Category Archives: Game

One Frog

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Entrepreneur
Residence: Houston, TX
Performance Date: March 16, 2017
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

One Frog

 

Subject: Game

 

Informant: Tye Griffith

 

Background Information/Context: The following is a description from Tye of a game called “One Frog” that she used to play with her friends at recess when she was young.

 

“My friends and I used to play this game at recess. It was around when I was at R.O.B. [her Elementary School], I think. We called it ‘One Frog,’ and you would get a big group of people and all stand in a circle, and you would all start this pattern: [as she demonstrates] so, first you pat your knees, then clap, then you snap your right hand, and then you snap your left hand. So that’s the pattern.

 

And then the first person starts, and they go, ‘one frog.’ And then it goes clockwise, so the person to your left would go, ‘two eyes,’ and then the next person would go, ‘four legs,’ and then the next person says, ‘ker-plunk.’

 

And then the next person to the left starts it again but says, ‘two frogs,’ and then the person to their left would say, ‘four eyes,’ yadda yadda yadda. So—wait do you get it? [I say yes.] So that all goes on, and you have to keep going at the rhythm that your doing the clapping, snapping pattern. And then if someone messes up or gets off rhythm or, like, can’t think of the next number or something, they’re out.”

 

Conclusion: I was surprised when she started telling me about the game, because I know the same one, but in a different context. I’m a theatre major, and we use this game as a warm up activity for a show that I’m in right now. I was also surprised that the way Tye described it seems exactly the same as the version I know for theatre. I was surprised even more though that Tye played it as a childhood game because my whole cast, myself included, really struggles with it. If college students find it difficult to think of the next thing to say so quickly, then I can’t imagine how young children who have barely learned simple multiplication could figure it out, or even think of it as a fun game.

Bloody Mary School Bathroom

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Houston, TX
Performance Date: April 25, 2017
Primary Language: English

Bloody Mary

 

Subject: Ritual/Game

 

Informant: Lauren Herring

 

Background Information: Bloody Mary is a common legend in childhood that involves a sort of game of going into a bathroom, standing in front of a mirror, and saying “Bloody Mary.” As the legend goes, if you do this, some figure will appear in the mirror. I asked Lauren about her take on it, and the following was her response.

 

Lauren: That game was so scary. I was always way too scared to do it alone. But everyone said the upstairs girls’ bathroom in Elementary school was haunted by [Bloody Mary].

 

Me: Did you ever see her?

 

Lauren: No, not really, but I did have one really scary experience with it.

 

Me: What was that?

 

Lauren: Ok, so it was around the third grade, and the story was, like, huge. Like, everyone was talking about Bloody Mary in the girls’ restroom. I think it started because there was some story about a girl a year ahead of us who actually conjured Bloody Mary in that bathroom, and then everyone said she haunted it ever since then.

 

So, I raise my hand and ask to go to the bathroom one day in class, and I go, and as soon as I wash my hands, the power goes out and the paper towel machine starts ejecting the paper towels. Like, not as in they were crazy-possessed, but they were those automatic ones, and they just all started rolling out the whole rolls of paper towels.

 

And so obviously I’m freaked out, I’m like in third grade. And I run to the door, but it’s locked. And then I start really freaking out, and all I can think about is Bloody Mary.

 

It turns out that the school was having a lockdown, so that’s why the lights went out and the doors automatically locked. But it was so scary. Like I really thought I was going to die. Also why would the school have it so that the bathroom doors locked? Oh, and it didn’t explain the paper towel thing.

 

Conclusion: I went to school with Lauren, so I knew about the Bloody Mary in the girls’ restroom story, but I had never actually heard her whole story about her experience with it. It is interesting to note that, if taken in the context of a ghost story, Lauren’s experience didn’t fit exactly right with the Bloody Mary ritual. The way I’ve heard it, in the ritual, one is supposed to stand in front of the mirror and say “Bloody Mary” three times while spinning in a circle three times with your eyes closed. When you open your eyes, you are supposed to see Bloody Mary in the mirror where your body is supposed to be. But in Lauren’s story, she never actually summoned Bloody Mary. Rather, it came to her when she did not expect it.

 

For more versions of this legend and different beliefs about Bloody Mary herself and how she is summoned, see: (Dundes, Alan. Bloody Mary in the mirror: essays in psychoanalytic folkloristics. Jackson: U Press of Mississippi, 2002. Print.)

“What-a To Do”

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Houston, TX
Performance Date: April 5, 2017
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

Subject: Game, Song

 

Informant: Natalie Thurman

 

Background Information/Context: Natalie, like me, is a theatre major. I asked her if she had any theatre games or warm-up activities at school, and she thought of this one:

 

“There was this theatre exercise we used to do at my high school called ‘what-a to do.’ We would just do it before rehearsal or before shows to warm up our voices and articulation. It was just like a little song that went:

 

What a to do to die today

At a minute or two to two

A thing distinctly hard to say

But harder still to do

For they’ll beat a tattoo at two to two

A rat-a-ta-rat-a-ta-ta-ta-ta-too

And the dragon will come

When he hears the drum

At a minute or two to two today

At a minute or two to two.

