If y’all are nostalgic for a good game of Hide 'n Seek, I recommend paint ball. My husband plays it with some neighborhood men, and they really get into it. Not only do they get to recapture their youth, but they get to play grown-up army games without being laughed off the planet.
Be careful, though, getting hit with a paint ball hurts!
Um, sorry to ask a really lame question, but how the hell do you play kick the can? I assumed it was just a euphamism for innocent child hood games.
What did I play? All the variations of football, baseball, basketball, soccer. Never had enough for a full game usually so we played alot of Smear the Queer, 21, Around the World, Home Run Derby, Hot Box, and infinitly original ways to get hurt. We boxed occasionally. Ghosts in the Graveyard was a great one, Red Light, Green light, Tag and its variations. Jarts, jumping ramps we built with bikes, trikes, and skateboards. The biggest one was just riding big wheels, I burned through the wheels to those things at least 3 times a summer. Oh yeah, and Doctor & Spin the Bottle.
Kickball
Smear the Queer (and a variation we called ‘Throw-back Smear’)
Doctor
Red Rover
And one I’ve not seen mentioned yet called ‘Colored Eggs.’
‘Knock-knock’
‘Who’s there?’
‘Big Bad Wolf’
‘What do you want?’
‘Colored Eggs’
‘What color?’
The person who is the Wolf starts to guess colors. When he guesses a color chosen by one of the other kids, that particular kid has to make it to the ‘safe’ tree before getting tackled by the Wolf.
As a good New York youth, my outdoor pastimes were, aside from ths usual basketball, tackle football in the street (“Cars? What cars… OUCH!”) included:
Stickball.
Stoop ball. The house I grew up at in Queens was the ultimate for Stoop Ball! Grass on either side of a straight walkway to the door, a line of hedges at the back. Lotsa diving catches through the hedges!
Something we called “Scully.” I have only vague recollections of this game, but it involved putting wax or putty inside a bottle cap (the larger juice ones worked best) and flicking it onto a grid of some sort… Can anyone help me out here? Damn, I barely remember it…
Yer pal,
Satan
I was fortunate to have 5 kids near my age next door and a rural setting with no boundries. We played football, baseball, rode bikes, etc., but the best times were had while playing in the woods. We would dam the creek, go exploring, fish, hunt (with BB guns), and generally waste all day. One particular piece of land was full of 15-20’ pine trees. We would climb to the top of one tree, lean towards the next tree, grab hold and transfer (pines are very flexible). We could go hundreds of yards without ever touching the ground, unless a treetop broke, or one lost their grip…
The overwhelming majority of people have more than the average (mean) number of legs. – E. Grebenik
In winter we would play fox and goose, you would stomp a wagon wheel shaped path in the snow and play tag, you could only stay on the paths. In the summer it would be Red Rover, Olly Olly Oxen Free, 500, (Shagging flys with a point value attached) and, of course, Hide and Seek.
In 30 years I can’t imagine today’s kids waxing nostalgic about their Nintendo’s.
SIGH !
Red Rover, Red Rover I call Keith over.
You want brilliance BEFORE I’ve had my coffee!!!
Hey Tom, Buttball was outlawed by my elementary school because some of us couldn’t sit down after recess. Boys AND girls played it.
Anyone for Foursquare?
Smear the Queer, the new Olympic event!
We stood on the train tracks and said we wouldn’t get off if a train came. But we always did.
I’ll be there
Where I’ll teach what I’ve been taught
And I’ve been taught…
In our Wisconsin/Winter days, tobogganing. Big time.
Snowball fights.
Bigger time.
In summer–we made wooden swords & shields & wacked away at each other.
Also croquet. LOTS of croquet. We could play with & beat adults at this, so it was more interesting than it might sound to some smartasses.
Other than that , I read; & went down to the Fox River with a small net, notebook, & microscope.
YO-HO, ME HEARTIES! ALL HANDS ON DECK FOR THE MUSICAL BATTLE AT SEA!
One person it IT and everyone else hides. IT has to find everyone else. Once IT finds everyone, the last person found is IT. Sounds like Hide and Seek, right? Except that there’s more to it.
When IT sees a person, IT has to call out who they see (and, in some versions, where) and then race back to base to stomp on the can. If IT stomps the can before the found person kicks it, the person is caught. If the can gets kicked that person (and anyone else previously caught) get to go free. Also, if anyone who is free kicks the can at any time, all the caught players get to go free.
