Games We Played II

Knives

Jackknives were popular back then and every farm kid - the boys anyway, probably not the girls - had one.  I didn’t use mine much except to play the game we called ‘knives’.  The object was to flip the blade in such a manner that it stuck into the ground.  There was a set series of moves that had to be followed, various ways of flipping the knife. One move was to hold the knife flat in the palm of your hand, blade pointing outward, and flip it over in the air; another was doing the same thing with the knife lying flat on the back of your hand.  Other moves included flipping it off the knee, and tossing it over your back.

The game was played while kneeling on the ground.  Each kid would go through the same series of moves, attempting to stick the knife blade into the ground.  If the blade failed to stick, you lost your turn and had to repeat that particular move when it became your turn again.  The first person to complete all the moves was the winner. 

A somewhat similar game, mumblety-peg, was popular in the 1800s and was mentioned by Mark Twain in one of his Tom Sawyer books.  The players would stand upright and throw the knife into the ground, trying to get as close as possible to a wooden peg.  There was also a game where the players tried to stick the knife in the ground as close as possible to the opponent’s shoe.  It wasn’t popular for very long: shoes were hand made and expensive; having a knife stuck in your foot had little appeal.

Tag Variations

Barrel of Monkeys: We’d position a dozen used tires on the ground about 4’ feet apart in a roughly circular arrangement.  You had to jump from tire to tire without touching the ground.

Swamp Tag: There was a large swampy area ¼ mile north of our barn where cattails and tall grasses grew in the spring, taller than we were at the time.  When the area dried out in late summer, we’d stomp around in the tall growth, making an intricate network of paths.  Then we’d tear around like crazy on the paths, playing tag or hide n’ seek.

Fox and Geese: This was a winter game similar to swamp tag.  We’d make a network of connecting paths in the snow; all players had to remain on the paths. The fox was ‘it’ and had to capture (tag) all the other players, the geese.