We were reminiscing over Christmas about traditions, etc. which led to talking about games we used to play as children - for me that would be back in the early 50's. Outdoor games like Annie Annie Over and Kick the Stick were favorites...not to mention all those jump rope rhymes. Ice skating in the wintertime always ended with a game of Crack the Whip - I always wanted to be one of the last ones to join up because you got to skate so fast :-D
I'd love to hear of some of your memories....

First love your avatar. We use to take off after breakfast and run the neighbor all day. We'd play hide and seek and baseball on the street corner. We also rode bikes. We had to be home for dinner and in at dusk. There were tons of kids to play with and for the most part we all got along.

Those were the days......

We made up games, played hide and seek in the tall grass fields, ball games, played in sprinklers/slip slides, rode bikes, played cards, board games, soaped up our cement patios to slide around on before cleaning them for our Mom's, skated, skate boards, we were never bored, what we didn't think of another kid would :D:D:D

Ditch 'em and Kick the Can :thumbup:

Had to keep moving the wiffle ball and baseball games - stupid windows :roll: Really who would have thought a Wiffle ball would break a window ????

I lived in the hills and of course played Cowboys and Indians, and we all were very good at hiding in the forests. We thought it funny to lose each other and run home to be first at having cookies.
Throwing balls over the house and catching them on the other side, rolling down hills (made me nauseous) and seeing how close we could get to the crick before falling in. Putting a card or something in our bike wheels to make clacking sounds. Rolling a stick against a picket fence. Seeing who could run across old Dutch Holly's bull pasture safely! That was a real test of speed, he had a very bad tempered Jersey bull.
Come to think of it, we were always running around. Not anything today's kids would think interesting enough to get off their butts to do. And I don't remember any of the kids in school being fat but one boy, and was that poor guy teased!!

we called it kick the can.All the kids in the neighborhood would gather and play well into the night in the summer

Does anyone remember Jacks? There was a small red ball and "star-like" pieces that you had to pick up while the ball was in the air. I haven't seen those in years. Great post-brought back lots of memories.
It seems like we all played outside most of the time. I never see the kids in my neighborhood outdoors.

JAcks and marbles and hopscotch and jump-rope competitions. Swinging from and climbing the wild grapevines.Hide n seek and Blindman's Bluff and taffy pulling(who could get the longest piece without breaking it!)....

we used to play Chinese Jumprope, does anyone remember that? It was a circular elastic cord.

At grade school, the playground where we had recess ended in a very steep, rocky slope with a fence at the top. We played all over that, all kinds of made up games. I imagine kids are not allowed to play there anymore, too dangerous.

I've bought my granddaughter Jacks; nowadays you often get a really large size. We played everything from Red Rover and Hide and Seek to kickball and, of course, Hula Hoops. We also played a lot of make-believe games--"house" and "school" being favorites. Chasing fireflies was an after-dark game. My granddaughter has never seen a field of fireflies, though she has seen a few here and there. We also hunted for horned toads and luna moths in East Texas.

anybody out there ever play "Old Bloody Tom" (with his nightgown on)? It was a favorite in our neighborhood.

We used to catch "lightning bugs" which is what we called fireflies. I was just asking why we never see those anymore.

We also played jacks, red rover, colored easter eggs, etc. outside allllll day long.

There's NO WAY I'd let my kids run the neighborhood today like we did, back then. It's a different world. Now we go to the Y and have play dates at the park, and such.

[quote=jkwynn]We used to catch "lightning bugs" which is what we called fireflies. I was just asking why we never see those anymore.
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Oh, do I remember those lightning bugs, they were marvelous!
We'd put them in a jar with cloth over it and carry them around in the dark. I remember Grandma sitting on the porch with her pipe and pointing out that the lightening bugs were on all the bushes, and each bush would light up, each in its own turn but not all at the same time. Never could understand that.

Yes, it is a different world, and I'm not too sure of anyone nowadays where kids are concerned. But we lived in a marvelous world, way back then.

We would lay in the grass and stare up at the clouds and make images of them. Also try to scare each other with spooky stories. It's a shame kids can't be out after dark now, but you know, my parents and neighbors were all on their porches while we played outside after dark.

