Playground Game & Memory Lane

Today at work, I nearly trip over a power cord for a laptop computer. In so doing, as I exaggeratedly lifted by leg high to cross over the cord again, I had a mental flashback of a game we played back in the day when I was in elementary school.

That game was what we then called Chinese jump rope. I did an internet search and chose the best video I could find that shows how the game was played. In my search, I came across a few different names for this game, including el juego del elastico, elastieken and elastics.

Looking at those videos, I was reminded of another game we played when I was a girl. I don't know if we had a name for it, but in this video it is called ayatori (string game) and I remember being able to do exactly what is shown in the video, but I am sure I would have to watch it a few times to get it right. I did get out a piece of yarn and the first few steps are still in the recesses of my mind. There are other outcomes when playing this game and you can see some of them on youtube.

Another game from my youth that I came across when doing this search was click clacks. I had a set of those babies and remember playing with them a lot. It's been funny to see some of the games I used to play or the toys we used to have, like Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots, Life, the Easy Bake Oven, or the Spirograph.

Wow, one little trip sent me off on a journey down memory lane!