Games Children Play

Games Children Play 15 November 2008
Ever watched children play with nothing but trash and rocks and love it? Well, I remember doing it as a kid, and I know that my friends did but I bet that is a sight increasingly rare in the suburbs of the US of A.
Anyway, I know for a fact that I was nowhere near as creative with my rock and trash games as the kids here are. Or, perhaps, some of the rock and trash games have been ‘tidied up’ over the years. For example: every child and woman (and probably men, too) knows how to play a complicated version of jacks. Find 5 small rocks and toss them up and try to catch them all on the back of your hand. How many you catch determines how many you have to pick up each time you attempt once you put all the rocks but one on the ground. You toss one rock into the air, scoop up a certain number of rocks and then catch the first rock on its way down. Or something like this… I still don’t get it entirely. They play hopscotch, too, but they call it meetch. It goes like this: scratch out the grid on the ground with a stick (there are two main shapes) and then throw a rock to a specific square and hop everywhere but there, and then come back, but pick up the rock with one hand on your way. And the ever popular mud-pies… sardine cans, some of mom’s baby celery, bottle caps, dirt, rocks = lunch!! And the most impressive of all: trash fastened together properly makes an awesome car for boys. You can even steer it if you attach a long stick to the front axle. Neat, huh?
And then there’s rock paper scissors. Yup, that’s right, it’s here, too! Only the kids say "Siss, boom, bah!" and then they shoot. I think the general method is to have the whole group throw down, and the losers step out, and then the winners go again. If there are ties, then they go against each other specifically. Or so it seems… I love rock paper scissors… as a decision making method between people it’s great. Definite and entertaining decision-making! If only I could play rock paper scissors with myself effectively…