GEN X GAMES

Chris Garcia: When was the last time you thought about the games you played outside as a kid? Not the organized sports, the real neighborhood games. Games like Kick the Can, Freeze Tag, Flashlight Tag, Hide and Seek. The games that started the moment school let out and ended when the streetlights came on. For a lot of us, those weren't just games. They were where we learned teamwork, solved arguments, built friendships, and made memories. That we'll never forget. So lace up your sneakers, hop on your bike, and let's head back to the neighborhood. Because today we're talking about the games that raise Gen X. Hey everyone, I'm Chris and welcome back to Average Joe Let's Talk About It. The podcast where we take a break from today's chaos to remember the moments, the music, the movies, the people, and the experiences that shaped Generation X. If today's episode brings back a memory, I'd love for you to hit that like button and subscribe. It helps more Gen Xers find these conversations and keeps our community growing. Hello and welcome back to another exciting episode of Average Joe Let's Talk About It. In today's episode, we're gonna talk about the four words that change the lives of us Gen Xers growing up, out on the playground, out in the sandbox, out in the streets. There comes a time in a child's life where these four words have a tremendous impact. on whether or not you're going to rule the day. What are those four words? Ollie Ollie oxen free. Not very well known. And as time passes, there's probably a lot of those nostalgic games and those things that we did back then that are no longer being played or are diminishing. And it's up to us to keep the memory alive. So today, boys and girls, we're gonna be talking about the games that changed us, the games that molded us, the games that taught us life lessons before life really began. And so what I want you to do is I want you to close your eyes and remember a time where it was you and your friends in the neighborhood, and for some of us that didn't grow up in a traditional neighborhood, apartment complexes. And want you to think about the games you played. I want to think about a time where rules mattered and winning didn't. time where things were simple. And so the purpose of this podcast is to ensure that we stay connected to that time in our lives that we should be connected to. And I don't think if you ask a lot of folks who grew up playing these games if they were thinking about whether or not they were learning anything or it was just a way to pass the time. I don't think it's a matter of how you felt in the experience, although that's pretty important. But I think it really matters, especially now that we're all grown up, how much those experiences changed who we are today. And so I'm not trying to get in the weeds about, growing up and learning life lessons from playing games like Kick the Can or Hopscotch, right? All I'm saying is there was an experience that was had during that time. There were memories that were being made with us and our friends, and there were times that we're never gonna get back. And If you think that you can go out at any given time and walk through a neighborhood, now I don't know where you live. I live in more of an an older community, but I think it's still sprinkled with families who have children. And the one thing that I don't see a lot of anymore, and it's unfortunate, is kids outside playing. I'm pretty sure that our children, Gen X children Were the last kids to spend as much time as we did outside of the house. And without getting into, talking about craziness and why it's happened and whatnot, the basis is it just doesn't happen anymore. So if you can remember a time where you were out there and you were enjoying yourself and you weren't thinking about any of the chaos from the day, not that there was a whole lot of that as kids anyway. I think it's important. I think it's important that we stay connected. Let me take you back to a time where it was sidewalks, asphalt, concrete, blacktop, sandbox. Did I say that already? The streets were racetracks, the sandboxes were battlegrounds, the forests were adventures, places that we just don't go anymore. That's very sad. So I'm gonna reach back. When I was growing up, my entire elementary school career, we'll call it, I lived in apartments. And I am mad about it. for those of us that had the opportunity to live in apartments, we understand what that ecosystem looks like, right? And what that what that meant. Traditional neighborhoods of track homes was just one long street and then another long street and then another long street full of houses. And while that's fine and you can find lots to do and there was plenty of room to move, there was local parks. You would probably end up at your local school, whatever's the closest elementary school that you went to, that's probably where a lot of time was spent. Lot of meetups happening there. But an apartment complex, that's a different animal all on its own. And so let me give you an example why I feel this way. So I've already explained what I think and what I know track homes are like, right? Living in suburbanville or being a suburbanite or whatever you wanna call it. It's where we live these days, right? But for those of us who didn't have parents that could afford a house at the time, we were all shacked up in some ratty old run-down apartment complex. Now, that's not always