Before Electronics Got In the Way - Good Ol' Childish Games

[Calienta]

I was reading Hoos' blog where he was wondering what kids would do without computers, video games, etc.

I thought we could reminisce about the games we used to play or things we used to do as kids. I really miss being 10 :(

WAR This involved the kids on the street as well - we would have two "bases" and would leave people to guard the base and others would go to infiltrate the enemy base. It always ended with me getting tied to a tree.

MAIL This game had entirely no point but was fun to play. You started off with minimum two teams, and each shut themselves in a room with paper and pencils. This should be played in the evening with the lights off for maximum fun. You basically write letters to any of the other teams and then sneak out to "mail" them. Really what you're doing is delivering them to the team's door. Basically you're trying not to get caught by any of the other teams. You can have two teams versus two teams or every team for itself.

I don't think there was ever a winning team or a losing team, it was just fun to sneak around and try not to be heard :dunno:

POWER RANGERS For anyone who'd ever seen the show as a kid, do not even TRY to tell me you never played at Power Rangers :P I was always the Pink Ranger. I recall being on the top of the snow banks in front of our houses and yelling "IT'S MORPHIN' TIME!" and jump kicking off. We would stage fights and practice for ages.

DANCE SHOWS Get out Dance Mix '95 and get crackin'. Dance shows involved wearing tight, bright neon body suits, hair in ponytails, and multiple bracelets. We would practice for several hours, planning our moves, then force our parents and neighbours into chairs on the driveway and perform to tumultuous applause.

CLUBS As one of the oldest kids on the court, it was my duty (along with my best friend, Kali) to gather the children unto us and create clubs. We cut badges out of library books and held regular meetings. We had a whiteboard propped up in the garage and would set tasks for the kids to do. These tasks included mowing somebody's lawn or picking up trash. All in all it was a pretty good idea, really :|

FORTS There were two very large projects that we commenced during my childhood. One was in my friend Nathan's backyard - we dug for days, creating the trenches where the walls would go. We had an old door that we planned to use, too. My mum baked muffins and we went door to door in the neighbourhood, offering muffins for donations. One old stingy lady took two muffins and gave us 50 cents. :argh:

We ended up with $20 and were faced with the sad realisation that we didn't have enough to buy walls. So we had two options to choose from: buy a square foot of the rainforest, or get pizza. We got pizza.

The second fort was in the field behind Kali's house. We had all sorts of old pieces of wood that we nailed into trees and eventually had a working fort for a while. We would sit in there and make sure our little brothers couldn't get in, or if they did get in, would tell them ghost stories so they would run home.

So what do you remember from your childhood?

[Nazkyn]

Most of those seem a little erm... 'tomboyish' :whistle::P

Aside from the usual - hide and seek and stuff like that, I can remember rolling giant snowballs in the winter with my friends, rolling them onto someone's doorstep, ringing the bell and then legging it :$ you always get one person who takes it too far though... and I won't go into that :$

[Calienta]

I should point out that Kali and I were the only girls on a street with 12 boys. lol

Another I remember:

DARK TAG Just like it sounds, except it's mostly hide and seek. You hide anywhere on the street - this includes backyards ... And the person who's "it" has to come find someone before everyone makes it to home base. I remember getting chased all the time and being teased because my pink pants were visible by moonlight :hidey:

[Zeus]

Riding bikes without sissy helmets, getting poison ivy from playing out in the woods.

[Mitch]

Blocking up street gutters during Wet Season in the Northern Territory.

[Spork!!!]

cool mitch, I was a junior dam builder too.
Jumping the fence @ local service station and getting the old tyres and rolling them down the big hill opposite.

[Q80Thug]

http://img300.imageshack.us/img300/5192/snaptf2.jpg (https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/1174)

:whistle::P:sneaky:

[hoos]

Yeah I loved playing hide and seek or flashlight tag in the neighborhood. We play A LOT of wiffle ball in my backyard, as well as many other sports and stuff. I don't think we made up too many games. It was a simple time way back in 1996.

[vixen]

what about kick the can, tether ball, we had a field in our neighborhood we played kick ball, baseball and used it for "base" for any games that required hiding. We had a tidal marsh in the back yard, we used to hunt for snapping turtles or searched for stuff. Capture the flag neighborhood style, you had a base in the woods where the flags were and you had to commando style go and get it. We had a cul de sac where we rode bikes and roller skated - old school style where we had the skates that went over your shoes with the skate key. That cul de sac was good for doge ball too but the most fun was flashlight tag in the dark except if you went in old lady Oulow's yard....she was a bitch! LOL

[Dymond]

Here are couple I remember

Ditchem
This was basically team hide and seek. You had two teams, and one would go and hide and the other would have to find them. The finders would also have a home base that the hiders had to get to, however you had to hide a certain distance away from the base. Usually the best strategy would to send everybody but one or two out to find the hiders and keep one or two at the base. If everybody got to the base safe, they could hide again, if somebody got tagged before getting to the base, the teams reversed. This one is usually played in the evenings when its dark. Its even MORE fun in the fog!

Soccey
In restrospect probably one of the dumbest and scariest games we played. It was pretty much street hockey but we used an old soccer ball and since we were pretty much poor ass kids, instead of hockey sticks we used whatever the hell we could find. I remember my stick was a shovel handle. I can't remember all the rules. I know two cans or other objects marked the goals and since we played this in the street, the curb marked the out of bounds. The object was to score some goals and not get your head taken off by the idiot swinging the shovel handle. :)


Street Racing
A) Have a dad who drinks lots of beer from cans
B) Crush said cans
C) Use crushed cans to make really cool track layouts on your street that you then race on with whatever bike you can build from the pieces your friend has in his backyard.

[Zeus]

Here are couple I remember


Street Racing
A) Have a dad who drinks lots of beer from cans
B) Crush said cans
C) Use crushed cans to make really cool track layouts on your street that you then race on with whatever bike you can build from the pieces your friend has in his backyard.

Where "Street Kings Racing" began. :cheeky:

[the squid of despair]

Masterbating with actual MAGAZINES!