Intro

The following is a folk game that I used to play with my friend back in high school. We both went to school together in Oregon, from middle school through high school so I have known him for a while. The following are the rules of how to play the infamous finger circle game. My friend is still at home so I asked him to retell the story while I recorded him. This is a direct transcribed script of what was said in the story, with the various “umm’s” and “uhh’s” omitted. 

The Game

“Alright, what exactly do you want me to talk about? Like just the game itself?”

Me: Ya, just say how the game actually works and where you learned it and stuff.

“Ohh, okay, so the classic finger circle game is something I learned… hmm, probably before high school I think, I’m not really sure. It’s just kinda one of those games you remember but you never know who did it to you first. So how it works is, you make a circle with your fingers… the pointer finger and thumb. And then you have your other three fingers, they stick out like this, *does it*. Oh it’s like the dumb thing that people always claim is like the symbol for white power. No people. It’s the finger circle game, stop ruining it. We don’t want another Pepe the Frog. Okay right, back to the game. So you make your hand like this right, and then you put it below your waist like this, *does, and then goes to punch me*. Ha! Categorically outplayed nerd.” 

Me: Bruh stop, *laughing*, can you just explain what happens. They can’t see you this is just, it’s just the audio, not a video.

“Okay, so what you people need to hear, I put the finger circle down here *tries to get me again*, [name] looked at it, and so I legally now get to punch him.”

Me: Okay but say more, like what are the actual rules.

“Oh my, okay, so I think it’s different based on who you play it with and who they got it from, but the way I play is you make the finger circle and then you put it below your waist and if another person looks at it then you get to punch them. Other people might have it be like, below the knee or something but that’s dumb. Then of course there’s the variant rules, but I don’t know if they’re ready for that.”

Me: Dude just tell me. 

“Okay okay, so then there’s this other rule that if the person that sees it can stick their finger in the hole before the other person gets rid of it, then that person gets to punch the first person twice. Then, ya I know, so many rules, then, if the original finger circle guy can close his fingers around the second’s finger, that guy gets to punch the victim three times. Let’s see… I don’t think I’m missing anything. There aren’t really winners, but if you can outsmart the person into looking at it then you won, like I just did, ha loser. Is that all I need to say?”

Me: Yup, that’s good.

Analysis

This piece of folklore was something that I knew about originally, but hearing it from another person was also interesting. My friend talked about the different versions of the game, which I knew, but we had always just played the one way: i.e. below the waist and including the variant rules. Also, when I say rules, they aren’t written rules. They are just kind of passed along rules to how the game should work. Some people online may have written the rules but we don’t, and I’m pretty sure most people aren’t, googling the rules to the finger circle game. Mostly, because it doesn’t matter that much, but also because each group kind of has their own rules that they play by.

Intro

The following is a game called kick the can from my grandpa that played the game when he was a kid. My grandpa grew up in the northwest United States and went into the Navy when he was 18. He is now 74 years old. I was told about this game when asking about any possible stories that his family had when he was growing up, as he had lived an exciting life, doing many crazy things with his time. He now enjoys fishing and gold mining. I recorded him via phone call. This is a direct transcribed script of what was said in the story, with the various “umm’s” and “uhh’s” omitted.

The Game

“Oh we used to play kick the can all the time. There was rules for it. There was one person who was the can-master, you might say. And in order to be safe, there were another four or five guys and one who was the can-master, and the other four or five guys would go hide. And then the can-master had to go out and find these four or five guys. Well, if he was looking for one person and someone else came up and kicked the can then that guy was safe. And so he would set the can back up and he would go back out. And if he was able to find somebody then come back to the can and he kicked the can then that other guy would now be the can-master. We also would play stickball in the alley, we didn’t have baseball bats. We had some old baseballs though. 

There was a lot of kids in my neighborhood. We were all the generation after the war. And so most of the women got pregnant and had a lot of kids. So we had a lot of kids around there and we would play together. We had another game we would play and that, these alleys were like three blocks and they weren’t paved or anything. We would pull up the dirt clods and throw em at each other, we had wars. One of the rules was that we had to make sure that when you’re making the dirt balls, you had to make sure that there was no rocks or glass or anything like that. And so this one afternoon, we paired off, there must’ve been six or seven to a side, and we’d make all these dirt clumps and we’d rush at one another and throw them suckerrs at each other. There was this kid about my age, his name was [name], he rolled this dirt clod up and threw it at me and it hit me right in the head, whack, and right when it hit me I knew there was something in there. So I went running after him. I was gonna punch his lights out. I went running after him and got about five feet from him and blood started dripping down my forehead and I put my hand up to my forehead and there was blood. And I started running and yelling. I was like, ‘mom look at my head!’ And I had to go to the hospital and get stitches in my head. So we didn’t play that game that much anymore.”

Analysis

I always knew the game kick the can growing up and knew that people actually played it. But for me it was also just that game that parents always told their kids to go play but nobody actually knew what it was. Hearing my grandpa tell me that he played it as a kid was cool because it sounds like it was just a general game that kids around the country all knew how to play. I’m not sure how different or similar his rules of the game are to the rest of the world, but I would imagine that they aren’t too far off, the name of the game is like one of the only rules after all. 

The second half of the piece is not as much folk games as it is just things kids did outside back in the day. I find it interesting how much fun kids were able to have with so little stuff. I mean, they threw dirt around in the roads. Nowadays I can’t drive in my neighborhood without seeing a children at play sign. Where did all the fun of just making up your own games go?