| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| BaftaBaby |
Posted - 04/28/2007 : 09:50:28
Are you, like me, interested in the games played and candy eaten during childhood? Have you ever plame Game Nostalgia or Candy Nostalgia? Here's a chance to list - with descriptions - what you can recall from either category. I think it would be particularly interesting to see what has survived the decades and also what may be shared with other countries. Just cut-n-paste or list your own. Please include decade and country. TIA!
CANDY [not just brand-names, but really a description]
1940s and 1950s NYC, USA
1. Mary Janes - individually cellaphane wrapped tiny tan toffee rectangles with some kind of chewy center. [MJs were also a kind of girls' patent leather shoe, but that's another story  ] The wrappers were tan and red.
2. Buttons - a long thin piece of paper dotted with sugar-flavored different colored blobs that you peeled off and dissolved on your tongue. Dis-gusting! But cheap!
3. Juicy Fruits - tiny multi-colored, fruit-flavored hard gelatin figures that you could munch on for quite a long time. I think they were all shaped like little babies, but without any detail. Our nabe candy store kept them in big wide-mouthed jars and they were sold by the scoop ... but I can't remember for how much.
GAMES
1940s and 1950s NYC, USA
1. Double Dutch - a jumprope game in which a player stands at each side holding corresponding ends of two jump-ropes which are turned simultaneously. Another player has to calculate when to jump in and keep jumping without getting tangled in the ropes. REALLY TOUGH!
2. Scully - played with bottle caps, the kind with fluted edges that had to be pried off soda bottles, and each printed with the logo of the soft drink. You had your own collection. The object was to place the bottle cap, shiny side down on the road and flick it with thumb and index finger to see how far it would go across the street. The farthest won - and you collected everyone else's bottle caps as your prize, building up your collection. This was a good ploy because you could never be sure your mommy would let you buy yet another soda.
3. Statues - one person is 'it' and faces a group of players, who stand still, moving their bodies into various poses. 'It' then turns his/her back on the group, and when s/he turns back whoever is caught moving is considered 'out' till the last person left becomes the next 'it.'
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| 15 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| ChocolateLady |
Posted - 05/03/2007 : 07:38:06
quote:
Originally posted by thefoxboy
quote:
Originally posted by Downtown
Did anyone else play 4-Square? I'd be interested in hearing about other Server Rules that we might not have used.
Yes, but that was over 30 years ago, I can't remember any rules.
Ditto, and I was really bad at it.
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| thefoxboy |
Posted - 05/02/2007 : 23:56:31
quote:
Originally posted by Downtown
quote:
Originally posted by Rovark
How about candy cigarettes.
You'd buy a box of 8 I think it was, looking like a pack of cigarettes. They were little white cylinders of soft candy with a red tip to look like a real lit cigarette. We'd practice holding and drawing on them like the film and TV stars and gradually nibble them down as though they were being smoked. No idea if they're still available, I would doubt it as many parents would be horrified at encouraging their children to smoke and most kids can probably afford the real thing anyway.
We had bubble-gum cigarettes, it was a long cylinder-shaped piece of gum with piece of paper wrapped around it, with powdered sugar inside so you could blow out puffs of "smoke." I believe the company that made them was owned by RJ Reynolds, which pretty much confirms that yes, they were training the next generation of smokers, which is...wrong, to say the least.
HOWEVER...don't be too quick to jump to those conclusions about similar products. You may not know this since you're not an American, but there's a long tradition of baseball players using smokeless tobacco (it's amazing someone could find a way to consume tobacco that's even more filthy and unpleasant than smoking, and this is coming from a smoker). There are many ways to take smokeless tobacco, but often it comes shredded in a pouch. There's a product called Big League Chew, which is shredded bubble gum that comes in pouch. It's obviously supposed to emulate chewing tobacco. I had always assumed that it was another conspiracy from the tobacco industry, trying to convince kids that it's "cool" to use tobacco. But it turns out, the product was "invented" by a minor league ballplayer who hated chewing tobacco and was disgusted by the thought of all those kids getting hooked on it because they were trying to be like their favorite ballplayers. Realizing kids are always going to try and copy their heroes, he decided that a shredded bubble gum could be a healthy alternative. And it worked, many of those kids have since grown up to be professional ballplayers themselves, and many of them are walking onto the field with a giant wad of gum in their mouths instead of a giant wad of chaw, and without all that brown sticky juice dribbling down their chins (yeah...I can see why someone would want to emulate that).
