Fun & Games

When I was growing up there were 4 houses beside each other with kids of similar ages.  There were 11 of us in total, 4 girls and 7 boys.  This was before play dates were invented.  There was no working around after school activity schedules in those days.  Everyone just went out the front and played with whoever was around.  If we needed more people to make up teams we knocked on the door and asked if they were coming out to play.  

Supervision consisted of an open window and a parent who was vaguely within earshot.  We played on the road or in the various gardens.  The road wasn't a busy one, it ended in a cul-de-sac so shouting "car" was usually enough to ensure no-one was mowed down.  The worst injury I sustained as a child was when I fell off the wall I was walking along in the back garden into a thorny bush while wearing very short shorts.  My thighs have rarely seen daylight since.    

We played games like Kerbs (where you have to bounce a football off the opposite kerb from various distances), Sticks (where you jumped between 3 sticks which were moved further and further apart) and Tip the Can (a cross between Chasing, Hide & Seek and Survivor).  The games ended when dinner was ready or it got dark outside.  The rules were fluid and oft-debated.     

I was reminded of those childhood games recently when my own kids were out playing football on the reserve (sort of a mini-park) beside our house.  They were joined by a couple of kids from up the road, then a few more from down the road came along and before they knew it, there were 9 kids milling about playing happily together.  It started out as football, then merged into touch rugby before it descended into a complete free for all.  The game ended when I called them in for dinner.  In they came, sweaty and ravenous and full of chat about the games they had played and the goals they had scored, the winners and the losers, the kids with the mad skills and the ones who weren't very good but tried their hardest.  History is repeating itself in the best possible way.