Retrotalk : School Daze : around the playground

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Sith Penguin Member Since: March 2006 Contributions: 2048 Gold Stars: 224 View User Posts	around the playground Posted: Thu Oct 29, 2009 1:03 pm Central Time what kind of games did you and your friends play at recess or after school? did you play traditional games, or make up your own? we played a couple different playground games over the years in my elementary school. we played suicide (a.k.a. wall ball), numerous variations of tag (freeze tag, hide and seek tag, tickle tag, swamp tag...you name it and we probably played it), and our own version of volleyball (main difference was that you could catch the ball and throw it back instead of serving it). we also had a few rough games like chicken fighting while hanging from the monkey bars, wrestling, and others like "mercy". suprisingly, we rarely got caught or got in trouble when we played these types of games. a couple of other kids played a game called jungle ball, which was mainly basketball with the monkey bar rungs as baskets. it didn't last very long, because the school banned it after one kid broke his leg. _________________ can't talk now, the ninjas are watching me think. The new Halloween Special is up...enjoy! http://the-rl-story.bravehost.com/index.html
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major_havoc Member Since: October 2007 Contributions: 688 Gold Stars: 56 View User Posts	Re: around the playground Posted: Thu Oct 29, 2009 3:25 pm Central Time In northern New York, we played a game called Mossay. It was one of those "the more the merrier" type games often involving 30 or more players. The game started with all participants at one end of the playground. They then all raced to the other end of the playground, the last player to reach the opposite end was "it". That player then positioned himself in the middle of the playground and when he was ready called "mossay"! The other players then raced across the playground while "it" tried to tackle one or more of the stampeding horde. Those who were tackled then joined "it" and they too tried to tackle additional players on subsequent passes. Play continued until the last man fell....and woe to him being at the bottom of a pile of 20 to 30 very enthusiastic not to mention bloodthirsty schoolmates. This was most popular in the winter as we had snow on the ground providing some cushion as well as the padding effect of winter clothes. The game was banned almost weekly but it refused to die.
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Sith Penguin Member Since: March 2006 Contributions: 2048 Gold Stars: 224 View User Posts	Re: around the playground Posted: Thu Oct 29, 2009 4:12 pm Central Time major_havoc wrote: In northern New York, we played a game called Mossay. It was one of those "the more the merrier" type games often involving 30 or more players. The game started with all participants at one end of the playground. They then all raced to the other end of the playground, the last player to reach the opposite end was "it". That player then positioned himself in the middle of the playground and when he was ready called "mossay"! The other players then raced across the playground while "it" tried to tackle one or more of the stampeding horde. Those who were tackled then joined "it" and they too tried to tackle additional players on subsequent passes. Play continued until the last man fell....and woe to him being at the bottom of a pile of 20 to 30 very enthusiastic not to mention bloodthirsty schoolmates. This was most popular in the winter as we had snow on the ground providing some cushion as well as the padding effect of winter clothes. The game was banned almost weekly but it refused to die. view that sounds like an awesome game! you must have had a pretty big school to have that many players in a single game. _________________ can't talk now, the ninjas are watching me think. The new Halloween Special is up...enjoy! http://the-rl-story.bravehost.com/index.html
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major_havoc Member Since: October 2007 Contributions: 688 Gold Stars: 56 View User Posts	Re: around the playground Posted: Thu Oct 29, 2009 5:07 pm Central Time [quote="Sith Penguin"] that sounds like an awesome game! you must have had a pretty big school to have that many players in a single game. view[/quote Actually the school I went to was rather small especially by today's standards. It was a Catholic School with 6 grades plus kindergarden. The lower grades K-3 probably had 50 to 60 per grade. The upper grades gradually tapered off to around 30 or so per grade.
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Timothy1964 Member Since: February 2007 Contributions: 736 Gold Stars: 20 View User Posts	Re: around the playground Posted: Thu Oct 29, 2009 7:30 pm Central Time Sith Penguin wrote: what kind of games did you and your friends play at recess or after school? did you play traditional games, or make up your own? we played a couple different playground games over the years in my elementary school. we played suicide (a.k.a. wall ball), numerous variations of tag (freeze tag, hide and seek tag, tickle tag, swamp tag...you name it and we probably played it), and our own version of volleyball (main difference was that you could catch the ball and throw it back instead of serving it). we also had a few rough games like chicken fighting while hanging from the monkey bars, wrestling, and others like "mercy". suprisingly, we rarely got caught or got in trouble when we played these types of games. a couple of other kids played a game called jungle ball, which was mainly basketball with the monkey bar rungs as baskets. it didn't last very long, because the school banned it after one kid broke his leg. view Back when I was in elementary school, there was a variation of chicken fighting where you would get on your partner's back or shoulders and your opponent would get on his partner, then you would try to knock or pull each other off. Looked a little too dangerous for me!
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Sith Penguin Member Since: March 2006 Contributions: 2048 Gold Stars: 224 View User Posts	Re: around the playground Posted: Fri Oct 30, 2009 11:24 am Central Time Timothy1964 wrote: Back when I was in elementary school, there was a variation of chicken fighting where you would get on your partner's back or shoulders and your opponent would get on his partner, then you would try to knock or pull each other off. Looked a little too dangerous for me! view yeah, the version we played required you to kick or use a pincer hold with your legs, and if you fell you usually got a mouthful of sand below. i guess there really isn't a version of chickenfighting that is actually safe. _________________ can't talk now, the ninjas are watching me think. The new Halloween Special is up...enjoy! http://the-rl-story.bravehost.com/index.html
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misty jade Member Since: April 2006 Contributions: 165 Gold Stars: 21 View User Posts	Re: around the playground Posted: Mon Nov 02, 2009 12:41 am Central Time Since I went to mostly small private schools that generally didn't have much in the way of playground equipment, we played a lot of tag, four square, tetherball, hopscotch, jump rope games, chinese jump rope, hand clapping games, jacks, chinese jacks, Red Rover, Cat & Mouse, wall ball, and our own version of handball using racquetballs. We also scaled hand-over-hand the 'mountain' of the swing set braces.
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jupiter Member Since: April 2006 Contributions: 288 Gold Stars: 411 View User Posts	Re: around the playground Posted: Wed Nov 04, 2009 11:41 am Central Time Tetherball : I remember how the ball would go faster and faster as the tether got shorter and shorter. This game was too frantic for me and I tended to avoid it. Four square : I don't recall much about why I liked this game but I do know that I spent some serious recess time playing it. Smear the Queer : the name was politically incorrect, for certain, but it was the most fun I ever had on a school yard. Hop Scotch: I never understood this game (I still don't). It seemed like a 'girl game' so I avoided it. Monkey Bars: Not much to play with, but great training for future Marines. Handball: not the kind with the little ball, but the kind with the beach-ball sized red vinal one. Every schoolyard I see out here on the west coast has a free-standing wall that appears to be expressly for this activity.
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