Games We Used To Play

By Jo Ann Wagner

I remember playing pick up sticks. We had a bunch of thin sticks, similar to round toothpicks, but much longer. We’d drop the sticks onto a flat surface. Then we took turns trying to pick them up, one at a time, without moving any of the others. If we moved more than the one we were trying to pick up, our turn was over. We kept any sticks we picked up without moving another. The person with the most sticks when they were all picked up was the winner.

When the weather was bad, we often played jacks during recess. We threw ten of them down onto a table and then threw a ball up, picked up one jack, let the ball bounce and caught it in the hand with the jack. If we got them all, one at a time, we threw the jacks down again, picked up two at a time, and caught the ball. We did this until we had picked up all ten jacks at once. Then we moved on to putting pigs in a pen, eggs in a basket, and cows over the fence. The hand not throwing the ball made a pen, basket, and a fence, respectively.

To play hopscotch, we found a piece of an old brick to draw on the sidewalk. We drew ten numbered squares in a particular pattern, each square large enough for our feet to fit inside. We each found a small stone to toss in a square. We jumped, one foot on the squares of one, and both feet on those side by side. We’d toss the stone on the first number and jump over that square on the way up. On the way back, we’d have to pick up the stone when we were on the one next to it, and then jump over the one the stone had been on. Then we’d toss the stone on the next square
and continue.

If you want to take a step back in time, I discovered these games can be purchased online today.

Jo Ann Wagner is a contributing writer for Lincoln 55+ magazine.