the case. And honestly, I don't even remember it that way. But let me break it down for you like this. This apartment complex, to me at that age, was sprawling. I mean, it felt immense. I think expanse is a good word for it. just because I felt like it went on forever. And I lived in two different apartments. During that time period, we lived on the first floor and then I think a couple years later we moved out of the first floor to a second floor because we needed an extra room. But the way that this apartment complex was situated was that the the ground floor wasn't actually the first floor for the apartments. See the way they had built it was the actual living spaces were above the parking garages and then On the interior, everything was at the same level, which was weird to me because you would think they're you know, the way that hotels are built right now, you have like one room on one side, one room on the other, and they go all the way up, and a lot of apartment complexes do these days as well. But growing up in Southern California, this giant metropolis that I lived at had the parking garage on the the ground floor. which was street level, and then you would walk up the stairs to get to the first floor. Now that was the that was the main floor. And that's where you could go run about to other sections of the apartment complex. And it went for a mile each direction, I felt like. And so then the third level, which is actually the second residential space was another upstairs climb to get to your apartment if you lived in the two hundreds. So during this time, I've got a couple good memories that I I can reach back and actually f feel like I I'm I'm thinking about quite quite clearly. And so the first one is there was a central quad area that was smack dab in the middle of the apartment complex. Like I'm sure They have today. And some of the things that took place there that I remember are the older kids would break dance, they would put on breakdance shows and they would take donations. You know, they they went through the whole process of having this whole talent show in the middle, including, you know, mostly it was breakdancers. And they had snacks and it was a it was a big thing. It wasn't even a community center, it was just outdoors in between the laundromat and The sandbox. And so that area was always the area that all the kids would meet to to play those outdoor games. And I gotta tell you, the way that apartment complexes were built and designed, the layouts of how to get from point A to point B, if you're looking for your friends on the other side of the apartment complex, it was a maze. And it was amazing. because you could get lost in there. It didn't matter how long you had lived there. It felt like it was pretty easy to get lost. And that was part of the plan. That was part of what made it so great. So This central quad area was where the outdoor games took place, right? So hopscotch, kick the can, four square, dodgeball. I mean, the area was big enough where we were playing baseball with a tennis ball, and we were playing kickball. But the number one game that we played the most, and give me a shot in the comments if it was your favorite as well, was kick the can. Nothing quite played the way that kick the can did. I mean, you are it's one of those games where I think you feel like it didn't matter if you were it or not, because both sides of that situation, you were having a good time. It wasn't like, no, I'm it again. No, because it was that fun, right? Coffee can, fill it with rocks, fair change, probably not, because you need that for the ice cream, man. But Either way, you're putting some shit in a coffee can, a milk jug, a two-liter bottle that's empty. It didn't matter what it was. As long as you could kick it and it would go far enough to get that party started, and then you can come back and kick it again to free everybody up, that's what it was all about. And so kick the can, a little bit of tag, a little bit of hide-and-seek, a little bit of A little bit of everything. So not really a full contact sport or anything, but it could get that way because people are a little bit competitive. And the older you got, the more competitive you got. But kick the can was the quintessential game that we could play for just hours. And I'm talking about you go out after school and you don't see the inside of your house until It's time for dinner or the street lights come on. And so let me ask you this. What was the one game that you played the most in your neighborhood? So in this episode we're gonna be breaking down several different types of games. And we're gonna be talking about what those games meant, maybe stir in a little bit of fun facts here and there. But in any case, here we go. If there is one thing that you remember being said to you before you walked out that door to go outside and play, what was it? That's right. It was be home before the street lights come on. And now that we're in daylight savings time, you remember there was the loophole. And a lot of us grew up in a time where we didn't have the sun delay, we didn't have the sensors. So basically all of the street lights were on timers and they would probably come on between five and six o'clock and they wouldn't change it just because of daylight savings time. So the loophole wasn't, hey, you know, come home before the street lights come on. It was be home before dark. And I think