The other night at the local the conversation wandered, as it often will, onto the subject of games we played as a children. Specifically we discussed MASH, along with that game that none of us could remember the name of but involved origami and predicting the future.

I’ve written previously of the pasttime known as Kill The Man With The Ball, but I can recall many more games than that, each with its own rules and attendant rituals. I either played myself, or can remember other kids playing:

British Bulldog
Cat’s Cradle
Crack the Whip (played on frozen ponds)
Dodge Ball (in my neighborhood we favored a variant known as ‘Hospital Dodge’)
Double Dutch
Duck Duck Goose
Four Square
Mary Mack
Mercy
Mother May I?
Paper Football
Red Light, Green Light
Red Rover
That’s a whole subculture, as complex in its way as Cockney Rhyming slang, that I suspect has largely vanished from the fields, playgrounds and vacant lots of America. I’d be delighted to be shown otherwise. What games do you recall from your childhood? I’m particularly curious if anyone born past, say, 1980, grew up indulging in these same sort of activities.