Playing Games

"Before there were play dates there was play..."

I wish I could claim credit for the above statement as I share its sentiment. It was taken from a short documentary on the games children played in NYC in the 50's, 60's and 70s. They interviewed people from all the boroughs and the games were basically the same, though they might have called them by different names. The interesting part to me was that no adult ever showed the kids how to play these games, and that the origins of the games could be traced back hundreds of years by examining paintings of scenes of children playing.

We had many of the same games in Ridgewood, due in large part to the large migration of New Yorkers to the suburbs. Let me name a few and provide Wilipedia explanations for those that made the journey to Jersey:

Red Rover

The game is played between two lines of players, usually around thirty feet apart. Each team lines up along one of these lines, and the game starts when the first team (usually called the "East" or "South" team, although this does not relate to the actual relative location of the teams) calls out, "Red rover, red rover, send [name of player on opposite team] right over." or "Red Rover, Red Rover, let [name of player of opposing team] come over." or "Red rover, red rover, we call [name of player on opposite team] over."

Box Ball

Four square, also known as squareball, boxball, and in Canada, champ, is a ball game played among four individuals on a square court divided into quadrants. It is a popular playground game with little required equipment, almost no setup, and short rounds of play that can be ended at any time.

Stickball

Stickball is a street game related to baseball, usually formed as a pick-up game, played in large cities in the Northeastern United States, especially New York City. The equipment consists of a broom handle and a rubber ball, typically a spaldeen, pensie pinkie, high bouncer or tennis ball.

Stoopball

Stoop ball (also spelled "stoopball") is a game that is played by throwing a ball against a stoop (stairs leading up to a building) on the pavement in front of a building. The game is also known as "Off the Point". [1] Historically, it has been popular in Brooklyn and other inner cities. It first became popular after World War II.[2] A Portable Stoopball Striker has been patented. [3]

The games were usually impromptu and a group for the game could easily be mustered at the schoolyard or nearby park. These games taught us life lessons about who we could trust and how to negotiate. Though this posting is mostly about boys games, there were interviews with many girls, too. We might call them tomboys if they played the boys games but they had also hopscotch and skipping rope in a multitude of variations.

The other theme this all presupposes is that no direct adult supervision was required, though in all cases there were stay-at-home Moms, close relatives, and the ultimate arbiters the Police. All these groups kept order to a degree and kids knew they had to behave or else their parents would find out their infraction.

This is all a dream world supposition now, with fewer extended relatives like aunts and uncles living nearby, not to mention grandparents, fewer stay-at-home Moms, and lastly fewer kids playing on the streets. It seems that a combination of central air conditioning, television, and video games has depleted the streets and schoolyards of the armies of children who used to play the aforementioned games so regularly. This is not to say the games have vanished, only that their ability to bind us together and teach us life lessons has diminished.