We were on base. In retrospect, I don’t know that being on base was that much better than being on glue…
We moved all over, as military brats. We had home, base, ghoul, and one I haven’t seen mentioned yet, ghost.
Or “Home Base”.
Ollie Ollie In Free.
But I’ve never seen it written that way, so I wonder if as a kid I was the only one who said “in free” instead of “oxen free” and my friends were too polite to correct me. (That was the Midwest in the 1960s.)
Base
When I was a kid, it was “Barley”. I have no idea why. The phrase was “I’m barley” rather than on barley.
Kids these days seem to say “Paused” 
:eek:
Nibs.
Only it wasn’t a place, you just crossed your fingers. It usually wasn’t a safe area to run to, so much as an excuse to have a break, if you cut yourself or wanted to eat your lunch or something.
Not fair!! You took my answer, but I only played tag in Maryland and Pennsylvania.
I’m pretty sure it was “home” or “home free”.
Home or Base or Homebase.
SoCal, late 70s/early 80s
Over here in Germany, it’s always been called ‘boat’ (or rather, ‘Boot’, of course). No clue why, though; the rest of the game seemed utterly devoid of naval metaphors.