“Outlaw the Fun!”

By

Gerry Niskern

Have you heard that the grade schools are banning contact sports at recess? Tag is only one of many games forbidden at most schools because there have been injuries with pushing and shoving. The parents are complaining.  It’s about time they have a ban on fun, in fact, its decades late.

This issue of contact games reminds me of one first grader in our family coming home and telling of how much fun it was to chase the little girls at recess. When asked what they did when then caught them. “We just chase them. He replied, horrified. “We don’t catch them!”

Then there’s dodge ball.  I speak on behalf of all the uncoordinated kids who were subjected to dodge ball humiliation.

My heart would jump to my throat, as a kid, when the teacher announced, “We are all going to play together this recess. The game is dodge ball.”  That meant the boys too; the hard hitters.

First she appointed two captains and then came the mortification of being the kid chosen last. The next insult was always being the one put out. By out, I mean a sizzling ball speeding towards my body while I instinctively froze knowing there was no escape

It’s a good thing my school didn’t play wall ball too.

Workup softball at lunch recess was a disaster too.   We had an hour, but the best players ate fast, raced to grab the bat and ball, and then claimed positions on the diamond. If, on the other hand, you were required to walk home for lunch you never made it back in time for more than a field position.  It’s just as well. The one time I got to pitch, I caught a speeding ball right in the teeth.

Is jump rope is considered a contact sport these days? Those whirling jump ropes can sting when they smack you. That’s was right before your knees hit the pavement.

Lot’s of friends in school tried to help me master the Monkey Bars. “Just grab hold and swing right and then left as you go across.”  I tried, I really did, but by the 3^rd grab, I was on the ground. No soft sand under the bars at our school,  just hard dried mud.

The kids in our neighborhood played “Ante, Ante Over” too. One  team was in our back yard and one team in front. The ball was launched over the roof, and if someone caught it, they would sneak around house and try to hit someone with it.  That’s right. That someone was usually me. Then you had to be on their team. Playing with my older sister and her friends, my only function was being the easiest target. Those balls stung pretty good too.

Mothers didn’t want to hear about how hard you got hit either. The phrase was, “If you are going to cry, I’ll give you something to cry about.”

Then there were jacks. An easy game, or so I was told. All you do is throw out the jacks on the sidewalk, then take the little red rubber ball in one hand and throw it up in the air, not too far. Before it comes down, pick up one jack and catch the little ball in the same hand before it bounces twice. That was called onsies. Next came twosies or so I hear. That’s about as far as I ever got.

Personally, I think they should outlaw jacks too