 

I had never really thought about what we were saying because we focused so much on our articulation, because that’s what we used it for—as a warm-up. But when I got to college, we used it in one of my acting classes in a completely different context. We had to build a story around it. And we talked about the text in class and, like, what it was actually saying. It’s a children’s nursery rhyme, but it’s one of those nursery rhymes that’s like super dark, like ring around the rosy.

 

It’s about a soldier going to war for the first time, and at the beginning of it, it takes place on the battlefield, right before the two armies are about to charge at each other, and he’s really scared and knows he’s going to die in a few minutes—‘at a minute or two to 2:00. And then the ‘tattoo’ is a drum that the drummer person beats, signaling the charge forward. And then right after that is the climax of it. And then when it ends, the soldier looks around him and sees that everyone has died but him, and he’s the last one standing. But like all of his friends are dead around him. Wow, that was really dark, sorry! But yeah, really different from using it as a warm-up.

 

Song Wars

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: San Luis Obispo, CA
Performance Date: 4/15/17
Primary Language: English

SP is a current student at California Polytechnic University at San Luis Obispo where she studies Geography and Anthropology. She is originally from Seattle, WA and grew up in a small town nearby. She grew up in a typical American middle-class family. She attended a public high school in Washington where she grew up with a sister and her mother and father. She has a background of being half-Mexican and half Irish/Italian that has in some ways heavily influenced her beliefs as well as her religious beliefs rooted in Catholicism.

What is something, perhaps a game or activity, you participate in or know of that you believe is lesser known?

SP: Well me and my family learned this game from some family friends that we always play together and have a fun time with. It is called ‘song wars’ and it is a game where you pick categories of music and each person plays a song that they feel best fits their category and the person who chose the category judges whose song is best. The only rules are that you cannot replay someone else’s song and that no one truly wins. You play in multiple rounds but no one keeps track or score of whose song is the best because sometimes it is too hard to choose or sometimes we just decide to play for fun and not say whose is the best. They game is not a game that is about strategy or smarts, its more about listening and enjoying others music no matter what different tastes you have.

How did you come up with this game and why do you think you enjoy playing it together so much?

SP: I think my friends came up with it when they were at their cabin in the winter and were bored and had nothing to do so they came up with the game to pass time and make sure everyone got a chance to hear the kind of music they liked. The game helps when you have all kinds of generations of kids, parents, and grandparents with you who can choose the music of their taste that they think the others will also enjoy. The game makes you laugh and cry and just have an enjoyable time together. Every time you play it you get the chance to get to know each other better and just enjoy each other company. Music is a way to connect people together and what a better time than with family or friends? I think that is why we enjoy playing it so much. It is not about a competition or who is the best it is just about setting the mood and creating memories together.

Analysis:

This game is one I have never heard of but I find it is almost perplexing that it isn’t a popular game yet or patented somewhere. Music is a huge interest of all generations and is a valuable tool of unification or experience when you are with others. I find this game interesting because it is played mostly amongst family and across many generations. The game has no clear objective or strategy other than to have an enjoyable time and relax which is what makes it unique. It has not aspect of competition which is at the core of many games no matter how many players are involved. I think if there was a game similar to this that were to get exposure it would because very popular and modernized quickly.

Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear

Nationality: Hispanic
Age: 6
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 4/17/17
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

This is a skipping rhyme told by a male second grader. As he was singing it some of her peers joined in the song.

“Teddy bear, teddy bear, turn around. Teddy bear, teddy bear, touch the ground. Teddy bear, teddy bear, tie your shoes. Teddy bear, teddy bear, get out of school.”

The skipping rhyme was shared by one student within a small group of second graders and myself. The rhyme associates childish themes, such as the teddy bear and tying shoe laces, with more controversial ideas such as ditching school, or perhaps dropping out. This is an oikotype of Teddy Bear skipping song. Upon further research, I found a different rendition of the song that replaced “get out of school” with “say your prayers.” The latter version was a nursery rhyme that may have been passed down my parents and then modified by the children. The children from whom I collected this rhyme couldn’t remember where that had learned the rhyme, therefore it is unclear whether they changed the lyric themselves or had heard it in that form. Either way, the line “get out of school” reflects children’s frustration with the education system. The skipping rhyme was well known by most of the second graders in the classroom, therefore the negative connotation of school was widely spread amongst them and possible others in different grades or classrooms.

For another version of this song, see 201 Nursery Rhymes & Sing-Along Songs for Kids by Jennifer M. Edwards.