Squares…
Do you remember a game called Squares from your childhood? It involved racing around in big concrete squares (Like, the squares on a sidewalk) and never stepping on a crack. Usually we played Squares in front of the library, or in the schoolyard. The object was just to keep moving–racing around– and stay in the game. The only thing you couldn’t do was to step in someone else’s square. You couldn’t place a foot in a square already occupied by a foot. If you did, you were out. And if ever you ended up with your legs in two diagonally placed squares, with an empty square behind you, someone else could Knock you. In Baltimore this meant that, very literally, they could place a leg through your legs, and ram your body with their body. If you fell over when they did this, you were out. If you managed to resist them, *they* were out. If you scraped your knee and cried about it, you were a candyass, and you might have to each lunch alone tomorrow.
Of course, not everyone played squares. Some people played, “make up really offensive cheers using as many cusswords as possible” and some people played, “cut class” and some people played “war” and some people played “ask your teacher if you can sit in the classroom at recess and help her grade papers.”
September 9th, 2009 at 12:57 pm
Omigosh. I remember that game; we played it at recess. We also played red-rover in a manner that only the most fierce child could enjoy. Maybe that is why I became such an avid reader. I spent my time with a nose in a book on the sidelines trying to avoid being included in the demolition derby. Glad you survived it to go on to becoming such a good writer!
September 16th, 2009 at 8:02 am
is it me, or was this post just an excuse to use that picture and casually mention how you used to hang out at libraries when you were a kid?
September 16th, 2009 at 8:13 am
We didn’t have that game, that I know of, down in Carolina but I was fond of “ask your teacher if you can sit in the classroom at recess and help her grade papers.”