English: Youths playing the Red Rover game. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Remember the days when the gang of kids in your neighborhood played outside together all summer long? We had so much fun, running, laughing and screaming our heads off until the sun went down and our parents flashed the porch light. (Time to go in.)
I found a button on the floor at work yesterday, so I went from room to room. When I got to the M & M office (Mallory and Mendy) I said,
Button, button–who’s got the button?
I got a strange–Do what?–look from M#1.
“Didn’t you play Button, Button when you were a kid?” I asked.
“I’ve never heard of it. How did you play?”
Surprise. “How about Drop the handkerchief?”
No.
“I’ll bet you never played Good Egg, Rotten Egg either.” I’ve never heard of anyone who played Good Egg except the crew at Bible School in Old Ford one year before we moved to C-Town. (I don’t remember the Bible School lessons, treats or crafts but I loved the games!)
After I demonstrated the position for Good Egg, Rotten Egg (squatting with your hands clasped under your hiney and elbows used for handles) and explained that two larger kids picked you up by your elbows/handles and swung you (if your hands slip loose, you’re a rotten egg) she recognized it.
Different name, same game. And even young M#2 played it on the trampoline.
Since I had work to do, I didn’t ask if they’d played Farmer In the Dell. Besides, it wasn’t my favorite game.
My absolute favorite gaggle of kids game was Red Rover. “Red Rover, Red Rover, let Susan come over.”
(Does anyone know what a Red Rover is?)
Remember how we played it? The other side tried to pick the littlest, weakest kid because they shouldn’t be able to break through the wall of hands-holding kids.
I loved that game, because I was tougher than I looked. I liked being a surprise. 🙂
Tag was always fun for a while as was Hide and Seek. But another one of my favorites was The Ghost Don’t Pop. (Ignore the grammar–we were kids.)
Friend, next-door-neighbor and Monopoly player extraordinaire Susie Lunsford introduced us to that game. You couldn’t play until almost dark because, after all, it was a ghost game. And everyone knows ghosts don’t come out during the day.
A base was chosen, one person was it, and the rest scattered but had to hide in a specified area. (In one person’s yard and around their house.)
After “It” counted to a hundred while all the “ghosts” hid, she started walking around the house, always keeping an eye open for lurking “ghosts.”
Using a scary voice–“It’s one o’clock and the Ghost Don’t Pop. Two o’clock and the Ghost Don’t Pop. Three o’clock and . . . “
At “Twelve o’clock and the Ghost Don’t Pop,” all the ghosts popped and ran for base. “It” ran for base, too. I’m not sure how anyone was the winner or how somebody became “It”, but it sure was fun!
I don’t remember my kids playing a lot of big group games when they were little. Oh, they played Duck, Duck, Goose as preschoolers as well as Tag and Hide and Seek, but once they outgrew those games, organized sports such as T-Ball and Soccer are the only ones I remember.
So I have three questions for you today.
- Did you play gaggle-of-kids games when you were young?
- What was your favorite?
- How did The Ghost Don’t Pop end? (Susie Lunsford, are you there???)
Related articles
- Our Childhoods: The Games We Used to Play (medhealthwriter.blogspot.com)
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Susan Spess Shay 
June 19, 2012 at 9:15 am
No. The majority of the neighborhood children were A-Holes.
June 19, 2012 at 6:30 pm
Maybe that’s what’s wrong with the world today. Not enough gang games.
June 21, 2012 at 11:39 am
We did. We played Red Rover and Hide ‘n’ Seek. I think your ghost game was the same as ours only with different words. After counting to 100, It said, “It’s one o’clock, two o’clock, three o’clock at night. Four o’clock, five o’clock, six o’clock at night.” It went on to “twelve o’clock at night,” then “It’s midnight ….” and I can’t remember the rest.
We also played a game — don’t remember if it had a name — where we stood on opposite sides of the house and tried to throw balls (probably baseballs, since we played that, too) over the roof for the other side to catch. That one only last long enough to make my mom threaten us.
When we had to settle down (or risk punishment), we played two quiet games. In one a player had to be a cat and go around the circle for each person to pet her and try to get that person to laugh. And the other was that old secrets game, where one person whispers to the next, and they pass it on, and you see how badly a sentence gets mangled by the time it gets around the group.
My favorites were Freeze Tag and the version of musical chairs without the music or the chairs — where you stood in a circle and It walked around behind you, then tapped you on the shoulder and you had to race around the circle to get your space back.
June 22, 2012 at 6:08 am
I remember the ball over the house game, but I don’t remember the name of it either. Did we holler, “Annie Over!” just before we threw it?
June 29, 2012 at 10:35 am
Yeah, we did. Mom got tired of that one awfully fast.
June 29, 2012 at 6:40 pm
LOL!