Charlie and his cousins would play a game they called Cool plays. The game was a mix between baseball and football. There would be two teams of four, but if there was one bigger person (and generally there was always one kid who was a lot bigger than everyone else) then they would have a team of five and a team of three (the team of three would have the big kid). The team on offense would stand out a little past half the field length, while the defense would stand a third of the way to half field. One person on defense would stand a third of the way from the end zone with a bat, while one person on offense would stand a few feet away to pitch the ball. The special thing about Cool Plays is that the ball is a basketball-sized tennis ball. The pitcher would throw the ball with one bounce at the batter, and then the batter would try and hit the ball as far as he could. With a successful hit, the people on offense would try to get the ball to the end zone without being tackled by the batting team. If the offense made it to the touchdown, they got three points. However, if the defense tackled the person with the ball before they got to the end zone, the defense got a point. Each person on defense bats one time before they switch sides. The team who gets to ten points first wins.
Category Archives: Game
Baseball-Inspired Game
This is a game played by my informant in his childhood in the 1950s in Guadalupe, CA, inspired by baseball.
“We used to play this weird game where one guy would be a first baseman, and he’d stand on the sidewalk in front of our house. Down on kind of the far side, and then the other person would be on the front yard of the house next door, because there was no fence between the two. And then the guy who was the firstbaseman would throw a ground ball that was really hard to get and you would try to field it, and the firstbaseman would count to five. And if you got it back before the time he counted to five it was an out, and if you didn’t it was a hit. The assumption was you have to get the guy before he gets to first base, and he would get there in five seconds. Then friends would come over and visit, and they would play, and it just kind of spread. It’s a bit tough because you need two yards, and not everyone had access to that, so it was played most often at our house. Or you could just use a big yard but again most people didn’t have it, but yeah. I tried to teach it to Jacquelyn, but she didn’t like baseball.”
This game is a variation of baseball, in which the players don’t have access to a team or a bat with which to hit the ball. It kept the children playing with the ball and thinking about fielding, mimicking the fieldwork that perhaps one would use in a real game. Baseball was one of the main sports of choice in this town in my informant’s time, and thus it could fuel the children’s desires to play and keep them practicing early. It’s quite resourceful, and demonstrated the importance of the sport given how much of their leisure time they spent mimicking it.
Kings
This was received via Facebook message from my informant, and is a drinking game that she played with her friends in the UK during university.
“Kings… A deck of cards in arranged in a circle facedown with an empty cup in the middle. Before you play you decide what each card value is… Some are normally agreed upon, some vary per group…So like 2 is you (pick somebody to drink 1 fingers worth of their drink), three me, four floor (whoever touches the floor last drinks), 5 guys drink, 6 chicks drink, 7 heaven (point up), 8, 5 fingers of never have I ever, 9… There are lots of random ones like funny accents (must speak only in an accent til the next 9 is picked), 10 waterfall (first person drinks, next, etc, until the first stops, then next stops… Etc), j make a rule (can’t say “drink”, can’t point, can’t say first names… Etc. break one and you drink), and some other random ones for Q and A, king you put some of your drink in the middle cup. Last king picked has to drink the cup. That is pretty common across the UK, with varying rules for each number. Also fun if you can help design (so I don’t like accents and we normally don’t use the cup because its gross)”
This drinking game is very complicated and flexible, changing every time it is played and changing based on who is playing it. Essentially, each card drawn from a normal playing card deck has a rule assigned to it, and that rule must be obeyed. If that rule is broken, the person who breaks it must take a drink. This game is popular because it is highly adaptable, can be used with any type of alcohol, and only really requires alcohol and a deck of playing cards. It’s also easily customizable, as the players can assign their own rules to each card to incorporate inside jokes. This kind of drinking game is a bonding experience, as the players will get increasingly drunk together while playing a potentially embarrassing game in which alliances are often formed between players against others. It isn’t one generally played with strangers, as other drinking games such as beer pong can be; rather, it is meant to cement already existing friendship ties among a medium sized group.
It can also include other drinking games within it, such as the reference of ‘five fingers of never have I ever’, which is a drinking game in which one person says that they have never done something, and those in the group that have done it take a drink (or put a finger down, as in this case where they would each have five fingers up).
Psychic Cat’s Cradle
When my informant was in elementary school, the girls would play a form of cat’s cradle. They would take a circular string and form a cat’s cradle, then ask a girl to choose two fingers on either hand. When she removed those two fingers, the resulting formation of the strings would indicate whether the selector would have a male or female child in the future. According to the informant, the outcome was always male because the resulting string configuration resembled a penis. It was considered a scandalous activity.
There’s a lot at play in this kind of children’s game. Firstly, it incorporates a game popular among young girls. Secondly, it attempts to predict the future, as children like to think about what will happen when they are older. Thirdly, there are stirrings of homeopathic magic, as the resulting configuration of strings resemble a specific genital formation of a male or female, and because the girl selected which fingers to pull to create that formation, it is connected to her in some way. The emphasis on a male result also engages in tabooistic discourse, as kids aren’t supposed to think about or talk about sex, or the genitalia of the opposite sex. Thus, this would be a very exciting game to play as it incorporates a lot of themes common in childhood.
Miss Lucy
This is a children’s hand-clapping game that my informant played when she was in elementary school with other girls. The hand motion is similar to paddy cake; the participants’ right hands meet, then each participant claps their own hands together, then the left hands meet, and then it repeats. Some specific lines go with specific movements: at “operator”, the participants put their hand up by their ear with their thumb up and pinky sticking out, mimicking a telephone; at “dark dark dark”, there is just continual clapping with the word for emphasis; at “bra bra bra”, it is the same thing as “dark dark dark”.
“Miss Lucy had a steamboat, the steamboat had a bell
Miss Lucy went to heaven, and the steamboat went to
Hello operator, please give me number nine
And if you disconnect me, I will chop off your
Behind the ‘fridgerator, there laid a piece of glass
Miss Lucy sat upon it, and it went right up her
Ask me no more questions, please tell me no more lies
The boys are in the bathroom, zipping up their
Flies are in the meadow, the bees are in the park
Miss Lucy and her boyfriend are kissing in the
D-A-R-K
D-A-R-K
D-A-R-K
Dark dark dark!
The dark is like the movies, the movie’s like a show
The show is like a tv show, and that is all I know
I know I know my ma, I know I know my pa
I know I know my sister with the 80 meter, 80 meter bra bra bra!”
This particular clapping game song has very simple hand movements, but the text is very interesting. It engages in a lot of scandalous tabooistic discourse, and is cleverly constructed so as not to actually say any inappropriate words. For example, at “Miss Lucy went to heaven, the steamboat went to/Hello operator”, the word “hello” serves both as the greeting and as the word “hell”, where the steamboat presumably went. However, because it’s inappropriate for primary aged children (generally female) to be talking about such things as boys zipping up their flies, it’s recited in a way where they’re not technically saying anything inappropriate, though they do mean it. This tabooistic discourse is indicative of the kind of things that children at this age would be wondering about, or hearing about, and it is often passed among children and taught by friends in older grades or older siblings, continuing its tradition.