We lived in Ohio until I was nine. We played kick the can, cowboys and indians, and in the winter my dad would flood our vacant lot so we could skate. We had tons of kids in our subdivision and ran the neighborhoods with no worries of anything bad happening. We moved back to Michigan in 1962 but I still keep in contact with my best friend from Ohio.

We lived on base and I had a sidewalk that went all around our houses in a square. I would get up and put on my skates and skate all day. I collected marbles and comic books. Loved to play jacks and hopscotch. I used to put on a puppet show for the neighborhood kids and I was all the characters. And riding my bicycle with the cards on my wheels to make noise. Great memories.

Jacks, hop-scotch, marbles, bike riding, cowboy and indians,
anything outside. Our school playground had swings, 2 high slides monkey bars and merry-go-round. Kids have no idea the fun we had. No TV at our home. At bedtime Mom read us a story then to sleep. Next morning outside we went.
Spending the night with a cousin or them staying at your home.

Absolutely! I remember playing almost every one of these games. I have 7 sisters and no brothers. We got our first TV when I was a teenager, so playing outside was the only thing to do. We also didn't have A/C. I was an avid reader (and a librarian today) but I'd go outside in the shade of the pecan trees to read.

We also made up games and were allowed to "run loose" as long as we stayed on our farm, which is 25 acres, so we had lots of room to run, play, and spread out. There was no fighting allowed, so when someone got mad, she just stomped off and stayed away until she cooled off.

Since we have no brothers, we made up a game we called "boys," which was so innocent it's ridiculous now. We made up imaginary brothers and talked to them or about them for hours. Of course, for all that practicing, I couldn't talk to a "real" boy until I was a senior in high school!

Did anyone play "Ghost in the Graveyard," which was basically hide and seek but at night? Instead of being It you were the ghost. We'd play only when cousins were visiting because we weren't allowed outside at night otherwise, and we were really afraid when we did play!

We played all of those plus 4 square, any kind of tag you could think of~ freeze tag, TV tag,etc;oh and remember when Barbie lived in a shoe box not a townhouse? Jump rope, single or double dutch! Just be sure to go home when the street lights came on!!!!

I was also brought up in the country and small village -- we played something called mumbely peg and "war" -- a circle in the dirt and using a jackknife cut the circle into smaller and smaaller pieces -- the last one left was the winner. There were still lightening bugs when my boys were young to catch and try to read under the covers.

I think that with no long field grass left, they aren't surviving. sad !!!

My best friend and I would play "house" all day long. We'd have some crazy stories. A lot of times we would play "spies" and would save the world from the Soviets. But even as we were saving the world, we had our babies on our hips. Whatever the story was, we had our babies with us.

There's NO WAY I'd let my kids run the neighborhood today like we did, back then. It's a different world. Now we go to the Y and have play dates at the park, and such.[/quote]

I agree that no way would I let my grandkids run around the neighborhood like we used to. They are not even allowed in the back yard without someone with them. The world they are growing up in has changed so much and not for the better. Kids just aren't safe anymore. We used to play at the park a block away and run all over the neighborhood. Played a lot of swing tag, jacks, jump rope and double dutch. We'd be gone all day and only show up for meals and at night when dad whistled all the kids in the neighborhood knew it was time to go in.

All of the above except ice skating. We sure had fun and friends galore.

You guys are bringing back a lot of fond memories for me. We played kick the can, hide n seek, ice skated, rode horses, we played cards a lot too. It isn't a game, but I had a secret closet that I put all my dolls in and set up nice little school for them and taught them all things I learned!

It is sad to think how things have changed, but perhaps something good can be had for the close supervision parents have to administer for the kids today!

It was such a different time then when I grew up in the 50's and 60's. I played most of the things already mentioned, but the one thing that's in my mind is that we played OUTSIDE. We were out all day long and it seemed like there were always alot of kids to play with. I live in a subdivision now of about 1,000+ houses, and even though almost every house has a "swing set" (now they are made of wood and are pretty expensive) I hardly ever see children playing outside.

