Tag Archives: Game

Ring Alivio: Italian Tag

Nationality: Italian- American and "mix of other ethnicities"
Age: 58
Occupation: General Surgeon
Residence: San Diego, California
Performance Date: 3.23.12
Primary Language: English

Ring Alivio (pronounced by informant as both Ring Uh-Leevy-oh and Ring Leevy-oh) is an Italian version of tag where one person is It and everyone else is at base, which is a safe area. Running out of the safe area means you can get caught by the person who’s It, but you leave the safe area to show you can run out and back to base without getting captured. Once captured, you go to jail, which you cannot leave. Once everyone is captured and taken to jail a new person becomes It.

Ring Alivio described verbatim by informant:

“Ring Alivio: a game of tag. One guy was It and uh anytime a person left the base which was a safe area he had to capture that person in the jail and once he captured everybody uh a new person became It so we used to play it all the time on the playground um because we didn’t have any other games we could really play we didn’t have balls. It was really interesting because most of my friends were Irish American but we still called it Ring Alivio. We learned it from some of the older Italian kids.

We played it from kindergarten through the sixth grade, because, again you know it was the only game we could play on the playground because it was just a big concrete parking lot… at Catholic school. (disruptive dog howl) We had a lot of fun. I remember uh [my mother] was very upset with me because in my first year of Catholic School I tore my I tore five pair of pants because the uh um you know I played, I played and sometimes the game got a little rough and playing on concrete all the time if ever you fell and scraped your knees you’d scrape the knees right off your pants so she was kind of upset with me after that first year. And, well, I had a uh I once got slammed into a bus. So.

The parked buses were, are base, and so you hold your hand against the bus um and then you run out and you run back to the bus and one day I ran back to the bus but the guy who was chasing me didn’t stop and he just ran up my back and slammed my head into the bus, the side of the bus, and I busted all my teeth.

Once you leave base you can get caught… you leave base because you’re tough you’re provocative. Who wants to stay in at home? You want to run (cooking wife interjects and he repeats what she says) You want to be free. (dog howls) You wanted to prove to the guy who was It that you were faster, that he couldn’t catch you.”

The first thing that comes to my mind is that “ali,” in Italian, means wings, which allow one to fly and be free, though the informant was not sure as to how Ring Alivio should be spelled. The theme of purposefully leaving a safe place to be wild and free, knowing the threat of getting caught and being thrown into jail, appears to be characteristic of the age group. From 6/7 to 12/13 when this game is played, kids lose their child-like “innocence” as they become aware of their choices and begin making deliberate actions. The person who’s It captures them and puts them in jail, where they are stripped of such freedoms, which perhaps holds a dramatic resemblance to punishments by parents, teachers, or other authority figures. That this game was wildly popular at a Catholic School in the 1960’s is no surprise, with the rigidity of the belief system and inherent strictness surrounding all behavior at such an institution. Running free in the game of Ring Alivio is a benign way of resisting this oppressive feeling, all the while leveling the natural competition between kids during that time when social hierarchy becomes more and more apparent.

Drinking Game

Nationality: Caucasian
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Santa Barbara, CA
Performance Date: 4/5/12
Primary Language: English

Snappa

Played with: 4 people, one glass of beer each, two pieces of die

Rules: go until one team gets to 7 points. each glass is put a hand with apart from edge of table. Each person must say “snappa” before they throw the dice. You must throw one die up in the air and try to get it in the cup or at least hit the top of the cup; if it does, the other team must drink one third of their beer. The other team must also drink if the die lands in the center of the table and the other team does not catch it with one hand before it falls off of the table. Your team must drink if the same happens to you or you do not catch the die OR if you throw the die on your turn and miss the table completely. If you throw the die on your turn and it hits the ceiling the turn is void. The other team can also call the throw too low which makes it a gentleman’s game. If you say “snappa” before you throw and the other team doesn’t hear you, you may still throw. When drinking, you must also finish your glass of beer in 3 drinks (it should only take three turns to finish it).

This is a common drinking game that I have played in Santa Barbara, CA and I have only found it there. My friend Bernadette explained the rules to me when I visited her and played in Isla Vista, the college town in Santa Barbara. The legend goes that my friends brother invented the game when he was a student at UCSB a few years ago. There are also websites that explain the

“Journey to The Underworld” — JCL Initiation Rites

Nationality: Vietnamese
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Irvine, CA
Performance Date: 4/3/12
Primary Language: English
Language: Vietnamese, Korean

The “Journey to The Underworld” was an event organized by the JCL (Junior Classical League) at my informant’s high school, where the freshman Latin students were forced to undergo certain initiation rites to cement their entrance into the club. My informant went through this process as a freshman and later, as club vice-president and upperclassman, even organized the event.

