1. Hide and Seek
Very simple, really. Somebody was “it”, and
that person had to close their eyes and count backwards from a designated
number. Everybody else ran like hell to find a hiding place, preferably within the
same county, but some people took this game very seriously and you never knew.
Once the countdown was done, Phase Two of the operation would kick in, with “It”
trying to find all of the escapees. In turn, the escapees would try to sneak
past “It” and touch home base without the humiliation of being tagged or
tripping over something stupid that some fool had left in the yard.
I never really cared for being “It”. That was
too much work, unless all of your little friends were uncontrollable gigglers
and you could easily track them down with sonar. I preferred the Anne Frank
role, because I loved discovering the perfect hiding place and driving everybody
else crazy with bafflement, with fools wandering right past me and having no
idea that I could bite their ankles if I felt inspired to do so.
Of course, your hidey hole couldn’t be too perfect or people would never find
you, especially if “It” was one of the younger kids you were forced to play with
because their parents were drunk and needed an impromptu baby-sitter. Those little
urchins just didn’t have any gumption, half-heartedly looking behind one tree
and then giving up completely, crying and sniffling as they sat their lazy
asses down right on home base so that you couldn’t sneak past them without
their grubby little fingers touching you.
An additional downside to a premium hiding
spot was the potential discomfort. Almost invariably, the best hiding places
were cramped and stuffy. It was a hoot of a good time for the first few minutes
you were in there, but it didn’t take long before you were sweating to death
and unable to get a decent amount of oxygen. You didn’t want to just give up,
of course, but sooner or later you would start to get a cramp or lose
consciousness, and you wouldn’t have any choice but to suck it up, pop out of
your hole, and signal for a medic.
2. King of the Hill
This one required at least a minimal amount
of preparation, in that you had to have a mound of something that would support
the weight of several youngsters essentially trying to kill each other. A
volcano-shaped hill was nice, but nature didn’t always cooperate so you often
had to resort to man-made structures, such as a large pile of sand or a stack
of abandoned tractor tires (this second option was readily and abundantly available
in rural Oklahoma in 1975, which should come as a surprise to absolutely no
one).
Anyway, someone was anointed the initial “king”,
and as part of his coronation procession he had to clamor to the top of
whatever had been designated as the hill. Once there, he would review the
peasants gathered below him, place his dominant hands on his hips, and loudly
proclaim that he was now the absolute ruler of all, forever and ever. (Or at
least until everybody had to go home for lunch.) Providing your own dialogue
such as this was something that children often did back in the day, because we
didn’t have video games that did all the playing, thinking and imagining for
us.
Then the more exuberant aspect of the game
would commence. This entailed all of the dis-satisfied peasants at the foot of
the hill suddenly forming some type of labor union, taking a vote that a new
and vicious change of leadership was in order, and then storming the hill with
cries of determination and battle. End game? Knock that fool off the top of the
hill and make the crown your own.
Now, that may sound very festive and such,
but in reality, this could be a brutal and bloody experience. Ever take
somebody’s bony head to the gut and then find yourself flying 20 feet through
the air and landing on your back? Had somebody hurl themselves into the backs
of your knees so that you fell on them while they fell on your lower legs, putting
enough pressure on your shins that you screamed in an octave range that hadn’t
been invented until that very moment? Slid on your face down the side of a pile
of gravel while somebody stomps on your head as they rushed to take the place
of your sorry, felled ass?
If I had a brochure entitled “Fun Things That
I Really Love About Life”, none of the above options would be in it. Sayin.
But the true dynamic of the game is that the “king”
was really in a position of power, based on the laws of physics and the
overwhelming disadvantage of the eternally-suffering peasants. It was very hard
to topple the bastard at the top. Many a time the insurgency would wear itself
out and the kingdom would remain in the hands of a single monarchist until Mom
would holler from the back porch that it was time to wash up for supper.
