Games We Played

Trish’s daughter, Teresa, is a speech-language pathologist, specializing in pre-teens.  She’s worked at elementary school and university levels, and is now joining a start up group that will be developing speech therapy programs and software.  One of the subjects she plans to use in her work is children’s games, and how they’ve changed over time.  She asked me to write about the childhood games I played.

First, to set the stage: I grew up on a farm in northern central Minnesota, the last of 8 children, 5 boys and 3 girls.  We didn’t have much in the way of store-bought toys or games, so we had to be creative and use the materials at hand.  This is the first of 3-4 posts describing the games we played in the 40s and 50s.

Wheel and Push, aka Stick and Hoop, Hoop Rolling

The heavy duty wagons used on farms in the early 1900s – and for hundreds of years before then - had wooden wheels reinforced with 2 iron bands, one around the perimeter and a much smaller one around the hub.  When these wagons were retired, whether worn out or obsolete, they were often cannibalized, the stout lumber pressed into service elsewhere, leaving only the framework and wheels.  The wheels were ultimately burned or knocked apart, freeing up the 2 iron bands. 

The smaller iron hub bands, about 10” in diameter, became the ‘wheel’ in the ‘wheel and push’ game.  The ‘push’ consisted of 2 wooden slats, one 2’ long, the other 4-6” long.  The short piece was nailed to one end of the long piece to form a T.  This device was held in one hand, with the crossbar downward, to propel the wheel along the ground.  The objective was to keep the wheel rolling as long as possible, while trotting along behind it, using the push to nudge it along and steer it.  We’d make the game more interesting by arranging ramp jumps and obstacle courses, and trying to knock over other players’ wheels.

Variations of this game were played in ancient Greece, China and elsewhere, usually with larger hoops.  Native Americans and aboriginals on other continents played it also.  Hoops were made of wood, copper, bronze, you name it.  Push sticks were mostly wood but without the T-bar at the business end.