The Games we Play(ed)
This past Friday was “Take Your Children to Work Day.” The kids did a scavenger hunt, had a picnic, and one of my co-workers brought in his guitar. And at the end, they all played dodge ball and kickball and…wait for it…“Steal the Bacon.” HA! Anyone remember that game? I was worried that game went out in the 80s. Apparently, it lives on. In honor of the day, my co-workers and I discussed our favorite childhood games.
The “Tags”
a) Regular tag
Rules: Self-explanatory (boooooooooring!)
b) T.V. tag
Rules: About to get tagged? Drop to your knees and shout out a TV show.
c) Movie tag
Rules: Bastard cousin of TV tag, only with movies.
d) Frozen tag
Rules: Get tagged, and you’re “frozen”; someone needs to tag you to “unfreeze” you. A variation on this was that to “unfreeze” you, someone had to crawl between your legs. (Spare me your dirty jokes. Let us have our innocence, sheesh.)
“Egg”
Weird name, strangest game ever invented. But lots of fun anyway.
Rules: You need a playground ball (not a basketball, which we used once and almost killed my friend). One person takes the ball and picks a category, like “colors.” Everyone else huddles up and selects a color, and then one person rattles the list off to the person with the ball (so the person with the ball knows all the colors, but has no idea who chose each one.) He heaves the ball in the air and shouts out a color (“Blue!”). Everyone else runs like hell, trying to get as far away from the ball as possible, but if you were the one who had picked “blue”, you need to get under the ball and catch it. Once you catch it, you yell “Freeze!” and everyone freezes. Take three giant steps towards any person you want, and heave the ball at them. Hit them, and they’ve now got an “E”. (But if they catch it, you get the “E”.) Now the whole process repeats itself, and the first one to spell “EGG” is eliminated. Pure genius, right?
As we got older, the categories got more and more interesting, like “Disgusting foods” and “Girls in our class with the nicest chest”.
“Relevio”
I know, sounds like a menu item in an Italian restaurant.
Rules: Pick a “jail” and your boundaries (i.e. no leaving the front lawn or backyard, etc.) When we played at my house, “jail” was always the front steps. Pick two people to be “it”. They run around trying to tag everyone else. Get tagged, and you’re in jail. At any time, a not-yet-tagged person can tag the jail and shout “Relivio!”, and everyone in the jail is free.
Warning: When a group is freed, this is not an invitation to all barrel over the people who are it. Tramplings my be funny, but they just weren’t cool.
“To-the-Pole”
The most violent, sadistic game ever invented. I only played this one down at Boy Scouts, and you needed easy access to a First Aid Kit.
Rules: Put a flag pole in the stand and place it in the middle of the room. Everyone circles around the pole and grabs each other’s wrists. One person shouts “Right!”, and everyone has to start circling the pole by walking to the right. If the person shouts “Left!”, you switch directions. When he yells “To the pole!”, you pull as hard as you can on the wrists of the people you’re connected to. You must avoid the pole at all costs. First one to touch the pole is eliminated.
Imagine this game being played with kids who weighed 90 pounds, soaking wet, and kids who tipped the scales at 200+ pounds. Kids would get flung across the room like rag dolls, and on more than one occasion did a kid get hurled into a wall or a set of folding chairs. But you gotta wonder: What’s more disturbing, that it was played, or that the adult leaders LET US play?
“Sardines”
Arguably the best childhood game. Sometimes called “Reverse Hide and Seek.
Rules: More people you play with, the more fun. If you’ve got 10 people playing, 9 people close their eyes and count to 100, while the one remaining person goes off and hides. When everyone else gets to 100, they all go off and look for the hiding person. The first one to find him…has to hide WITH him! And the next one to find these two guys…hides with them as well! Object is to have 9 guys hidden in one spot, while one poor sap gets stuck finding the whole group.
This one made you think. It wasn’t enough to find a hiding spot, you had to find one that could accommodate 9 other people! Nothing quite like searching for the guy hiding, and finding five guys trying to stuff behind a bush or under a car. (“Get your ass out of my face!” “Stop kicking me!” “Ow, S***!”) Best strategy? Go up a tree. We once had my poor friend searching for 20 minutes because we all went up the tree in my front yard. Poor kid. He never thought to look up.