I grew up, I'm sure Conan did too, with Fags.
They were red on one end so that it looked likethey were lit.
However, they were renamed to Fads many years ago and the red was taken away. 
We also had Big Boss Cigars, same idea as Fags. They have also been renamed to Big Boss Dynamite...or something like that. So it's better to blow things up rather than smoking. 
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| Downtown |
Posted - 05/02/2007 : 22:06:09
quote:
Originally posted by Rovark
How about candy cigarettes.
You'd buy a box of 8 I think it was, looking like a pack of cigarettes. They were little white cylinders of soft candy with a red tip to look like a real lit cigarette. We'd practice holding and drawing on them like the film and TV stars and gradually nibble them down as though they were being smoked. No idea if they're still available, I would doubt it as many parents would be horrified at encouraging their children to smoke and most kids can probably afford the real thing anyway.
We had bubble-gum cigarettes, it was a long cylinder-shaped piece of gum with piece of paper wrapped around it, with powdered sugar inside so you could blow out puffs of "smoke." I believe the company that made them was owned by RJ Reynolds, which pretty much confirms that yes, they were training the next generation of smokers, which is...wrong, to say the least.
HOWEVER...don't be too quick to jump to those conclusions about similar products. You may not know this since you're not an American, but there's a long tradition of baseball players using smokeless tobacco (it's amazing someone could find a way to consume tobacco that's even more filthy and unpleasant than smoking, and this is coming from a smoker). There are many ways to take smokeless tobacco, but often it comes shredded in a pouch. There's a product called Big League Chew, which is shredded bubble gum that comes in pouch. It's obviously supposed to emulate chewing tobacco. I had always assumed that it was another conspiracy from the tobacco industry, trying to convince kids that it's "cool" to use tobacco. But it turns out, the product was "invented" by a minor league ballplayer who hated chewing tobacco and was disgusted by the thought of all those kids getting hooked on it because they were trying to be like their favorite ballplayers. Realizing kids are always going to try and copy their heroes, he decided that a shredded bubble gum could be a healthy alternative. And it worked, many of those kids have since grown up to be professional ballplayers themselves, and many of them are walking onto the field with a giant wad of gum in their mouths instead of a giant wad of chaw, and without all that brown sticky juice dribbling down their chins (yeah...I can see why someone would want to emulate that). |
| thefoxboy |
Posted - 05/02/2007 : 21:41:39
quote:
Originally posted by Downtown
Did anyone else play 4-Square? I'd be interested in hearing about other Server Rules that we might not have used.
Yes, but that was over 30 years ago, I can't remember any rules. |
| Rovark |
Posted - 05/02/2007 : 19:12:47
How about candy cigarettes.
You'd buy a box of 8 I think it was, looking like a pack of cigarettes. They were little white cylinders of soft candy with a red tip to look like a real lit cigarette. We'd practice holding and drawing on them like the film and TV stars and gradually nibble them down as though they were being smoked. No idea if they're still available, I would doubt it as many parents would be horrified at encouraging their children to smoke and most kids can probably afford the real thing anyway. |
| Downtown |
Posted - 05/02/2007 : 18:27:24
Did anyone else play 4-Square? I'd be interested in hearing about other Server Rules that we might not have used. |
| ChocolateLady |
Posted - 05/02/2007 : 09:59:07
Well, if my kids can be included I could add:
Candy:
Crembo - this is a seasonal candy, and only comes out in the winter (since it would melt in the summer). It is a cookie with a whole lot of marshmallow cream on top, all dipped in chocolate.
