Games we played

I know that I would love to have known what my grandma and even great grandma played when they were a little girl. It shouldn't surprise you that most of these games and activities are for playing outside. I loved being outside and was miserable if bad weather made me stay inside.

We played the group games of course with all the neighbor kids. So here we go: crack the whip, blind man's bluff, red rover, kick the can, Simon says, mother may I, softball, dodge ball, jump rope, kickball, hopscotch, swingset, climbing trees, Building tents or forts out of old blankets, high jump and walking on stilts. Dad made the high jump and stilts for us. We loved to play in the rain if it wasn't lightening (we didn't get to do this very often so it was quite special.) On summer nights after it was dark we loved to catch lightening bugs (fireflies) and put them in a jar. We had hula hoops, roller skates and bicycles that we used a lot. I loved to play jax--but i didn't like the little rubber ball that came with them so I used one of dad's old golf balls. It worked great on our kitchen tile floor. For inside we had the usual dolls and accessories, a dollhouse and paper dolls. Michelle and I would also get an old catalogue and cut out all the cute kids, moms and dads and build us a "family" out of them. We played for hours with these. Of course in the winter we had the same activities that kids from all generations have played. The main difference is the style and build of our equipment. For instance our roller skates fastened on to our shoes and had a skate key to tighten them up. Our bikes had one speed--however fast we pedaled. We didn't shift gears to go faster we just had to pedal harder. Our sleds were made of wood slats, and had metal runners underneath.