Welcome to Season 2 of Mom’s Wooden Spoon! Thank you so much for coming back or joining us for the first time!
I was recently at a local High School Football game concessions stand here in GA where I now live, and saw that they had a chicken sandwich. I was already anticipating the chickeny, saltiney deliciousness when the concession stand worker handed me a Chic-Fil-A sandwich. I was overcome with emotions! I was so disappointed that it was not the delicious sandwich I had anticipated but at the same time I was so excited to get the Chic-Fil-A tastiness. I stood there for a minute trying to sort out my conflicting emotions before grabbing that sandwich and heading back to my seat to enjoy. Let’s not be silly, yummy is still yummy!
During this week’s podcast, Kristen and I mention our memories of one of our most hated childhood games, Red Rover. Not only was I way too weak and wimpy to break through anyone’s arms (and boy did it hurt when they clotheslined you across your abdomen) but I was also too weak to hold on tightly to the friend next to me to stop the advancing enemy. And to make matters worse, I wasn’t the only one playing the game that realized I was the weakest link, which made me the obvious choice if winning was your goal. And it was, it always was. On occasion, during a painful game of Red Rover (and who named it that, I often wondered as I gritted my teeth against the agony of yet another defeat? Was it a huge fan of Clifford the Big Red Dog? I bet he could break the line without causing internal bleeding) my mom would call us in for dinner. Best night ever. I dropped my neighbor’s hand like it was hot and ran for home like my feet were on fire. I might even have agreed to eat peas that night, for all the joy I was feeling for being saved from continuing to play Red Rover.
There were some outdoor games that I thoroughly enjoyed and, dare I say, excelled at? One of these was no doubt, TV Tag. This was a game in which speed, stamina and even eye/hand coordination were not necessary. All you needed was a vast knowledge of TV Shows. This was the game for me! In case this was not a game played in your neighborhood or you have somehow lost access to memories of the rules over the last 20 years or so, TV Tag allowed you to avoid being tagged by crouching down and screaming out the name of a TV show, right before “it” could tag you. If you were playing with a bunch of sticklers, you couldn’t call out the name of a show that someone else had previously called out. When this rule was in place, you really had to be on your “A” game. I quickly learned that all my friends and neighbors liked to call out the name of Saturday Morning cartoons and other shows that were favorites among the under 10 crowd, but not me! I went for the most boring, adult content shows my little brain could think of. Imagine 8 year old Carrie running away from the much faster Scott, knowing that a tag was imminent, waiting until the very last second when I would slide into a squat and with great pride scream out, “Local News on CBS”! Really, I can’t even begin to imagine what the other kids even thought of me. I’d love to say my weirdness has mellowed over the years but I’m pretty sure I’d be lying.
While at school, there are a few playground games that bring back great memories. My middle school (which was 5th and 6th grade only) had a 4 square painted on the ground. We were obviously the luckiest school around. The only problem was when another teacher’s class had gotten out there before we did and commandeered the area. Then you had to go to the bootleg back-up which was only 4 squares because of the the jiggy-jag cracks in the blacktop that didn’t really resemble squares as much as States. I often got stuck in Nebraska though I always wanted to get Virginia or Ohio. We all avoided California though, it was much to long to defend. In refreshing my memory of how this game was played, I am convinced that we played a version known only to the Defiance 5th and 6th graders of 1983 and ‘84. Our rules dictated that you would throw the ball into the other person’s square where it would bounce once in the square and they would have to catch it. There were a few caveats, if you threw it so it bounced in the square and back out with such force that it sailed into the neighboring basketball court, that was on you. It was uncatchable and we called unsportsmanlike conduct. Basically, by my memory, this was not so much cut throat, uber-competitive 4 square but more of a friendly game of bounce the ball kindly to each other while complaining about adults and spreading the hottest gossip of who had a crush on who. It makes sense as to why I liked it so much!
There were so many fun ways to pass the time with friends on the playground. How about those amazing, long jump ropes that schools had with the red, white and blue beads on them that were perfect for doing jumping rhymes and trying out double dutch? From those that caused excruciating pain to those that were more talk than action (have I made it clear enough that those were my faves?), there was not a better way to spend some time with your friends while escaping the pressures of elementary school.