Bamba - not really a candy, but certainly a kids treat. These are corn puffs the size of your thumb that are covered in an ever-so-slightly sweetened peanut flavoured coating. They melt in your mouth and it is probably the first snack food kids in Israel ever taste (since you don't need teeth to eat them). I understand that Cheetos in the USA started making a peanut flavoured version, but those are much harder than Bamba.
Games:
Five Stones - similar to the game Jacks in the US, but with using five square metal stones instead of the funny star-shaped Jacks. (This game may have originally used apricot pits.)
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| BaftaBaby |
Posted - 05/02/2007 : 08:23:20
This is great! 
Just what I hoped might happen ... it's not often we can share these bits of culture ... still alive or gone by the wayside ... with people all over the world.
I wish Ali and Rabid Kazook would post some. It would be great to see a bit more of a culturally heterogenous collection.
Anyway - these are all fab contributions. In a bit I'll try to do a couple of lists showing the evolutions. That's one of the reasons it would be good to have decades and locales.
More please!
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| thefoxboy |
Posted - 05/02/2007 : 04:33:45
quote:
Originally posted by Tori
You know the sherbert I'm hearing described reminds me of Fun Dip. It's flavored powder with a candy stick. You lick the candy stick and put it in the powder.
Exactly what Sherbert is in Australia and NZ by the sounds of it. |
| Sean |
Posted - 05/02/2007 : 02:20:45
Sherbert in NZ was a flavoured sweet powder that sparkled and fizzed on your tongue. You'd dip a stick in the packet and lick the sherbert off.
Another good use for it is to sprinkle it on icecream.  |
| Tori |
Posted - 05/02/2007 : 01:11:34
You know the sherbert I'm hearing described reminds me of Fun Dip. It's flavored powder with a candy stick. You lick the candy stick and put it in the powder. |
| Shiv |
Posted - 05/02/2007 : 00:40:04
quote:
Originally posted by Chris C
quote:
Originally posted by Shiv
When not cooked hard for playing, they are also really good to eat.
For those of you who don't know about conkers, here's a link
http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/customs/conkers.html
Shiv - surely you didn't eat Horse Chestnuts? I always thought Sweet Chestnuts were the edible ones.
Was Woodlands your school, or was that a Google hit? I lived and went to school not far from there.
Na, the Woodlands link was just the best one I found for explaining the game of conkers. I schooled in the NE of England.
As for the edible chestnuts- well, I've just shown my ignorance! I'm not good with botany We used to buy packets of hot chestnuts from street vendors.....I can't remember the cooking of a conker champion coinciding with eating chestnuts....so no, I don't think I ate them.... |
| Chris C |
Posted - 05/01/2007 : 19:55:21
quote:
Originally posted by Shiv
When not cooked hard for playing, they are also really good to eat.
For those of you who don't know about conkers, here's a link
http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/customs/conkers.html
Shiv - surely you didn't eat Horse Chestnuts? I always thought Sweet Chestnuts were the edible ones.
Was Woodlands your school, or was that a Google hit? I lived and went to school not far from there. |
| Conan The Westy |
Posted - 05/01/2007 : 11:40:21
From the same people who brought you Spin the Bottle comes the next game to scare the parents:
Truth, Dare, Torture, Kiss
A group of girls and boys sit in a circle and take turns in selecting one of the four options.
At a certain age the kiss and torture are considered the same thing. Later on the kiss option is highly desired if the game is played by teenage couples. 
Great fun on camps after the adults have gone to sleep. |
| ChocolateLady |
Posted - 05/01/2007 : 11:32:59
That reminds me - is it only here in Israel, or do kids elsewhere play games with apricot seeds? I don't remember playing with them when I was a kid, but then again, we weren't big consumers of apricots.
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