Games We Used To Play

How many of my readers out in the blogland can remember playing games in high school? To avoid confusion, when I say "games" I'm not referring to sports such as football,soccer,cricket,tennis, and so on. I'm referring to little activities that we used to make-up ourselves to pass the time outside (and sometimes inside) of school hours. Growing up in an all-boys school made for some very interesting gameplay, especially when you consider the types of interactions that must've taken place amongst a tribe of testosterone-ridden, early-teenage savages constantly surrounded by other boys in the same navy blue school uniform 5 days a week, 8 hours per day.

For example, when I was in the 7th grade (1st form), all boys at school had a huge obsession with old kung fu movies. As such, we created a game called "Karachi" [a mispronunciation of the word Karate]. The objective of the game was simple: make cat-like noises, interspersed with the punching and kicking sound effects heard in the spaghetti kung fu films, choose a villian and a hero, and fight! Well, simple enough, except we didn't know our own strength sometimes and ended up hurting each other from time to time. I, in fact, had skipped school one day to go play "Karachi" in the mazes of Hope Gardens and ended up receiving a kick on my left hand that caused my index finger to be dislocated. Unfortunately, the cartilage had been ripped off and blogged the joint, thereby making it impossible to have it simply popped back in. The result: a surgical procedure, three months of pain, and a scar on my left hand that still remains to this very day. Oh well, that was the end of "Karachi" for me.

Another game that was quite popular was one called "B-Word", where you would make a pact (called joining B-Word) with another classmate and if you said any word that started with the letter B, you would get your face slapped by your opponent. Some boys took this game very seriously and, oftentimes, students would go home with their jaws swollen from the number of slaps they had received throughout the day. Oh, by the way, the only way you could say a "B-Word" without getting slapped would be if you were scratching your chin at the time. If your opponent slapped you when you were scratching your chin, you had the right to slap them back twice (I believe). My friend, we'll call him Wimpy, was a bit overzealous when it came to the game and he had inadvertently joined with all 32 students in our class. Now, Wimpy was a fellow that loved to chat and one day he was sitting in class running his mouth off, when he suddenly received a slap from a classmate. In surprise, Wimpy said: "Why you box (slap) me?", which of course lead to another slap from someone else. Out of frustration, Wimpy found himself repeating: "Don't box me! Don't box me!" Now, had it not been for the fact that Wimpy was the type of fellow that would sneak up behind you in your most vulnerable moments and slap you, he would've probably gotten off lightly, but all 32 of us started boxing (slapping) Wimpy all at once for almost five minutes. The result a very teary-eyed little boy with jaws as fat as a chipmunk's running home as fast as he could.

Another popular game for us was once called Salad-a-Kick. This game was similar to soccer, except we would stuff several empty juice boxes into each other until we had a nice, solid "ball". The goal of this game was simple: try to kick the ball between someone's legs (a.k.a: salad the person) while trying to prevent someone from kicking it between yours. If you were unfortunate enough to have the ball go through your legs, or even worse, kicked the ball out of bounds, you had better be able to run fast and grab a safety point (a.k.a. base) for the other boys would attempt to kick you as hard and as much as they could. This game got even worse when we discovered that we could wear boots and other types of heavy shoes as a part of our uniforms. In fact, I still have a pair of pants where someone kicked me and the mark is still there, practically impossible to get out!

Of course, we had games like "Money Table Tennis" where we would roll a huge 25 cent coin across an elevated surface and play our own brand of Table Tennis that way. The only problem with this game was that whenever someone "smashed" and you tried to return it, it hurt like hell...considering you were using a huge silver coin. In fact, I know many boys that still suffer from damages inflicted by one two many games of "Money T-T".

Well, those are some of the games that I used to play in high school...what about you?

{arf,arf}

Comments

Anonymous said…
Yes we used to play 'salad' as well at George's.

