Games We Played
It was a great day when Mary Jo got a swing set consisting of a trapeze bar and two swings. Truth be told, I was also jealous because everyone wanted to play on her swing set. Kids being kids, if she got mad at a person, they didn't get to come over and play. The most daring thing we tried was hanging by our knees from the top bar of the swing set and dropping to the trapeze bar.
Sometimes Dad would bring home some pieces of chalk from school. Then we could draw a hop scotch on the sidewalk and play it with rocks
A long piece of rope was either begged or "borrowed" from the rope our moms used for their cloths lines. This became our jump rope. Two people turned the rope and the rest were the players until you missed. Then you had to turn the rope. There were so many rhymes to jump rope to like,
- "Down in the meadow where the green grass grows. There sits Mary Ann as pretty as a rose.
- Along came Jerry and kissed her on the nose. How many kisses did she get?"
- You would keep jumping the rope until you missed and that would be the number of kisses.
Little League Baseball/Softball had not been introduced in our area. My dad brought home used bats and balls from Lincoln High so we could play baseball. We used the street with bases from whatever would work. Most of the time, we didn't have enough kids for teams so we would play workup. No umpires and our own rules applied. There were times the games ended in a big argument. My favorite quote, "Jinx, the cops!" Whenever a police car turned onto the block, we had to scurry out of the street.