I was addicted to Paper Dolls,,,had shoeboxes full of them.

I agree about the lightning bugs. It's all the development taking over the fields. They have no where to breed anymore. We played freeze tag, Mother May I?, Simon Says, hopscotch, Jacks, climbed trees, and caught tadpoles at "The Big Ditch" which was really a stream until they paved the thing. Then, no more tadpoles or fish or turtles to catch.

Every one of these games sound so familar. I was a child in a coal camp and so there were lots of children. My folks were very strick holiness and they did not allow us to play with children whose parents smoked or used 'bad' words. So, I did the quite stuff alone, mostly. My favorite was to stand under the apple trees and try to catch the fallng apples in a basket. We had several tomato baskets that we used and in the fall we tried to see who could catch the most leaves. We pulled up daisies and chained them together to see who could make the longest chain before mom called for a mealtime. making mud pies and playing house, my husband was usually a chair and he would hold the baby while I fried the eggs! No video games nor tv shows back then.......pure imagination.

Ghosts in the Graveyard, flashlight tag, running through the sprinkler during the summer.

Also rode my bike everywhere. Had friends in the country that I would visit, not that the town I lived in was very big. But they lived a couple of miles from town.

Wow. What great memories.

I don't think things are that different today - I think it is the perception that the world is a more dangerous place. Faces on milk cartons, Amber Alerts, 24 hour news channels,we hear about it more and sooner.
We had a child molester living across the street from us, I remember my mum sitting us down and explaining it to us. This was 50 years ago. Another kid who used to baby sit in the neighborhood was also a child molester.

We hear nowadays about how many millions of kids are "missing" every year - 99% of them are non-custodial parent abductions - not stranger abductions.


PS - how do you play Ghosts in the Graveyard - that sounds fun!

Plus there were no cell phones, so there was no way for parents to keep in touch with their kids 24/7 unless they kept them in sight.

I think kids today suffer greatly from being overly supervised and scheduled. Spontaneous, undirected play, is an important part of a kid's development. I cringe when I see 5 and 6 year olds on an organized sports team, what is wrong with just turning them loose in a field with a ball and letting them make something up?

Thankfully my grandchildren today still have a farm to visit and live on bigger pieces of property. At my house I dont let them out of sight and even at the park. It really is sad. When I told my granddaughter I only had one doll, she said if I wanted I could take one of hers but not the big one. I am glad my children can still talk of those old days. Wonder what the children of today will say. - J

this has been a great thread. I read every one and memories came flooding back. I lived in the city (Syracuse) and remember the firemen opening the hydrants on hot days. The streets would fill with kids in the street. I can remember our "gang" made up of anyone we knew and found along the way and play. Wherever we wound up, their momwould make a snack and kool-aid.

Hopscotch, jumping rope and Lincoln Logs : )

Let me see if I can remember how to play ghosts in the graveyard. It's played at night, one person goes around the house and everyone else messes around doing whatever. When the person finishes going around the house, everyone else freezes. The first one to laugh when tickled has to be the one to go around the house.

We also played statues, where one person would give you a spin and however you landed, you had to stay that way.

It was the early Fifties, and we neighborhood children played "Korean War." Predictably, the boys were the soldiers, and the girls were the nurses. Our hospital was the open back of a furniture store delivery van that one of the dads drove home each evening. We also played endless games of baseball, in the side yard of some of the kids' grandparents. We picked mulberries for one of the grandmas who wanted to make a pie. Most of the mulberriesfrom that tree dropped to the sidewalk and made a purpley smashed mess! There were many games of hide-and-seek. Lots of card games. Canasta comes to mind. We played Monopoly too. We had a "house" set up in one girl's tiny basement storage room. Served many an invisible meal on little toy dishes. Ahhhh, good memories!

I have played just about everything else that was mentioned but never heard of Old Bloody Tom. How do you play that? I am always looking for something new for the GKs.

We were never in the house riding bikes thats all we ask for christmas,we played baseball, we had a club in the 60's we were young any little allounce we would put it together at the end of the year and had a christmas party.

I used to roller skate in the cemetery, we also played 1-2-3 Red light and Giant Steps.