CHILD'S PLAY-Post Your Memories

We lived at one time in the CA foothills, near Milpetas (sp?). The rolling hills were grassy. We took strips of corrugated metal and curved one end, creating crude sleds to slide down them. We often were cut on the hands and arms. We also made carts with wheels to roll down the road to the mail box. I would guess it to have been half a mile to it. It was a slope so gentle, a quick walker might have kept up with us. Downside, it was a long walk back, dragging those carts.

I had a flexible flyer, but no hill, in Chicago... only time I got to use it was before we moved there, in New York City one winter, for a couple of months. There was a hill across the street from our apartment house, part of the school property... I was a scaredy cat wimp anyway, and had no clue of the joys that panzade is talking about. Gee, that was the same school they lined us up in at recess to shoot baskets. Hah, I got nowhere near it. Never held a basketball before. I got a shade more athletic once I had pals to play with in Chicago.

Pals bring out one's athleticism I'm sure

When I was about 11 years old a neighbor friend of mine helped me build a 4x4 raft ; we had been reading Huckleberry Finn. We talked some gullible grown up into taking us to the headwaters of a creek that ran behind our house. All that day we struggled to drag that heavy thing over the shallow parts. Every once in a while we actually got to float for a few minutes. I arrived home that evening minus the raft and any longing for adventure.

Re: CHILD'S PLAY-Post Your Memories

Great post, just what I was looking for in this thread.

Jumpsies?
Blackballs
Nicky nine doors
Skidding behind the milk truck (glass bottles with cardboard stoppers) ?

It's funny, I heard something on the radio today that brought back some memories. The DJ was talking about the days when you HAD to own Kodiak Greb boots for winter, perferably steel-toed. They were prohibihitively expensive at the time for some people, including my folks, so we got a pair of knock-offs, Cougars. Well, the bullies didn't take kindly to my boots, called them 'elf-boots' and called me all sorts of names related to a sexual persuasion I am not. They wanted to beat the crap out of me, but what they didn't understand was that I had made alliances with cooler, richer kids who could afford said boots, and came to my defence in strength. Muahaha....then there was the time I nearly got a concussion during 'dodgeball', just before it was banned.

What were you using soccer balls?

I think so...but they felt like medicine balls.

so cav...help me with my Canadian game lore?

Dodgeball, a.k.a. murderball, involved huge jocks tossing balls of indeterminate volume and weight at nerds. At least, that's how I remember it. My friend and I used to go on 'suicide' missions, and get tagged by one of the weaker members of the opposite team, literally jumping into the wake of the oncoming ball, just so we would be eliminated from the game, and have time to talk about music while sitting on the bench.

You were what we called a schmuck you lovable boy.

Panzade said, "Now the finest sled was made by Flexible Flyer. Hands down."

Hey, Panzade, I live within spittin' distance of where Flexible Flyers are now manufactured...still want one?

www.needak.com/ff100y.pdf: "In 1973, a group of private investors including five Blazon employees bought The Leisure Group's toy division which had plants in Medina and West Point and consolidated all operations in West Point, Mississippi under the name of Blazon Flexible Flyer, Inc., where sleds continue to be made today."

Great news! I'm afraid I'll never be in that FF strata.

I learned a lot about music, and for that I am proud.

Your music sense is what drew me to A2k...or have you forgotten?

Ahhh…jumpsies…Lucky the kids who could rely on old mom or dad for elastics. Joined together and stretched between two kids they made the perfect high jump challenge…"no touchies!" We'd raise the elastic "bar" higher and higher…lots of scraped knees.

Blackballs were much like jawbreakers but much smaller -- about the size of a marble. They were little black balls of very hard candy that changed colours as you sucked through all the layers, eventually dissolving into a tiny speck of white. (not a game but still a pastime…)

Nicky nine doors - you must know this one! Different name likely…ever ring a doorbell and run away? I'm snorting now in memory….

Grabbing a hold of the milk truck bumper and skidding along behind it on the icy streets was *wicked* fun, for sure. The milkman used to let us! Imagine that happening now? Cardboard stoppers was simply a reference to the era…

Absolutely not. I even remember the cute doggie avatar you originally had. 'Schmuck' is just a funny term for me, growing up around semi-yiddish speakers. Here's another memory: I used to think that when Jewish people got old, they automatically learned to speak Yiddish. I was a kid, and the only people who I knew that spoke Yiddish were all old. It was the logical conclusion.

i concur, that's why my grandma called me schmutsfink

Joeblow...we were a bit more evil. Put dog poop in a brown paper bag and lit it on fire on the front porch...THEN rang the doorbell. Much hilarity.