Honorable mention:
Steal the Bacon
Red Rover, Red Rover
Team handball (kind of the grandaddy of “Ultimate Frisbee”)
Yes, sir, gotta love those games. Played ‘em all the time. Until we discovered “Strip Poker” in 6th grade (and now invited the girls to play). Too bad my mother caught us one day, but that’s a whole other story.
The “Tags”
a) Regular tag
Rules: Self-explanatory (boooooooooring!)
b) T.V. tag
Rules: About to get tagged? Drop to your knees and shout out a TV show.
c) Movie tag
Rules: Bastard cousin of TV tag, only with movies.
d) Frozen tag
Rules: Get tagged, and you’re “frozen”; someone needs to tag you to “unfreeze” you. A variation on this was that to “unfreeze” you, someone had to crawl between your legs. (Spare me your dirty jokes. Let us have our innocence, sheesh.)
“Egg”
Weird name, strangest game ever invented. But lots of fun anyway.
Rules: You need a playground ball (not a basketball, which we used once and almost killed my friend). One person takes the ball and picks a category, like “colors.” Everyone else huddles up and selects a color, and then one person rattles the list off to the person with the ball (so the person with the ball knows all the colors, but has no idea who chose each one.) He heaves the ball in the air and shouts out a color (“Blue!”). Everyone else runs like hell, trying to get as far away from the ball as possible, but if you were the one who had picked “blue”, you need to get under the ball and catch it. Once you catch it, you yell “Freeze!” and everyone freezes. Take three giant steps towards any person you want, and heave the ball at them. Hit them, and they’ve now got an “E”. (But if they catch it, you get the “E”.) Now the whole process repeats itself, and the first one to spell “EGG” is eliminated. Pure genius, right?
As we got older, the categories got more and more interesting, like “Disgusting foods” and “Girls in our class with the nicest chest”.
“Relevio”
I know, sounds like a menu item in an Italian restaurant.
Rules: Pick a “jail” and your boundaries (i.e. no leaving the front lawn or backyard, etc.) When we played at my house, “jail” was always the front steps. Pick two people to be “it”. They run around trying to tag everyone else. Get tagged, and you’re in jail. At any time, a not-yet-tagged person can tag the jail and shout “Relivio!”, and everyone in the jail is free.
Warning: When a group is freed, this is not an invitation to all barrel over the people who are it. Tramplings my be funny, but they just weren’t cool.
“To-the-Pole”
The most violent, sadistic game ever invented. I only played this one down at Boy Scouts, and you needed easy access to a First Aid Kit.
Rules: Put a flag pole in the stand and place it in the middle of the room. Everyone circles around the pole and grabs each other’s wrists. One person shouts “Right!”, and everyone has to start circling the pole by walking to the right. If the person shouts “Left!”, you switch directions. When he yells “To the pole!”, you pull as hard as you can on the wrists of the people you’re connected to. You must avoid the pole at all costs. First one to touch the pole is eliminated.
Imagine this game being played with kids who weighed 90 pounds, soaking wet, and kids who tipped the scales at 200+ pounds. Kids would get flung across the room like rag dolls, and on more than one occasion did a kid get hurled into a wall or a set of folding chairs. But you gotta wonder: What’s more disturbing, that it was played, or that the adult leaders LET US play?
“Sardines”
Arguably the best childhood game. Sometimes called “Reverse Hide and Seek.
Rules: More people you play with, the more fun. If you’ve got 10 people playing, 9 people close their eyes and count to 100, while the one remaining person goes off and hides. When everyone else gets to 100, they all go off and look for the hiding person. The first one to find him…has to hide WITH him! And the next one to find these two guys…hides with them as well! Object is to have 9 guys hidden in one spot, while one poor sap gets stuck finding the whole group.
This one made you think. It wasn’t enough to find a hiding spot, you had to find one that could accommodate 9 other people! Nothing quite like searching for the guy hiding, and finding five guys trying to stuff behind a bush or under a car. (“Get your ass out of my face!” “Stop kicking me!” “Ow, S***!”) Best strategy? Go up a tree. We once had my poor friend searching for 20 minutes because we all went up the tree in my front yard. Poor kid. He never thought to look up.
Honorable mention:
Steal the Bacon
Red Rover, Red Rover
Team handball (kind of the grandaddy of “Ultimate Frisbee”)
Yes, sir, gotta love those games. Played ‘em all the time. Until we discovered “Strip Poker” in 6th grade (and now invited the girls to play). Too bad my mother caught us one day, but that’s a whole other story.
posted by Glenn at 6:31 AM
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