We played tag, iron tag, skelly and stoop ball. Hide and seek, of course. Boys played handball and stickball.
With Marbles, every kid had a little cloth or net bag that he carried his marbles in. We all had our favorite "shooters" (shooting marbles), which could be Aggies, Clearies, Puries, Chinas, or Steelies. Steelies were heavy and made from solid steel (they were actually ball bearings), and they could shatter a glass marble when launched by a kid with a strong Thumb! (Steelies are outlawed in American Marble Tournaments.) That's all... Hal
My dad worked in the machine shop of a ship-building company so he often brought home steelies. He also brought a bunch of iron ore pellets, which were probably on one of the ships they were repairing, since this was the Great Lakes. Iron ore pellets weren't much good as marbles but they worked great in a slingshot.
Ken, you probably remember the sinking of the Great Lakes ore carrier Edmund Fitzgerald on Nov. 10, 1958. Gordon Lightfoot wrote & recorded a dramatic song about the tragedy. (Maybe not...you were only 6 then) Hal
I also remember Paddle Ball, and at one time had several of these stupid things around as stores even gave them away free as promotions. They never lasted terribly long as the elastic would give way and break, leaving you with a wooden paddle and a small rubber ball for which reattachment was difficult. The toy/game would probably be considered unsafe today as the paddle was wood and the ball could become an eye-threatening projectile...
I played "cowboys and indians" as a kid, galloping around on my stick horse. I lived on a farm so no neighborhood kids to play with.
Occasionally as a kid, I played "guns" with a few others, we all had cap guns, so plenty of noise was made. A few times I carried a small Harrington and Richardson .22 revolver of my Dad's and shot blanks. I remember this greatly displeased my Mother! Frank
Oh yes, indeedy! Thanks to my bad depth perception and lousy coordination, I had more than one black eye from that toy. Of course, back then, parents didn't rush to sue the toy manufacturers......they just sighed and told you FOR THE LOVE OF PETE, BE MORE CAREFUL!!!
A childhood neighbor described a game we invented to play at the bus stop in the mornings when we were in elementary school. I forgot about it. The highway in front of our houses ran due North/South. The bus stop was on the west side. As the trucks sped down the road in the morning they would cast a long shadow across the shoulder of the road as they went by. The goal was to jump all the shadows. First one to step on a shadow was out. You had to pay attention at all times and jump real high for the 18 wheelers. We were simple-minded little kids.