obscure games

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jflis

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rstaff3 mentioned "kick the can" in the "sad news, sad state of affairs" thread in referring to games and pasttimes. man, it's been so many years I can't even remember the *rules* for "kick the can"...

What other obscure, long lost, time consuming games do you remember from your childhood? I'm not talking about Lego or Monopoly or anything like that. I'm talking about those games that *someone* made up, that everyone seems to have played as a child.

Hide-n-go-seek
Tag
Red Light/Green Light

one that I remember (man, we were *poor* and had to make do) was "duck on a rock"...

Some one is "it". They take a tin can (the duck) and place it on a rock. Everyone else takes *their* tin can (other ducks) and stands behind the goal line.

Now, the object is to hit the "duck on the rock" with your can and knock it off (one point) while the poor guy who is "it" has to protect the duck (like a goalie) (remember, back then tin cans were TIN, not aluminum... man, you could rob a store wielding a *tin* can...)

The rules were more involved than that, but that's the jist of it...

great game. Built character. Well, it built lumps, but mom called it "character"

jim
 
Indian Ball (err....Native American Ball?). During the summertime, seems like we'd play it all day until it was too dark to continue. Then we'd have some of the most awesome games of outdoor, in the dark hide-n-seek you'll ever come across. I remember this one hiding spot near the cover of the Hoopers' septic tank...for some reason nobody ever wanted to look for me there. :p
 
I wondered who might remember kick the can. Kinda like hide and go seek but if the finder got too far away from base (where the can was) the hiders would go kick it.

How about

1. red rover
2. tetherball off of a street sign
3. mumbly peg (did this have something to do with pocketknives?)
4. some to be politically incorrectly named game that resembled football but involved everyone piling on the person that was down.

Will continue thinking. Good memories (whatever is left of 'em ;))
 
Jim,

"Kick the Can" was our favorite neighborhood game to play, and we always played it after dark under a street light. Back then I was one of the younger players and got to be "it" a lot. To choose the one who would be "it" we did the "one potato two". Those were the days when kids could go out after dark and play and be called home with a parents whistle. Great memories, but we are showing our age......
 
"British Bulldogs" was popular in the playground, when I was a young'un. We even used to play it in Scouts.

It consisted of everyone lining-up against one side of the playground/hall. One person is 'it', and has to stay in the middle of the playground. On the cry of "BULLDOGS!" everybody legs-it from one side to the other, and 'it' has to try and stop one of them. If he manages to stop somebody, they have to join 'it' in trying to stop everybody else. The game continues until everybody is 'it'. The last person to be caught wins, and becomes 'it' for the next round.

This was a very violent game; I have seen many injuries - a number of times, an Ambulance has had to be called. Needless to say, its banned now; but it was great fun while it lasted.
 
Not exactly one of my favorites, but my high school gym class was big on this game they called "love thy neighbor." You'd divide the class into two teams and line them up on their knees across each other on opposite sides of a wrestling mat. The idea was to drag everybody from the other team off the mat on your side while remaining on your knees. That's about it for rules. Obviously, it involved lots of pulling...one team on your legs and the other on your arms. Once you became the "pullee" it didn't much matter which team was yours. I'm pretty sure I'd be much shorter than I am but for that game.
 
aahhh, the memories...

one potato, two potato, three potato, four
five potato, six potato, seven potato, more...

eenie, meenie, minie, moe.
catch the piggie by the toe.
if he hollors, let him go.
eenie, meenie, minie, moe.

duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, GOOSE!

oh man. I'm tellin' you guys (youse ol' guys, like me), man, we could have MORE fun for free than you could shake a stick at! :)

and now I *do* remember "kick the can"

Hop Scotch

Jump Rope

**doctor**.... :eek:

**post office** :eek:

flipin' coke bottle caps

pitchin' penny's

Mickey Mantle baseball cards in the spokes of yer chopper bike with the bannana seat and wheelie bar...

tag

king of the hill

:)
good thread
 
Paper Football...a serious classic.

quarters:rolleyes:

Johnnie Paul
 
Originally posted by Nighteagle2001
Here's one nobodys mentioned so far.....dodgeball

!*?# I was just about to say that!!! That and freeze tag, duck duck goose, and the ever popular staring contests...man, life was boring...
 
Most of the schools around here have a couple of Four-Square courts painted on the ashphalt, right next to the hopscotch grids and tetherball poles.

