Spring was the big marble season at my school. However they got banned.
Basically the biggest prize on the marble scene was something called a King Kong Steely.Which in reality was nothing more than a big ball bearing - but as kids we didn't know that.
Anyhoo if you were playing the kid that had it - you had to hit him five times and he only had to hit you once. For this reason no one could get the frickin King Kong Steely of this kid. Until one day another kid managed to win a match for the King Kong Steely...but the other kid wouldn't give up the marble/ball bearing. Big fight broke out because of it and later that afternoon they announced over the PA that marbles were banned. I believe a letter also went home to parents.
Dark day indeed.
Oh man, we're going old school now (literally). King kongs were pretty rare in my day; the biggest one that most people had was a jumbo (followed by a boulder). "Steely's" were banned at our school, so we had (in order from best to worse IIRC) zebras, hollands, crystals, creamies, regulars.
In addition to playing one-on-one (which I was pretty good at IMO), we had "set-ups" (basically, you have to hit a tiny marble (a pee wee) from a predetermined distance, depending on how "good" your marble was. Good marbles got you closer, bad ones you had to try from farther away. Hit it the pee wee and you get the prize (more marbles); miss and the other guy (who "operated" the set-up) keeps your marble.
I even had a "marble board" that a friend of mine built -- basically it's an elementary school version of Plinko (from The Price is Right). Roll your marble down the board (filled with nails and bordered by elastics) and if it lands in the right compartment, you win a prize.
I still remember going to the toy store and seeing a bag of "holland crystal boulders" for sale and becoming the envy of my friends... good times
Head's up 7 up! Although we only seemed to play this when we were stuck inside on cold days.
I remember the boys used to play a game named Pickle...and we would sit there any watch. I don't remember the exact rules but two people threw a baseball back and forth while everyone else would run inbetween the bases. Something like that anyway...
I used to see kids play marbles, pogs, etc. I wasn't really into that.
We played hockey everyday for all 3 times there was recess in elementary(about 16 guys from our grade so 8 on each team). We built our own rink on the side of the school and had different tournaments every week. We'd have a best of 5 tournament (Mon-Friday and each recess would be a period). They used to call "inside recess" if the temperature was worse then -35 and on those days we'd play floor hockey inside. I remember one tournament was called the "Dorito Cup" where everyone brought in 2 bags of Dorito's so the winning team would get all 32. When you're in the 2nd and 3rd grade, that's a good prize lol.
Once or twice a month though to switch things up we played "buns up". Basically you throw a tennis ball off the wall. If you miss the wall you have to run and touch the wall before someone else throws the tennis ball at the wall. Otherwise, they get to whip the ball at you while you are standing with your back to them against the wall.
In our school the best marble was a king Kong oily. It was a glass marble but it was opaque and the surface was kind of rainbowy.
The most fun I had in recess was when I was in grade 6 iin Toronto. A bunch of us played little league and there was a strike zone painted on the school wall. We stood there whipping tennis balls at the wall for the whole lunch hour and recesses. I was going to be the next Jimmy Key.
We also liked playing wall ball but called it horse. Played it so that you got letters and last man standing won.
__________________
onetwo and threefour... Together no more. The end of an era. Let's rebuild...
When I went to the appropriately named Forest Park Elementary School we used to have "Pine Cone Wars" at lunch. There were tonnes of pine trees on the grounds so we had tonnes of ammunition. I'm not sure there were any rules or points... just involved whipping pine cones at each other.
We also played "Ball Tag" and being a girl we used to do those "twirly-flip-penny-drops" and played "Chicken" on the monkey bars...
Oh man, we're going old school now (literally). King kongs were pretty rare in my day; the biggest one that most people had was a jumbo (followed by a boulder). "Steely's" were banned at our school, so we had (in order from best to worse IIRC) zebras, hollands, crystals, creamies, regulars.
In addition to playing one-on-one (which I was pretty good at IMO), we had "set-ups" (basically, you have to hit a tiny marble (a pee wee) from a predetermined distance, depending on how "good" your marble was. Good marbles got you closer, bad ones you had to try from farther away. Hit it the pee wee and you get the prize (more marbles); miss and the other guy (who "operated" the set-up) keeps your marble.
I even had a "marble board" that a friend of mine built -- basically it's an elementary school version of Plinko (from The Price is Right). Roll your marble down the board (filled with nails and bordered by elastics) and if it lands in the right compartment, you win a prize.
I still remember going to the toy store and seeing a bag of "holland crystal boulders" for sale and becoming the envy of my friends... good times
Wow lots of the same terms we used..and we also had the gambling contraptions you describe...are you sure you didn't go to Beddington Heights.
Yeah King Kong-Jumbo-Bolder-Regular was the order. Some kids also had marbles smaller than regulars - can't remember what they were called.
One kid had a marble he called a "fireball" that he wouldn't play with because he swore it would crack any other marble. Liar.
is wall ball the same thing as red ass? throw the ball and it can only bounce once after it hits the wall or else you have to tag the wall before the other guy throws it at th wall? remember tetherball in the schoolyard?
We called that "Bum's Up".
Funny how there are so many different names for the same games. Bum's Up was technically banned also from my school though it was still played regularly.
Another oddly violent game was Red Rover - that's just inviting injury.
is wall ball the same thing as red ass? throw the ball and it can only bounce once after it hits the wall or else you have to tag the wall before the other guy throws it at th wall? remember tetherball in the schoolyard?
Funny how this topic comes up as just yesterday afternoon a bunch of friends and I got together to play redass. Haven't played it in 12 years, and with most of us being 25 or so, and some having some good arms, it was a blast. Facebook is an awesome thing when it comes to organizing these things, and it was really fun playing a childhood favorite. We must have looked like a group of grown oafs, and some of us got pasted good, but it was all good. The rules you have are a bit different. You don't throw the ball at the wall to get a letter, you whip the ball at the person running to the wall before they touch it to get a letter. Once it spells "REDASS", everyone gets to line up and pound the guy with one throw each from about 20 feet away.
__________________ I am in love with Montana. For other states I have admiration, respect, recognition, even some affection, but with Montana it is love." - John Steinbeck
Last edited by Displaced Flames fan; 07-20-2008 at 02:19 PM.
Funny how there are so many different names for the same games. Bum's Up was technically banned also from my school though it was still played regularly.
Another oddly violent game was Red Rover - that's just inviting injury.
We called it Buns Up, it was banned in middle school after one kid took one hard and didn't have his legs together or his positioning right or something. OUCH! I just remember seeing him puke and not realizing it was related to the ball hitting him in the...well, you can guess where. It was quite the freak accident.
That just meant the kids went to the other sides of the tennis courts and played over there where yard duty couldn't see the game.
[quote=Mango;1385862]Head's up 7 up! Although we only seemed to play this when we were stuck inside on cold days.
quote]
Haha,I remember Heads Up 7 Up on the cold, indoor recess days. Wow I totally forgot about that game until you mentioned it now! You know, I can see kids now thinking its super boring considering the other options they have, but I thought it was really fun and a good way to play with other kids and interact as opposed to staring at a video game or computer screen. What do they do now at indoor recesses? Play computer games?
