The Games We Played

by Cohen, Steven A.

• ISBN13: 9780783896458
• ISBN10: 078389645X
• Edition: Large
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2001-12-01
• Publisher: G K Hall & Co

Summary

If childhood is magic, kids have created its principal enchantment by dreaming up their own games, writing their own rules, inventing endless variations on anything fun. Bottle Cap Soldiers. Kid Crusher, Ring-a-leavio, Chinaberry War -- no one remembers the scores anymore and the rules changed as often as the players, but the strongest and best memories of childhood grow from the games we played.

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. 15
The Game	p. 19
The Sweet Long Days	p. 23
Paper Dolls	p. 31
Ping-Pong Palace	p. 40
On with the Show	p. 49
Dominoes	p. 55
Kid Crusher	p. 59
My Childhood: Skips and Stoops, Sisters and Saturdays	p. 66
The Cape	p. 71
Like It Was Yesterday	p. 76
Bottle Cap Soldiers	p. 81
Cow-Man	p. 85
Lollipops and Lies	p. 90
The Basement	p. 96
The Cone War	p. 103
Remember That Time	p. 106
Keeping Up with Cal	p. 111
What a Year	p. 116
The Craziest Kid in the World	p. 120
Wild Child	p. 128
The Walk	p. 134
Chinaberry War	p. 136
Alley Cats	p. 150
Rocket Ball	p. 157
An Idyllic Childhood	p. 161
You Can Take the Kid Out of New York	p. 166
Table of Contents provided by Syndetics. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpts

Introduction

When I was seven, a home run in a game we called Two Ball meant hitting the ball clear over the doghouse that sat at the far corner of the Alperts' yard. If you managed to avoid Mrs. Alpert's broom, that should have been worth two runs. When the Alperts and that mutt moved away and a German shepherd named Mozzie moved in, a fence replaced the doghouse and the game changed completely. Now it required two people just to retrieve the ball: one to play the position of Distracter, the other to actually stick his hand through the fence and grab the ball. Jason Glasser, the lanky kid down the block, was a Hall of Fame Distracter.

I don't remember the scores. I can't even tell you my batting average, although I certainly could at the time. But I can tell you that Mozzie had a red collar with a silver dog-bone nametag. That's because outfoxing Mozzie was as much fun as the game. Somedays, it was the game.

Willie Wonka said it best: "We are the dreamers of the dreams." And when we were kids, dreaming is what we did best. We invented games. Turbo Ball. Trip and Fall. Creek Walking. Roof Baseball. Sumo Soccer. Tennis Golf. Carpet Football. Swamp Man. Bunk Ball. Rules, boundaries, the number of players: we created them all. We had our own language and our own terms. We didn't care if it rained and we never got tired. The only limitations were our imaginations...and, of course, nightfall. But if someone had to go in for dinner, we just made up a new rule, and sometimes that generated a whole new game.

Growing up, I thought Mr. Alpert invented the phrase "Hey kid, get off my lawn!" It turns out that guy lives everywhere. It also turns out that the foul pole was just an oak tree, the end zone was where someone's yard began, the hockey rink was just Midfield Road.

In an age when computers, television, piano lessons, and soccer practice all compete for a child's attention, this book aims to recall a different time -- a period when children's lives were less structured, less hurried, and less scheduled. When free time was actually free. In this book, that time is remembered by poets and playwrights, printmakers and a president, women and men from all across the country. Their stories may be different, but in each we recognize ourselves and are reminded of at least two things we all have in common -- the gift of imagination and the wonder of childhood.

These are the games we played.

Excerpted from The Games We Played by Steven A. Cohen. Copyright © 2001 by Steven A. Cohen. Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.