Four-Square being the more obscure of them, I'll write about it. Four-Square is not part of the phys-ed program, the only way to learn it is from the students who are already playing. You have a grid of, well, four squares on the ground, each about 2 meters across, lettered counterclockwise A through D, and a lineup of kids that fills the undercover play area. The 'A' square is split in half diagonally. The person in the 'A' square has to throw the ball from the outer half of his square, bouncing it off somebody else's square. If the person catches it, they throw it at another person's square. If the ball bounces in a person's square and they fail to catch it, they are out, and everybody in a lower lettered square moves up. The next person in line takes the 'A' square, the person who went out walks what seems like 200m to the back of the line, and the process repeats.

Hopscotch is for kindergarteners, man. You've gotta be a grade 6 or 7 kid to play Four-Square. :D

Oh yeah, if your childhood memories do not include kids shouting "Car!", sounds of scraping metal, followed by shouts of "Game on!!", you are not Canadian.
 
My favorite was "Capture the flag"

Always played it at night on Scout camping trips.
 
I to was a scout and one of my favourate games was Captains aboard,this was played by all the pack and a maritime instruction would be given and the last person to follow the instruction was out:D Another great game i remember was called sardines.This is a variation on hide and seek where 1 person hides and everyone else looks for him and as you find you then hide along side,the last person to find the hider looses:D :D
 
We used to play "Kill" in PE when I was in Jr. High. Played on a basketball court. Divide the class into two teams. Each team lined up along the end court walls. Red rubber kick balls (about 7-10 of them) were lined up along the center court line. The coach would blow his whistle and the mad dash for the balls was started.

This was basically dodge ball (you get hit with a ball and you sit down) with a few of the following extra rules:

1. You couldn't cross center court.
2. If you hit somebody in the head then YOU had to sit down.
3. If you caught a ball that was thrown at you then the thrower had to sit down.

Now imagine being in the 7th grade playing with 9th graders who could throw one of these red rubber kick balls at about 60 MPH. OUCH!!! Now imagine getting hit in the face. DOUBLE OUCH!!!

Oh the fun though. This game would never go over with today's litigious society.

And let's not forget Cowboys and Indians.

"I got you!"
"No you didn't"
"Yes I did!"
"You knicked my arm but I'm ok"

I guess paintball pretty much put an end to such arguments.

:D:D:D
 
How about "No bears out to night"?

You know one person is the "bear" who hides. Then the rest of the gang looks for the "bear" while chanting..."There ain't no bears out tonight, grandpa killed them all last night!"???

Ok...probably not...
but how about playing ARMY and shooting each other with BB guns? That was always fun:)
 
When I was in elementary school... we played a game called Red Butt. The object of the ball was throw the ball (from a distance), bounce it off the wall, and catch the ball... if you missed the ball, you had to run to the wall and touch it before another person grabs the ball, throws it, and the ball hits the wall.
 
We used to play this game called .........Stare at the sun,,,,,,,
 
Nah Justy, we played four square in 3rd grade. (I am in middle school now). Fun as heck. Now we play dodgeball with the 7th graders in gym. Milo, I oughta suggest Kill to my gym teacher. Sounds fun. Has anyone said Marco Polo yet? Sometimes we play capture the flag.

Johnnie, one of my friends got involved in a game of quarters. I tell ya, he had quarter inch gaps on his knuckles:eek:. Those are the kids that play paper football too.
 
Milo,

I spent many a PE class playing a game very similar to your "Kill".
We called ours "Pin Ball" as we had 4 bowling pins setup on each end line. If you knocked over one of the other team's pins, all of the people on your team got to come back in. I can still remember this one girl that could catch the 60mph playground ball. Oh what fun it all was.
 
"Kill The Guy"

Played with a football. Whomever had the football was mobbed by everyone on the field. Usually the guy with the football would toss the ball in the air when he was about to be "killed" then the unfortunate soul who caught the ball was now the target.
Great Fun!! :)
 
Sounds basically like the game I referred to above. We called it 'Smear the (add rhyming word here)' Great fun indeed, especially on hard relatively grass free ground.
 
Yep.. we played Smear the Qu.... uh... Quarterback all the time. Also Rollie-Bat. And also 500 which is a similar game to Rollie-Bat but with a point system.

500: One guy hits a baseball to people in the field. Use the following point system:

Ball caught on the fly: 100 points
Ball caught on one bounce: 75 points
Ball caught on two bounce: 50 points
Ball caught on three or more bounces: 25 points

First one to 500 or more gets to bat.

:)
 
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