you reach a certain age where Your parents allowed that to happen. We didn't have a whole lot of Chester molesters out there back then. Even though they were there, we just didn't know about Ignorance is bliss, right? So we were able to stay out as late as nine o'clock if the sun was still up, right? Well Before that, it was always, I want you to check in every hour. what a pain in the ass that was. But you get to a certain age and you level up. There was no more of that. Now it was just be home before dark, get out of our hair. And so we did. And in some cases, we may not even come home till dinner. School would let out. First thing we would do is bust ass home, get on our Outside clothes, remember you had play clothes and school clothes? What a waste of money that was. No wonder we were buying shit from Kmart. Our parents weren't smart enough to understand, hey, why don't we just buy some decent clothes and they can wear outside and they can wear to school and we don't have to do twice as many loads of laundry and pay twice as much money just because we want our kids to keep their school clothes clean. What kind of ass backward shit was that? Anyway, I digress. So First we're gonna talk about the neighborhoods were the playground. So, like the apartment complex, there was plenty of places to hide. One of my all-time favorites besides Kick the Can was Ditchem. And it's just like it sounds if you've never played it before. You basically got one person that's it. And when you've got a space that large to hide in, and you don't create boundaries, which I for whatever reason we never did, people be hiding for an hour before saying, hey man, what's going on? And we've already turned the game over like two or three times. I think we did finally get to a point where it's like, listen, you can't go any further than here, any further than here. And that's going to be the boundary space when you play hide and seek, ditch I I guess now or before my kids got older, it was manhunt. So all kind of the same thing, right? You want to stay away from the it person as long as possible. but you know, these days we got ADD, it's leveled up to ADHD and people don't know how to just sit still. So I wonder is hide and go seek actually even still happening? Do our kids have enough attention span or do the kids these days that are that age playing those games, if they're playing in them at all, do they have the kind of patience that it took? That we had to have when we played him. I highly doubt it. But we did. And games would last until the sun would go down. So you'd leave school, bust ass home, change out of your clothes, jump back on your bike, your skateboard, the Nike Express, and you walk your ass around until you find some people. That's one of the great things about neighborhoods and having an area where all the kids know each other. Basically, you don't even have to find anybody. You're pretty good at entertaining yourself. But more than likely, you're gonna find a couple kids. You might find up to 20 kids. You might find one kid. But the fact of the matter is, we were able to play any of these games, entertain ourselves, keep ourselves busy, get some exercise, stay active, and stay out of the house for hours. And so that's how it would go. And a fun fact is between the 60s and the 80s. They actually built residential track homes with cul-de-sacs and small parks and areas like that with safety and children in mind. they were specifically designed so we would have a safe place to stay. Don't quote me on that. I did read it somewhere. It doesn't mean it's fact. But if it is, it makes sense. So then you have the outdoor Olympics. And if if we're talking about elementary school, we're talking about the games like kickball. the three top highly physical games that we used to play during recess was Red Rover, Dodgeball, and Kickball. And all three of those were about steamrolling people. I'm pretty sure we were at the backstop, 'cause that would make the most sense for kickball. Not for dodgeball, maybe. I think we played dodgeball within like the rack of all courts or we call the handball courts. One team was over on one side against the wall while the other team was shooting missiles at these little stinky rubber balls, you know, you you know what it is. It's it you can probably smell this picture meme. And then there was Red Rover. But I gotta tell you, just for the sheer fact that you're able to knock people down, run into people, get physical like that, and peg people with a hard ass rubber ball going thirty five miles an hour, good times. And kickball was no different. For me than dodgeball, except you know, you pepper in like baseball rules. If you remember, the one good thing about kickball that you can't do in baseball is when you throw out a runner, you can literally throw the ball at them. And boy was that ever fun. So now you got a little bit of dodgeball, mixed with little bit of kickball. And then the creators of South Park create basketball. I don't know. The rules kind of run together, but the memories don't. And I remember those top three brutally violent at times games were probably the funnest to play at school. Because I tell you what, if there was a bully. In that chain of people calling me over, old Red Rover. And so everybody gets their come upins, right? The same with dodgeball. There's gonna be some vengeance to be had. Somebody's pissed at somebody else and they're gonna