Category Archives: Game

Stickball

Nationality: American
Age: 79
Occupation: Retired
Residence: Israel
Performance Date: April 2022
Primary Language: English
Language: Hebrew

Background:

Stickball was a popular game in mid-20th century New York City. The game was played by children in the streets, using whatever resources they could find. The informant, who spent most of his childhood in the New York City in the 1970’s would play the game with the neighborhood kids.

Context:

This piece was related to me over a Zoom call

Main Piece:

MK: Stickball was my least favorite. I had terrible hand-eye coordination and could never get contact with the ball.”

Me: It’s akin to baseball, right?

MK: Yea, it’s a poor man’s baseball. You’ve probably seen it played in those movies about the mob and the mafia – like the Bronx tale. The church they used in that movie was the church my family went to. We played stickball outside. There was a batter and a pitcher and a bunch of kids playing in the street. We used trashcans or whatever we could find as bases, and a little pink rubber ball. They made stick ball bats, but most kids just used a broom handle – a skinny broom handle. 

Me: It had all the same rules as baseball?

MK: It was supposed to, pretty much. Sometimes we only had two bases. We would use boxes, trashcans, manhole covers. There was one kid named Davie who was miniscule – underdeveloped. No one liked him because he talked funny and we’d only let him play if he agreed to be a base. Kids would hit and run and as they ran by him they’d slap him across the gut real hard. But it was our version of baseball. When we’d get home from school everyone would drop their books off, say hello to their mother, and run down into the street to play. There was a pitcher and an outfield of a few guys. We had two team captains and they’d take the bat and one would put their hand around the bottom. Then the other captain put their hand on top of the other captain’s hand and they’d alternate up until the top of the bat. Whoever had the last hand on top of the bat got to pick their team first.

Me: Were there cars bustling down the streets you played on?

MK: Oh yea. We had lookouts and whenever a car was headed toward us, the lookout would scream, ‘Car! Car!” and everyone would grab the bases and run out of the way. As soon as the car had passed we’d bring everything back and get right back into the game.

Me: How long did you play for?

MK: We usually played five or six innings in a game because a lot of kids wanted to play, so we couldn’t play a full game of nine like baseball. But we’d play game after game, until enough of our mothers called us home and there weren’t enough kids left to play. We’d sometimes lose too many balls also and wouldn’t have one to play with. That was always devastating. Like the end of the world devastating.

Thoughts:

Stickball is a game that I’ve seen only in cinema or read about in literature. The game was probably a weekly or daily tradition where many friendships and bonds were formed and cemented. It was probably a proving ground for many kids, as most of the time, the kids who are dominant in athletics get the respect and admiration of the other kids. Although it was just a game in the street, the kids probably played with a grave seriousness and competitive nature. One thing I found interesting was the guerilla-style that stickball was played in. The informant remarked that they used whatever they could find as bases, sometimes not even having four bases to play with. It was a tradition that was sacred amongst kids, and it must be played at all costs.

Ringolevio

Nationality: American
Age: 59
Occupation: Retired
Residence: New Jersey
Performance Date: April 18, 2022
Primary Language: English

Background:

The informant is my friend’s mother who grew up in the Bronx in the 1960s. Ringolevio is a game that they’d play in the streets outside their houses, or in the abandoned lots throughout the neighborhood. The informant told me that Ringolevio was her favorite game growing up as a kid.

Context:

My friend’s mother told me about Ringolevio over a phone call. We were discussing much of her early life growing up in mid 20th century New York City, and she spoke with particular fondness as she reminisced about Ringolevio.

Main Piece:

KB: Ringolevio was my favorite game. We’d play for hours with all the kids on my street. One house was torn down and there was a big, abandoned lot that we would play it in.

Me: So what were the rules?

KB: Well, there was a chasing team and a running team, like cops and robbers. One area would be marked off up against the fence and that would be the jail. The runners would run around the lot while the chasers would chase after them, trying to catch them. If you caught a runner – you had to try and grab them, usually their arm – you would hold on and yell “Ringolevio, coca-cola, 1-2-3, 1-2-3.” If you could say that while holding on to the runner – the runner would try and break free from your grasp – the runner would have to go to the jail area and be locked up. When someone was in jail, one of their teammates could free them by running into the jail area and tagging their jailed teammate without getting caught.

Me: And the girls played with the boys?

KB: Oh of course, everyone played everything together. We all played for hours, and it was quite rough a lot of the time. The boys were really quite rough with the girls and especially each other. A loooot of bruises and scrapes.

Me: How many kids were on one team?