The rites were, of course, heavily influenced by Latin mythology and pieces of Latin folklore.  The upperclassmen had somehow procured a toilet a few years earlier, and they filled this up with all manners of things (clam chowder, peppers, raw eggs, soy milk, cottage cheese, etc.), changing it up every year to make it as disgusting as possible. They then made blindfolded freshmen root around in the mess in search for a quarter that they always “forgot” to put in the toilet bowl–the quarter an obvious allusion to the coin needed to cross the River Styx in the Underworld. The upperclassmen would then draw on the freshmen with felt tip markers, saying, “Cerberus is licking you!” referring, of course, to the three-headed dog that guards Hades. Throughout the entire event, freshmen were to be remained blindfolded and upperclassmen led them around, oftentimes in circles, pointing out various spots in the “underworld” to dramatic music and sudden bursts of screams. Although the rites changed from year to year, they were generally light-hearted and humorous, and even the freshmen were happy to go through the experience, seeing it as a way to bond as a club and get to know the other members.

Afterwards, they would hold a banquet and a bonding movie session, where the newly initiated freshmen would sit as one and the same with the other members, and interact with them essentially as equals. The food at the banquet, my informant said, was usually store-bought or home-made by the upperclassmen, in this way allowing the freshmen the privilege of being served by the same people who had scared them not an hour prior. Perhaps in this way they restored balance, and brought cohesion to the club as a group.

These rites served the purpose of something like an initiation; all the non-freshmen had gone through that event at one point in their club career, and so the freshmen weren’t fully members until they had endured the same–the same mentality that pervades fraternity and sorority culture. It was also a way for freshman to bond with each other, through shared experiences, and with the upperclassmen, whose enjoyment in the teasing and scaring had more to do with the hopeful anticipation of the coming class more than anything else.

 

Jump Rope Dogsledding

Nationality: American
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Massachusetts
Performance Date: March 13, 2012
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

My informant remembers playing this game during recess in elementary school. She and her friends were especially fond of it during second grade. The following is her account of it:

One kid is the “musher”, and he or she holds one handle of the jump rope in each hand. Two or three (depending on the length of the jump rope) other children are the “huskies” who stand in a line with the rope of the jump rope wrapped around them. The “musher” stands at the back of the line. The “musher” calls out: “Mush!” and the “huskies” begin to run. The children run around the playground like this, pretending to be a dogsledding team.

Sometimes there are “dogsled races” in which two or more “dogsledding teams” will race each-other on the playground. I was on a particular “dogsledding” team that only lost twice. It is a game played for pride, not actual prizes. Often the more dominant child will be the “musher”, and the more submissive children will be the “huskies”. Some children will take turns, rotating between who is the “musher” and who are the “huskies”, but usually a dominant “musher” will remain in that position for the majority of recess. Being the lead “husky” not the most desirable position, since the first child usually gets rope burns on their stomach from straining to run against the jump-rope. Some “mushers” will snap the rope to get the “huskies” to run faster.

I remember playing this game when I was in elementary school as well. I always liked to be the “musher” because I was a very bossy child. I remember that when my team would race against another, we would first have to designate where we were racing to, since there was no common racing path that we all used. This was a game often played in the spring, even though we mimicked a winter sport. This may have been due to the shortage of jump ropes in the winter, since they are usually a spring and summer toy. I believe this game is important because it allows the children to work on their team-working skills while using their imagination. While it was fun, it also brought about a lot of problems. Often the teachers would ban the game because kids would pull too hard on the ropes and hurt the other children. Some kids even began to whip one-another with a jump rope once after they lost a race.

M A S H = Mansion, Apartment, Shack, House

Nationality: Mexican-American (2nd. Gen)
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Downey, California
Performance Date: January 2007
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

M A S H = Mansion, Apartment, Shack, House

This is a grid for the children's game, MASH

 

My informant first learned how to play this fortune-telling game in her middle school in Downey, CA from one of her girlfriends during lunch time.  In MASH, on each side and corner of the square, you write a list up to four items you desire or absolutely hate.  For example, one side of the square can have four names of potential husbands.  On another side, there could be four names of the cars you may have in the future.  MASH is at the top of the square indicating if you will live in a mansion, apartment, shack, or a house.  The girl whose fortune is being told must close her eyes and at any time says, “Stop!” while the fortune teller would be drawing sticks.  When the fortune teller stops, she counts how many sticks she has drawn.  Then she counts from the “M” on the square around the square counting to however many sticks she had drawn.  Whenever her count ends, she crosses out whatever item she lands on, and continues with her count again until only one item from each category is left.  In the end, the girl will discover who she will marry, what kind of compartment she would reside in, what her job would be, how many kids she’ll have, what the color of her car will be, what her car will be, and where she will live.

I have also played this game several times as the fortune teller and as the person whose fortune is being told.  It can take up a lot of time when needed and is quite entertaining.  It is especially fun for girls because most girls typically like to daydream about who their husbands will be or where they will live in the next ten years and so on.  Favorable results can be exciting and unfavorable results can be funny.