When we were in school, we played all kinds of neat games in Phys. Ed. class. One of them was Dodge Ball, which was my favorite of all the games. I think I read somewhere that kids now days are forbidden to play Dodge Ball or even tag! My, what deprived childhoods they have! This game is pure unadulterated FUN!!! They split the class up into 2 equal halves. The one side would throw the balls and stand in the middle of the gym floor, and the other side would get in front of the gym bleachers. Thus forming the “throwers” and the “dodgers”. At the whistle, the side on the gym floor would start to throw little inflated brown balls with rough surfaces on them. They were slightly smaller than basketballs and were made out of thin light brown rubber and had a slightly rough surface. Even fully inflated, they were soft.  The object was to “dodge” the balls being thrown it you. If you were hit with one, you were “out” and had to bear the shame of leaving and watching the remainder of the game from the sidelines. Since the bleachers were folded up and formed a wall. You were also “out” if one of the balls ricocheted off the bleachers behind you and hit you. If the “dodgers” would catch the ball from the “thrower”, then the “thrower” was out. More often than not, I would be the only “dodger” one left. As a result, all the “throwers” would conspire and take aim at me and all throw at once. I jumped, gyrated, and ran to avoid being hit. If a kid threw the ball very softy, I would catch it and they would be “out”. One of the “secrets” I had to last longer was to keep behind the other kids so THEY would be hit and be “out”. One good defensive thing we did was, after catching a ball; we would hold it in our hands to use to ward off any other balls thrown at us. They would hit the ball held up with our hands and bounce back to the “throwers”. This was permissible and was very useful to avoid getting hit. The best balls to use for this were the under inflated one since they were much easier to hold on to. One of the errors that usually finally ended up in my demise was to jump up in the air to avoid a ball thrown too low and not jump at an angle. If I just jumped straight up, the ball would often ricochet off the bleachers and hit me from the rear, which would result in being “out”. Due to being very wiry and agile at that age, this was one sport I was actually good at! I was very pleased with this since I never was good at any other sport. Back then, as now, I would much rather exercise my mind than my body, and have always tried to excel at verbal gymnastics rather than physical ones. However, I’m still amazed that when Tim and I bale hay, we both can still out work the high school kids that are hired to help us! Not bad for someone who are over 3 1/2 times their ages! This isn’t bragging, it’s just giving thanks for my good health and condition at late mid-life. Even now, my physician says that I have the body of a 6 year old. (Oh, wait, now that I think about it, she said that I had the MIND of a 6 year old not body…)

 

Another fun game we played in gym class was “Cage Ball”. This consisted of a large white ball with cloth wrapped around a wire “cage”. The ball was probably about 5 feet or so in diameter. This is from a “kid prospective”. Today if I saw one, it would probably be more like 3 feet in diameter or something. At any rate it was really big to us then. This was a very rough game that only we guys played. It was a free for all melee and was played similar to Rugby. We wore no protective clothing or devices. OSHA was probably not around in those days, or if they were, they never found out about our “Cage Ball” games. The object was for each side to get the ball over their respective goals. We would all “pile on” the ball until one strong guy would lift it over his head and try to run with it toward his goal. Anyone trying this didn’t usually get very far since all of the opposing side would all gang up on him and knock him to the ground. In spite of all the times we played this, I can’t recall anyone ever getting injured (accept our pride).

I hope you had a “ball” reading this! J