KB: However many we had as long as there was even numbers.

Me: Were there ever any fights?

KB: No, not a lot of fist fights. The boys would get into arguments and things could get out of hand, but really never any fist fights that I can remember. We mostly played ringolevio at the age before boys started getting into scraps and things like that.

Thoughts:

Although we were speaking on the phone, I could deduce that the informant was thoroughly enjoying the flood of memories that was rushing back to her as she described her favorite childhood game. What stands out to me is the lack of tools or objects needed to play Ringolevio. All that is needed is the kids and some open space – no bats, balls, or nets. The prospect of boredom spurs immense creativity in kids looking to avoid it at all costs. Games like Ringolevio are customs that unify the bonds and relationships between kids. Ringolevio also appeared to offer a chance to young kids to win the praise and admiration of their friends, as whoever was the fastest and the best at the game was sure to gain the respect of the other children.

Lintu lentää, liitää laataa, kiitää kaataa, hocus pocus pocus!

Nationality: American
Age: 65
Occupation: Writer
Residence: Seattle, Washington
Performance Date: April 28, 2022
Primary Language: English
Language: Finnish

Informant Background:

My informant, KL, is my mother. Her father was born in Finland and immigrated to the United States as a young adult. She described this nursery rhyme that she remembers from growing up and then passed down to my sister and myself when we were very young.

Piece of Folklore:

Original Wording: “Lintu lentää, liitää laataa, kiitää kaataa, hocus pocus pocus!”

Translation: bird flying, soaring high, diving down, hocus pocus pocus!

This short lullaby would be accompanied with hand movements mimicking a bird flying overhead for the first half (the part spoken in Finnish), followed by the hand “diving down” to snatch the child as a meal, i.e. tickle the child’s stomach or chin during “hocus pocus pocus.”

Analysis:

            I remember giggling to this often as a child. In addition to the tickling itself, as the lullaby was repeated over the duration of my early childhood, there was an aspect of anticipation – I knew the tickling was coming, and so I would burst into laughter before I was even touched. From a larger cultural standpoint, the lyrics of the lullaby reflect a naturalistic element of Finnish culture. There is a concept of the Sielulintu, or soul-bird, which was thought to deliver souls to children when they were born and carry them away when they died, which may be related to this tradition.

The Warid Game

MP is a 47 year old Syrian immigrant from Damascus, Syria. She is an accountant and has lived in the U.S. for almost 30 years now. She explains a game that she would play as a little girl with her friends in Syria. She said girls from 1st to 6th grade would play this game and they called it “warid” which is rose in Arabic. 

MP: You stand in a circle with your friends. You can play with two people, but we liked it better when we would play in big groups. So, you and your friends all make a circle and hold hands and you chant “sakir warda” and we would all run into the circle. Then, we chant “iftah warda” and run back to our original spots. It is a very simple game, but we would just have fun holding hands, and chanting, and running together.

Context: This was told to me in an in-person conversation, and I was able to perform it.

Thoughts:

Although it is such a simple game I can see how much fun it would be to 5-12 year old girls. The chant “sakir warda” means close the rose, and the chant “iftah warda” means open the rose. In Syria, gender norms are still heavily adhered to so I could see why this would be such a popular game for little girls, especially around 40 years ago. It is feminine in all aspects and my informant told me it was typically played at school and at parties. 

The Salata Game

MP is a 47 year old Syrian immigrant from Damascus, Syria. She is an accountant and has lived in the U.S. for almost 30 years now. She explains a game that she would play as a little girl with her friends in Syria. She said girls from 1st to 6th grade would play this game and it was called “salata.”

MP: 

One person would start the chant: “Salata, salata, tabal-naha, kushi fiya illa bandora.”

Translation: Salad, salad, we made it, everything is in it except tomatoes.

Then, the next person would reply by chanting: “Bandora fiha, wa kulshi fiha illa khass ma fia.”

Translation: It has tomato in, and everything in it except lettuce is not in it.

And the game would continue with each person chanting about a different vegetable to add to their salad. 

Context: This was told to me in an in-person conversation, and I was able to perform it.

Thoughts:

Although my informant played this in Syria as a little girl, it was also a game that I used to play in America. It was used in my Arabic school to teach us what vegetables are called in Arabic in a fun way. When my informant told me about this game, I was surprised that it was one that I already knew and have played before. This game was played by both boys and girls, however my informant told me that when they would play it in Syria, typically the boys played with the boys and the girls played with the girls. When I would play it years later in my Arabic class, boys and girls all played together.