My mother, your mother live across the way/Fifteen, Sixteen, East Broadway...*

[ceebeegee]

They're running an ad on NY1 right now--it features Shrek and the donkey from Shrek (I don't know his name, I've never seen the movie). The two creatures are exhorting kids to "be a player!" and to get up and go outside to play. I mean--they are actually running ads that tell kids to go outside and play. As a public service announcement. The best part is when the donkey says you can go online to check out ideas on how to play--"but don't stay too long!" I just--you actually have to be told how to play outside? By the government? Is everyone on DOPE? [/Mr. Hand] Is this a city thing? Wait, it can't be--the opening sequence of Crooklyn shows tons of kids playing in the street. Are kids today so lethargic they don't WANT to run around like demons outside? Don't they have tons of energy to work off? I mean, I just don't get it.

When I was a kid, oh my God--in New Hampshire, we played Kick the Can, Hide and Go Seek, baseball, Red Light, Green Light...Kick the Can was the best--I *loved* that game! I would play it TODAY. So much fun hiding and then sneaking closer...and closer...and closer until you burst out of hiding, sprinting toward the center of the Gaidmore's yard (we always played in the Gaidmore's back yard) to send that can flying. We played it so much we finally substituted a big pile of pillows because we were running out of cans! The New Hampshire kids had some fun rhymes for deciding who was It--one of my favorites was "Inka, Binka, bottle of ink, cork fell out and you stink." We also said "Engine, Engine Number Nine, Going down Chicago Line, if the train should jump the track, do you want your money back?" and "Bubble gum, bubble gum in a dish, how many pieces do you wish?"

I also loved climbing trees. I've always had a stereotypically boylike desire to "conquer" my environment"--anytime there was a tree, I climbed it; anytime there was a thin raised path, I walked along it, trying to balance myself; anytime there was a bar, I swung on it. In Virginia, there was a maple tree right outside my house that my friend Beth and I used to climb all the time. We named the different branches and "claimed" them and I always loved the seeds spinning to the ground in the spring. I would throw them into the air to watch them 'copter their way to the ground--I still do this! In my backyard in New Hampshire, there was a huge fir tree where my brother built a shelf to sit on, and I used to climb up there and read.


*...Every night they have a fight and this is what they say
"Icka bicka back soda cracker," out goes HE.--try getting THAT one out of your head!

I feel like I'm sitting on the porch, waving my cane at those kids in the street--except that would mean they're outsde, playing. It would be funny if it weren't sad :/

Comments

[king-duncan.livejournal.com]

Donkey's name is "Donkey". :)

[ceebeegee.livejournal.com]

Clever!

[dry-2olives.livejournal.com]

What are the actual rules to Kick The Can? I grew up on Long Island where street hockey and street football were the games of choice and I just figuered it meant you find a can on the street and see how far you can kick it.

[ceebeegee.livejournal.com]

Oh mah LORD, no!

Kick the Can is a little like Hide and Go Seek--one person is It and covers their eyes, sits on or near the can and counts while everyone else hides. When the person is done counting, they say "Ready or not, here I come!" and starts creeping around to see if they can spy the players in hiding. They only have to see them, they don't have to catch them (as in Hide and Seek). If they see them, they run back to the can and say "[Player's name] behind the bushes!" That player is then "caught" and waits around while It tries to find the other players. The first person caught will be It next time. However if It creeps too far way from the can, whoever's in hiding can come running in and Kick the Can, thus freeing all the players who've been caught. The can goes flying, It tries to grab the Can and has to start counting again, and everyone else gets to hide.

Sometimes It will spy a player in hiding who's close enough to the can that there's a race between It and the player--the player's trying to kick it, and It is trying to tag it and say "XYZ, by the garage!" So the nub is that you have to wander a little bit so you can see the players in hiding, but you can't wander too far or someone will kick the can. (And you're not allowed to just park at the can--that's called goaltending.) It can be It up to three times in a row, then someone else has to do it.

[planga.livejournal.com]

When we were kids there was sugar in our foods, which gave us energy. Kids today get corn syrup which makes things sweet but doesn't give the sugar high. Playing outside is a thing of the past.