As the game goes on, IT often has a tendency to hang around the can for periods of time to discourage anyone from popping out to kick the can. It’s really fun to play it when you have to position the base and can in a area that has nearby hiding places, because then IT gets paranoid about those places.
Your Official Cat Goddess since 10/20/99.
Semper Ubi Sub Ubi
Ahhh, memories.
Smear the queer a/k/a tackle the guy with the ball.
Good ol’ backyard football – one mississippi, two mississippi, three mississippi…
Kickball
Around the world, 21
And Four-square with its infinte rule variations (OK, this time there are no spins, but you can slam and stonewall).
Plunging like stones from a slingshot on Mars.
Ha ha, I still get to play outside with my son. We play baseball, soccer, basketball and many other games.
He loves kick the can too.
“Let me fall out of the window with confetti in my hair…”
Tom Waits
Kick the can
Smear the Queer ( Yes, it should be an Olympic Event, but it would take on a whole new meaning in the Gay Olympics.)
Dodge Ball ( My favorite)
Lots of baseball.
Lots of H-O-R-S-E and HIPPOTAMUS.
Helter Skelter ( I don’t remember much about it but the name, but it was like Kick the Can.)
Tons of Cops and Robbers
House ( I was the only girl so guess who got to be June Cleaver all the damn time.)
I remember alot of skate boarding and grabbing the back of car bumpers as they passed ( Did this, sans skateboard, in winter with lots of snow.)
All variations of tag.
And a personal favorite of mine: soccer style four square. ( we invented it.patent pending, etc.)
Of course, the other favorite pasttime in the summer was to throw crab apples in other kids swimming pools until it looks like an Ocean Spray commercial.
We grew up in the snow belt and winter time could be amazing. My friend lived on a chicken farm and the coop was built against a hill so if you ran up the hill you could easily jump up on to the coop roof, but it was a twenty foot drop off the other side of the roof. After a big snow the other side of the roof was usually just inches away from the top of the drift, so the kids would run up the hill, jump on the roof, and fling themselves off into the huge snow drift – outstanding! You usually fell only about ten feet until the compressing snow brought you to a halt. You would then have to tunnel your way out. sigh
~tomorrow is promised to no one~
Flashlight Tag was my all-time favorite. I loved ghost-in-the-graveyard, too; I taught my kids how to play and it’s their favorite now.
We spent a lot of time just digging in the dirt and making mud pies. We fished in the pond, ice-skated on it in the winter, and had some serious cattail fights. We made burrows through the snowdrifts and went sledding. I grew up next to Six Flags, which provided one enormous roller-skating rink in the form of a humongous parking lot. Whenever the park was closed, we’d skate there. When the park was open, we’d go almost every day because naturally we had season passes.
Anyone play Spud? Or Red Light, Green Light?
smear the queer
red rover
and we would find anything to jump our bikes over. once i cleared 8 kids side by side.
We live in an age that reads to much to be wise, and thinks too much to be beautiful–Oscar Wilde
Run Sheep Run.
Marco Polo (in the pool)
Also, I grew up in Southern California when there were still a lot of orange groves right in among the suburbs of LA. We would pick up boxes of wind fall oranges, then sit on the curb and roll them under passing cars, trying to squash them, which elicited load hurrahs. Occasionally, drivers thought we were having too much fun, and stop their cars to give us what for, whereupon we would scatter like cockroaches.
TT
“Believe those who seek the truth.
Doubt those who find it.” --Andre Gide
Reviving this for the spring 'cause it’s a beautiful day and I’m stuck at work and can’t go out and play 
“There’s No Ghost in the Graveyard.” Must be played at twilight. I don’t remember how the teams are divided, there are ghosts, and there are the people that link arms and skip around singing “There’s no ghost in the grrrraveyard,” half expecting to be grabbed at any moment. Best played in a graveyard, where you have to run out of the gates for safety. However, danger of tripping on an old headstone is also high, so it’s more dangerous. And more spooky. And wierd.
There was some other game involving a witch, but I don’t remember the rules to that one at all.
My brother, Rincewind, and I would play “Adventurers” with our neighborhood buddies, Andy and Adam. Broomhandles were our favorite weapons as they made good long swords and spears. PVC piping was great for staff and bows. It was really a kind of live-action D&D for us.
We also played A-Team, Greek Gods (like Meredith did, kinda), GI Joe, lots and lots of Star Wars, smurfs. Most summer days, we’d be out by 8 a.m., maybe stop by for a quick lunch, and then stay outdoors until dark.
God, I want to be a kid again. sigh