[Primula Baggins]

Hobby, we played that elastic-band game, too!

And kickball—like softball, except the ball was one of those big soft playground balls and you couldn't touch it with your hands.

And in the younger grades, flocks of us girls would play "horse," which was literally running around pretending to be a herd of wild horses. "Now there's a storm!" "Now we're running away from a wolf!" "Oh, no, a cliff!"

[Maria]

Oh, yeah! There were four-person ones where the patterns criss-crossed and weaved through each other!

I wonder why my kids never got into that? I taught them some, but they never did it at length like I did when I was a child. And it wasn't TV or video games, either. They didn't get much of that when they were of the age where they should have loved such things as clap games.

Actually, when my kids were young, they had long, long games of "pretend". They'd go on for hours where they'd basically "RP" and talk through a long involved story, each kid just saying what would occur to them, and then argue over the details, "And then a dragon came and swooped him away!" "No, no! A dragon came and offered him a ride!" "Yeah, and then they flew to the next mountain..."

They'd go on and on for hours that way. It was really cool, but it paralleled nothing in my childhood experience- so I really don't know how it felt to play that way.

I guess they are still doing that now with computer games, come to think of it!

[truehobbit]

Hobby, we played that elastic-band game, too!

Cool! And what was it called, Prim?

And in the younger grades, flocks of us girls would play "horse," which was literally running around pretending to be a herd of wild horses. "Now there's a storm!" "Now we're running away from a wolf!" "Oh, no, a cliff!"

The clapping game was only ever for two, not four.
But the routines are repetitive, so once you know the routine, it gets boring. (And I'd venture to say that this kind of game is something girls are better at anyway. )
But if the challenge for you was learning the routine, I wonder whether the rhymes you used were not that interesting? I think the main reason kids played it here was because you got to say gross things.

[Cerin]

Rowanberry, I remember a 'freeze' game as well. Those were fun. I seem to remember playing freeze tag was especially fun as it began to get dark, because it was easy to imagine you were in a lawn full of statues.

The Mirror game you mentioned reminded me of one involving baby and giant steps. The caller would stand at one location and direct the players to take a certain number and size of steps, and the participant would have to say 'May I?' If they forgot to say 'May I' or got the steps wrong, they would have to go back to the start. It seems to me the caller had the option of answering, 'No you may not.' Can that be right? It would basically a game of control for the caller. Maybe I'm imagining all this.

One thing that kept us endlessly busy was punchball; basically softball, but launching an ordinary rubber ball with an underhand volleyball type serve.

hobby, I have no memories at all of playing games at school. These all happened in the common of the enormous apartment complex I Iived in. I wonder what I did during recess at school? Perhaps they just let us socialize. I do remember I was never very good at jumping rope.

Your candy talk made me remember the sour candies, too. Those were wonderful! My sister and I always stopped at the 'candy store' (in truth, a little 'luncheonette' but we knew it only for the front area where the candy was sold) on the way home from church to pick up the Sunday paper and we could each buy one thing. One day about half way home, a woman stuck her head out of a second story apartment building and asked us if we could go buy her a paper and we could keep the change. Lollapalooza!!

Your 'sizzle in the mouth' reminded me of that powder in the long skinny straw-like wrappers, which you would open one end and pour it on your tongue. Very sweet and puckery!

I think my favorite sounding game so far is Prim's 'horse'. What a great game!

We would think of all sorts of imagination games to play in the shrubbery plantings at the four corners of the green, and occasionally would be scolded or chased out by the elderly residents, for trampling the spring bulbs.

This is also where the more daring children would play 'doctor'. This involved the pulling down of underpants. (I'm just recalling this as I write.)