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Life in a Nutshell: Remembering the games of youth

Brian L. Thompson
Published Friday, April 20, 2001

Brian Thompsonstaff biosend email

There were a bunch of us sitting around the other night, thinking about spring. The drinks started flowing and the cool, night air made everything around us feel light. That's when we started reminiscing -- thinking about the good old days. The childhood days and the games we used to play.

Those were the days when daylight savings time really meant something. It would kick in and bring an eternity of extra play time each evening. And everyday kids streamed out like roaches, all looking for the sport of the day.

It was never the standard fare. Who had time for traditional games like baseball, football, soccer or beat up the skinny kid with freckles?

"Remember butts up," I recalled this night. "Now wasn't that a game?"

"Ohhhh, yes," someone answered, as if gently sliding their mind into that soothing hot tub of memories.

These were the games we played.

Never heard of butts up? What a masterful and strategic game that was. I'll explain it, and tell me if you get lost: A bunch of kids stand around tossing a ball -- maybe a tennis ball -- at a wall. Someone would catch it and chuck it again, this time even harder. But, and here's where it got good, if you dropped it, everyone else would run for the ball and then try and beam you in the back before you could touch the wall.

If you got hit, you had to bend over in front of the wall, with your butt up, while everyone else took a shot at your bum. Sounds like fun, huh?

Games you played as a kid always seemed to be especially rough on the derriere. You could come home, after playing a couple of these so-called sports, and your hind quarters would be two sizes bigger.

As a kid, in any game, you could take the rules and mold them however you pleased. Why stick with the tried and true when you could experiment and come up with your own game, like Fall out of the Tree? This, if I recall it right, was a variation on two sports, Get the Ball Out of the Tree and Go To the Hospital.

Which is another thing: Why is is as a kid you always wanted to get injured bad enough to go to the hospital? All boys wanted that serious, scarring, medal-of-honor-kind of wound. I never got one. The kid across the street, Max, was always going to hospital. He got run over by a car once. That was pretty impressive and very hard to beat. He also jumped out of a tree house once and impaled his hand on a nail. He got stitches for that!

Only time I came close as a kid to being seriously injured was during a dirt war with my brother where a rock disguised as dirt caught me in the shoulder. It bled, a big welt appeared, and on the way to the doctor -- covered head-to-toe in natural brown dirt -- all I could think was, "This thing needs stitches for sure. Maybe even surgery to get the rock out."

But I got nothing and it didn't even leave a scar.

Remember dodge ball? That was the game where kids got balls thrown at them -- at speeds the space shuttle can't match -- and you dove out of the way, praying certain private regions on your body would not get pelted. You had to be aware of these things as a little boy. You go down with one of those "special" injuries and not only is everyone going to laugh, but you're sure to get knocked to pieces by your little merciless buddies who will keep raining balls on you.

What else did we play as a kid?

The human whip, where the primary objective was to snap someone in half. Everyone joined hands and one kid the size of a gorilla took hold of this human whip and began running and twisting and swinging until all the little kids on the end were flying off in every direction, landing in trees and on top of car-ports. Great game!

Then there were water sports like "mud." There were no rules to mud. Basically it just required you put a running hose on a pile of dirt and then do whatever came naturally. What always came naturally was ring worm.

So I'm looking to get back in touch with my youth. Maybe I'll climb a tree and see if I can get that medal of honor injury. Or, at least a few stitches.

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