Road hockey, sandlot baseball ... kids on the loose

So many of my best memories are tied into playing games outside with my friends - softball, soccer, road hockey, red rover, tag.

Riding our bikes to go fishing was good too, but not the same thing as running like mad and dodging body blocks.

That was why I loved and still do, Chicago, more precisely Evanston.

I learned to sled in our year in New York City, my father teaching me and another girl in the building, and to ride a bicycle. I was eight then.

In Evanston, age 9, I learned hop scotch and roly poly and mother may I and how to build a snowman and baseball (a little more help from dad re batting left handed, which was more natural even though I'm right handed), and basketball after school, which we lived near. The swings by the school, and jumping off. Oh, roller skating in the neighborhood and ice skating at South Pond (it had a warming hut!). Other stuff too, like swimming, but those were classes few and far between. Also, we built houses out of chairs and sheets and boxes and stuff..
We also explored some houses under construction by climbing down the rebar..

When I was thirteen we moved to California and none of that stuff was happening. That was around the time I started reading about sports instead.


edit - I see I forgot Croquet and Canasta.



I think any normality I possess came from those years in Evanston.

I usually schedule my yard work between 11 and 1 on school days so I can listen to the kids play during recess at the elementary school half a block away.

I love that sound.

I hardly ever see kids just goofing off in the neighborhood.

Kids lives are much more structured these days....

Kids' sports were a lot more fun before adults decided to participate.

There's been a real comeback of road hockey here - no parents in sight. It's pretty damn fabulous.

The new city bosses are also planning to get rid of an old bylaw that didn't allow for portable basketball nets on the road.

___

Kind of funny. On Halloweén, there were easily as many dressed-up parents/grands/aunts/uncles on the street as there were kids. One tiny pair of kids had mom/dad/grandma/grampa/an aunt and two uncles - all in costume. I was in costume as were most of the other sheller-outers on our block.

I occasionally wonder if part of the oversupervision is the adults wanting to get in on their kids' fun.

There was a great article in The Atlantic a while back about a park called "The Land" which is basically a big junk pile for kids to play in/make things: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/04/hey-parents-leave-those-kids-alone/358631/

Sadly, in America the park would be overrun with parents "helping" and attorneys looking for a quick buck.

Or kids crying for their iPads.

Nobody has a chance to be bored anymore. For me and my siblings, our best adventures always arose out of boredom.

We were all playing football in a grassy, empty lot once, and my brother got tackled, landing on a broken coke bottle. It laid open his thigh with a gas about eight or nine inches long. We staunched the blood, wrapped up his leg and then scrounged around for enough money to get one of those iron-on patches. He was wearing a new pair of levis at the time of the injury and everyone was worried that he'd get his ass whipped for tearing up a new pair of jeans.

My big brother always let me tag along when he and his friends were up to something. There was only one rule: if I got hurt I couldn't cry until I got home.

Seems fair.

That makes sense to me, too.

The story i just told reminds me of another incident a few years later. My cousin, my sister and i were driving around a nearby town in her old beater, when she took a corner really fast, and the latch of the passenger side door came open, so that i was being dragged along, holding onto the arm rest. My sister was screaming, i was yelling and my cousin seemed paralyzed--but she eventually realized she need to stop the car. We just stared at each other for a while, and then we all began laughing hysterically.

It had worn completely through my jeans, and gave me a pretty good road rash. So we went back home, my cousin went in the house and stole ten dollars from her mom's purse, and we went out and bought a new pair of jeans so no one would know. (Yes, you could get a pair of jeans for that kind of money in those days.)

There is nothing as cathartic as laughter following a near miss!

As the youngest of four I escaped the edict to "make my clothes last" since everything was beautifully, comfortably worn out before it became mine.

I credit my deep and enduring love of thrift shops to this fact of my childhood. The only new clothes I'm ever attracted to are the overpriced ones that feel like they've been washed 100 times.

I forgot to add Red Rover. That involved the whole class during school hours though. Also forgot Hide and Seek, doh.

Jumpers for goalposts, unless it's summer and then it might be cricket, but it's usually jumpers for goalposts then.

For me it was endless games of baseball at Wood Island Park.

Alas, Wood Island Park is no more, having been swallowed up by Logan Airport.

i played road hockey, sandlot baseball, street football, pickup basketball... and "frisbee football", which evolved into ultimate frisbee.
i got serious about the sport in high school and even more serious thereafter, eventually finding myself on the top club in NYC ...

Always wondered what happened to Wood Island. Isn't it still a stop on the Blue Line? Was that near Orient Heights?

yup...

Thanks. It appears my memory is still working.

Since moving to this neighborhood several years ago - they kids are crazy here - they run loose.

They play this game at night in the summer or whenever the weather is warmer - using flashlights and hiding and stuff I forget what they call it. Imagine letting your kids free at night?!

Kids down the street either side of us when it is not freezing play street hockey - they take over the street -- I am forced to stop for them to move their hockey goals. In the winter one neighbor has a homemade ice rink and if that doesn't work then the pond down the street does.

Basketball hoops in various yards, bikes, scooters, etc. Yeah we see a jump rode here and there. Jumping into leaves, sliding down hills in

I think I'd like your neighbourhood!

I'd probably get into a lot of trouble climbing things that I'm not supposed to.