Whappem to 'bumming'? Anything could result in a man getting 'bummed'. BTW, that meant that you were held by your hands by one yute, two more man would hold you, one by each ankle and gravity would cause your body to sink sort of like a hammock and you would be lowered repeatedly onto the ground by your bottom (bum) until your bumming was over. Tell a bad joke, you get bum. Lets say if you were having your 15th birthday, then you'd be bummed 15 times. BTW, kicking was also freely allowed as part of a bum. Not pleasant to be on the receiving end! Usually the 'bummeee' would end up releasing a barrage o claat!

Money TT??? A dat dem call it a dah school deh weh dem wear de dutty wash out blue uniform?? ;-)) As far as me know, it name Money football! Dr. D.
Abeni said…
Being civilised young ladies we did not indulge in the rough games you described:).I went to an all girls school and I remember we used to play this game called Boys/Girls.On a piece of paper each girl would draw up some columns..boy,girl,animal,place,fruit.One person would lead off by reciting the alphabet silently and would stop when told to.She then tells you the letter and under the headings everything you write must begin with that letter.The person who called the letter says stop as soon as she is finished and then everyone calls out their choices.Naturally,some people would not have gotten beyond the third heading.You get 10 pts per heading if nobody else choose the same name as you.When you get tired you total up to see who won.Used to be a lot of fun and nuff arguments would erupt over whether dragon or unicorn was acceptable as animals.
Angry Dog said…
Dr. D. We also did the bumming thing at JC, just like at Georges and most other high schools. Kicking was also freely allowed; however, what we also used to do to increase the intensity, would be to stuff the bummee's (as you so eloquently called it) back pockets with bottle caps or stones to make the experience a bit, shall we say, different. We also played money football as well, but money TT was where you would roll the 25 cent across the raised surface and try to return it to the person on the other side, just like a game of table tennis.

Abeni, I remember that game very well. Exactly the way you described it was how we played it as well, I think I was pretty good at that game myself :).

{arf,arf}
Anonymous said…
Dawg, we were not quite as rough edged as you wash out blue boyz! I suppose we bummed at George's wid a likkle bit o finesse! ;-)) Jus cool. Dr. D.
Scratchie said…
AD, well as you know MB, Doc and I went to the same high school so the games would be the same. In 1st form chalk and duster wars were a regular. As a matter of fact I used to write my line at home and come prepared with them. (lines were punishment for bad behaviour.) Pinky (the Vice Principal)used to tell you "No walk, no talk, no raising of hands. One to line number them one at a time number them 1 to 200"
Doc didn't tell you that bumming and salad would easily move from a class activity to an entire school affair. So if you were unfortunate enough to get salad or bummed when nuff people deh bout yuh a$$ is grass. All who not playing get in a kick.
Anonymous said…
Scratchie, as you talk 'bout lines, I remember some man who used to sell lines! Don't remember what the going rate was though.

An Art teacher who hailed from the US gave us 1,000 lines once..."I must keep my mouth shut when I am supposed to!" Dem tings mek man shame still. Dr. D.
Anonymous said…
Hey - new and improved page - I miss the doggie pic on the old one.

I used to (and still somehow manage to) hang with the boys (perhaps from being so statuesque at an early age). Anyway - I was at one point the money football champ!! (played with a popsicle stick and a coin). Bumming was an even reserved for birthdays. Also used to "christen" new shoes, with a frim stomp of approval!

Used to also do this oragami thing - some piece of paper folded with various numbers, colours, boys names etc... on the folds. But my favorite was "chinese skip". An authentic chinese skip 'rope' was made out of the inside seal of a bottle cap (think of a gasket that is about an inch (2.5 cm) across), linked together into a circle about 6 feet in diameter. It took about 200 seals - so a "rope" was very valuable. The game was played by having two persons stand with the 'rope' around their ankles and the person in the middle would perform a number of moves which involved jumping on, outsinde and inside the rope as well as a number of moves with the pieces crossed (think cats cradle - another game we would play).

The best game of all though was Kalooki! Reserved for sixth formers (we were not allowed to bring cards to school, but also had a sixth form lounge which did not allow teachers or other students - many a day was spent playing Kalooki in our slips, (when we should have been studying)

Those were the days....
Princess P de la Bimshire