Childhood Game

The Pony Game – Seattle

In this game, you stand in a circle around a person. Everyone claps and sings the following while the person “gallops” around the circle:

“Here I go, on a pony.

Riding on a big fat pony.

Here I go on a pony.

All around the circle”

Then the person stops where he or she is standing and turns to the person nearest him or her. The two, facing each other, start dancing together and singing, “Front-to-front-to-front, my baby” (shimmy movement), “Back-to-back-to-back, my baby,” “Side-to-side-to-side my baby. All around the circle.” During this last line of the song, the two partners switch so the new person is galloping around the circle now. The songs starts over from the beginning.

According to Abby, this game is played when you’re bored and have nothing else to do. Also, it is a good way to keep kids occupied, she said. Originally, she learned the game at a choir camp, and her choir group in high school continued it ever since. “I love this game,” she said. “It’s excellent.”

To me, this game sounds suspiciously like one of those “get to know each other games” one plays at camps, leadership conferences, orientations, etc. However, Abby told me this isn’t so, and that it’s more just for fun and to keep people occupied.

I suppose the variation possible in the dancing and speed of the singing keeps its participants occupied for a very long time. If this is its purpose, I can see why now, in hindsight, games like these were always so popular in my elementary schools. Perhaps for a those years, my teachers were just trying to control us. Too bad, they didn’t know the Pony Game!

Childhood Game

Stoopball

My dad learned this game in the projects of Brooklyn, NY when he was six years old. A rubber ball, like a Spalding, would be thrown against the stairs of a house, or the stoop. It would hit two of the steps and come back. The player would try to throw it as hard as he or she could so it would fly up and out into the street. If it is caught on the fly, it was out. If it is dropped, it was a single, double, or triple out depending on how far away the drop was.

This game was usually played with about two or three kids. Although he played often, this wasn’t my dad’s favorite game. He mentioned that Stoopball, as well as something called Slapball were variants of baseball.

This game is a classic example of the ingenuity of children when resources are scarce in terms of entertainment. Typical of many child games, almost no equipment is required and the surroundings are used as part of the game.

The Stoopball of my generation was Handball—where a rubber ball is thrown against a garage door or wall. Like Stoopball, there are many creative rules that kept us amused for hours. The similarity of these two games in strategy and execution shows that childhood games can easily spread across a continent and last generations while retaining similar characteristics.  The difference of the environment (stoop of New York vs. garage in California) attests to how these games adapt to the places they are played in.

Childhood Game

Ringolevio 123

In this game, two teams are formed and the teammates would spread out around the neighborhood. You would form two teams and people would spread out around the neighborhood. The point was to search for members of the opposite team. One team was the catcher team and the other was the prey. If you spot another person on the opposite team, you would have to catch and hold him or her and say, “Ringolevio 123-123-123.” If the prey was able to get away before then, he or she wouldn’t be captured, but if the catcher held him or her long enough to say the phrase, he or she was captured.

My dad said the faster guys would run toward the catchers, who would grab them, but the guys would break through—so the same people would always win. Because of this, you would always try to get them on your team.

My dad learned this game in Brooklyn, New York. It could be played anywhere, in the streets, for example. Usually, there were 8-10 people per team, usually ranging form 8 years-old to early teens. When asked his reaction to the game, my dad said it was a lot of fun and one of his favorite games.

Personally, I think this game combines both Hide-and-Seek and Tag—two of my generation’s favorite games. Once again, it appears childhood games tend to spread across distance and generations. Either this, or the same kinds of games just naturally appeal to children.

When I looked up Ringolevio on the Internet, Wikipedia stated that it originated during the Great Depression in New York, which makes sense given my dad’s age and location. Apparently, it is also known as Relievio in Boston, Canada, and Ireland.

Annotation: Grogan, Emmett. Ringolevio: A Life Played for Keeps. New York: Citadel: 1990, 334

“Top Topeh Khameer”

khameer topeh top

dough pat pat

Pat the dough

paneer poreh sheesheh

cheese full of jar

A jar full of cheese

? ballah kee dasteh

? up who hand of

Whose hand is raised?

Bonnie dasteh

Bonnie hand of

(Reply) Bonnie’s hand

This game is played by having someone turn his or her back to everybody else so that he or she cannot see them.  The other people begin patting that person’s back with one hand while saying the rhyme.  When they get to the part, “Whose hand is raised?” one player raises his or her hand up and the person with the back turned must guess whose hand it is.  They continue to do this until one person is left and he or she is the winner.

My mother taught me this game when I was younger and she said she learned it from her own childhood.  She says that all of the kids at school in Iran would play this game during their breaks for fun.  There is no real significance as to why there is “dough” or a “jar of cheese”; they just make the game more interesting by adding in a rhyme.