3. Red Rover
This was another essentially pain-based form
of entertainment, although it required a rather sizeable contingent of rowdy
hooligans for there to be any type of success. This high-population requirement
probably explains why it was popular on community playgrounds. In my own case,
however, it was also a requirement that we play this sadistic mess as part of
our P.E. classes in elementary school. (It also didn’t help that our P.E. “coach”
was a twisted sociopath with authority issues and a love for inflicting pain on
youngsters wearing Garanimals.)
You split into two teams, with each team
holding hands in a straight line and facing the other team. One of the teams
would go first (I don’t recall how this was decided, but it was probably
drug-based, since it was the 70’s), and that team would target someone on the
other team by bellowing “Red Rover, Red Rover, let Billy Joe come over!”.
Billie Joe, gulping, would then haul ass toward the other team and try to break
through one of the little hand-holding segments. If he bounced off like a rag
doll, he had to join the other team. If he broke the chain, he got to pick one
of the probably-injured breakees to join his own team. Play continued until
there was no one left on one team or somebody was killed.
Now, as I’m sure you can imagine, there was a
lot of cheating in this warped exercise that basically taught you that you have
to hurt people to succeed in life. You had the hefty farm boys targeting the
linked hands of dainty little girls, knowing they wouldn’t survive any better
than bugs hitting the windshield. You had those dainty girls who would often
scream hours before the rutting bull got anywhere near them, voluntarily
breaking the chain and allowing themselves to be carted away as captured flesh
and having visions of being turned into slave labor or harem personnel,
depending on which books they had checked out of the school library.
And you had any survivors of attempted
chain-breaks. Whether you won or lost the round, you were basically out of commission.
If you were the defending chain, your arm was probably torn out of its socket
and hanging limply. If you were a runner, you took a serious blow somewhere on
your body, with possible outcomes ranging from gastrointestinal damage to sterility.
And if the runner was subjected to “clothes-lining”,
the supposedly-banned but still-practiced ploy of raising your linked arms to
the neck-level of the runner? That runner was no longer breathing. He had just
enough time to crawl off to the side and scratch out his last will and
testament in the playground dirt.
4. Crack the Whip
You know, I’m starting to wonder if we ever
played anything that wasn’t dangerous. Was this just an Oklahoma thing? Or did
kids around the world gleefully participate in activities that could maim or
cripple them? Do kids still do that these days? Well, probably not at public schools. You know, those places
where there’s so much restrictive legislation now that a teacher can’t even say
“good morning” without a consent form signed by God, yet so many modern “parents”
fully expect that teacher to completely raise their own children without the
parents having to lift a finger.
Anyway. With this festive game, everybody
joined hands in a single line, assuming you were still physically capable of doing
such after playing Red Rover earlier in the afternoon. Then the “head” of the
snake would start running all over the place, all crazy-eyed and preferably zig-zagging.
End result? The increasing pressure on the people at the end of the line would
soon become so great that they would go flying through the air and slam to the
ground in a far field. Good times.
Now, one of the rules was that, even if you
had been flung, if you could somehow manage to rejoin the chain and hang on,
you were officially back in the game. But seriously, once you’ve crashed
through the front window of the Five & Dime two blocks over, why would you
go back? Why?
5. The Quiet Game
Okay, maybe not all of our youthful
entertainment pursuits were dripping with blood and intense peer pressure. But
even though this game was relatively tame, from a physical-damage perspective,
it’s still tainted by the fact that isn’t actually a game, but rather a coping
mechanism invented by parents who were waiting for their Valium prescriptions
to be refilled.
The object? Sit your ass down and shut up.
For a very long time. Don’t talk about anything, don’t file oral reports about
what your sibling may or may not be doing, and don’t provide commentary about
who was whisked away in an ambulance from the playground at school. If you
speak, you lose, and Mommy has to start drinking again. But what do you win, if you don’t engage the
vocal chords until you’ve graduated from high school? You get to continue being
raised by your parents and not Child Protective Services…
