Life Lessons

IF YOU GET A CHANCE, TAKE IT! IF IT CHANGES YOUR LIFE, LET IT!

Friday, March 8, 2013

The Floor Is Lava

The other day I saw a facebook post that brought back a lot of memories! (Thanks Suzanne!)

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Wow.  I hadn't thought of that childhood game in years!  In fact I probably had the idea that my brother Jerry and I were the ones who invented it.  Do you know what I'm talking about?  Jumping around the living room from couch to couch to chairs and back without touching the floor, because it is, in fact, hot lava!  No, my Mother wasn't home, or if she was she was in the kitchen cooking something, or in there on the phone with Aunt Pat.  One did not do these things if there was a chance of detection, best to wait until Dad was in charge actually......

Thinking about the lava game started me thinking about all the crazy games we played, and made up, as kids.  We did the usual soccer, baseball, football, and tag, (several varieties) with some jump rope thrown in for good measure.  There was a game we played that required steps, but I can not recall anymore than that.  Anyone?  Arg, that's going to bug me.  One of my favorite games was  played with a ball. You would toss it against a wall or house...*but NOT Vicki's*  We would NEVER toss anything against Barb's siding. :) You started with the number one and went through the number seven.  Each number required you to do something different and you stayed on that number until you completed the task.  Number one, for example was just toss the ball against the wall and catch it.  However in round two you had to clap, round three you had to stomp, round four you clapped twice, etc etc etc until it was time to go home or something more exciting happened in the hood.

If Barb happens to be reading this, she might want to just gloss over this paragraph.......  Another great indoor rainy day game was played in the long hallway at Vicki's house.  We just called it "That Ball Game".  Enough said.  It was awesome though, and NO that isn't how the hole got in the wall.  That was all Vicki, I wasn't even anywhere near the premises.  

As I'm racking my brain the game on the steps might have been called Poison.  I am recalling having to touch the bottom and run to the top as fast as you could to win, it's the middle part  that's fuzzy.

The best game by far was Ghost in the Graveyard!  We always played at my house, because "A." The Meys children had to be home when the street lights came on. and "B." We had Grandma's big yard next door to play in too.  We would have been a bit older to be out after dark, and it was definitely only in the summertime or early fall.  Lots of random neighborhood kids ( and from the hoods surrounding) would come and play.

Ah, childhood.  When your biggest problem was a game gone wrong, or you stepped in the hot lava.  :)  I wouldn't go back in time to do things over, but maybe just for a day.  Just to experience that truly carefree feeling one more time.  I would pick an early fall Friday, when I was nine or ten.  I would even go to school, just to smell the smells, see the bus driver and the teachers, my friends from back then, and to play all of those crazy games!

Do kids even do these things anymore??



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