get theirs. It doesn't matter. And you can always tell who was gunning for somebody That's why you gotta have patience. You wait for the right time and then you strike. Sweep the leg, baby. And then There were the summer games. So if you did live in a residential area, I'm sure if you had a couple hoses out there connected to the side of the house and your parents weren't pissed, you were wasting water, you're probably shooting each other with the garden hose and having garden hose wars. And squirt guns and water balloons for us folks that didn't really have a a a faucet to plug a personal hose into because you're in an apartment complex, you don't get a chance to run over sprinklers because the sprinklers are on a timer and it's a community thing. So nobody's getting up at three o'clock in the morning to go run through the sprinklers. Now, if you could find the maintenance manager or somebody in an apartment complex that was kind enough to hook an extra hose up and you brought them one of them them revolving sprinklers, they would allow you to do it. But it was few and far between. It's not like living in the house though, because you could be out in your front yard, backyard, didn't matter. Plug in a hose, a sprinkler, you go all day long. And not to mention a slip and side. Slipping slides don't necessarily work on the sidewalk. I'm just here to tell you from experience. And so squirt guns and water balloons were the best. 'Cause if you couple some of them games and the water balloons and the squirt guns together that we were playing, like tag, hide and seek, and and kick the can, you're running around armed with a with a water pistol, it just makes it ten times better. So some of us speaking of summer games. had creeks, washes for those of us that lived in the desert. Although we'll tell you, I never got into a wash because most of the time they were dry anyway. I mean it's just basically a dry river bed, dry creek bed. But I'm telling you something right now, I've watched people get rescued out of them washes after a monsoon. So I tried to stay my ass out of there when I saw some rain clouds coming in. Because it don't rain too often in Arizona the way most people consider rain. No, sir. So in my experience, don't be a dumbass and go try to tube and a wash during a monsoon. I didn't do it. I'm not trying to imply that I did. I'm just saying I seen some stupid people do it. But hey, it keeps the firemen and the rescue people in business. Right? It's what they call that? job security. Good grief. So then you had the sidewalk games, the street games. So hopscotch. Hopscotch was one of those games that I think we'd like to believe is gender neutral, but as as a kid, as a boy, when it growing up, I was like, nah. But I did. You know, here's the thing, right? So did you actually get involved and play hopscotch or Where you just walking past the drawing of the hopscotch on the sidewalk and you can't walk past it without doing a little hopity hop, right? Okay. maybe I played hopscotch a couple of times. I don't know. Don't judge. But a lot of the creative folks were able to draw some amazing things in chalk on the street, on the sidewalk. I didn't have that kind of artistic ability, but creativity was definitely something that I think we had when we were growing up. Another game that was pretty key in growing up was Four Square. I think we all remember Foursquare. Everybody wanted to be the king of the mountain. So obviously if you were and I always forget, is it you start at one? Yes, you start at one and you work your way up to four. If you held the number four spot, well, you're just that good. But If you don't remember what four square was, it was a ten by ten square, and it was cut into fourths, and you would line up, you would come in at one, you would work your way up to four, which was the pinnacle, if you could beat the people in front of you. That was one of those recess games, but you can play that anywhere. So there comes a time in in your life as you're growing up where a little bit of freedom is beyond necessary. And one of those things that that created freedom for us. Growing up was wheels. And I remember waking up one Christmas and walking out into the living room and seeing a shiny brand new yellow Huffy. That's right. It was a Huffy. I ain't ashamed. Don't judge. That was a good bike. It lasts me a long time. But it was freedom on two wheels. And although I didn't know it at the time, to me it was just a great thing to have. And no. Another thing I have to learn how to do because mind you, I was probably, I don't know, six or seven. You gotta remember I lived in an apartment complex. So I was like a slow burner when it comes to to evolving in my childhood. So having a bike at like seven or eight years old and finally learning how to ride it came a little bit later than I think most do. I think I got my own kids on bikes and got them riding three or four years old. they had the smaller bikes and training wheels and all that, but I didn't get a bike with training wheels. I I don't know if if my parents didn't think I needed them even though I didn't have any experience riding a bike. but that was all right. It's nice to have training wheels to have that safety, but if you if you get too reliant on those, you'd be riding them damn training wheels until you were twelve. I've seen it happen. It's almost like learning to swim. Raise your hand if you got thrown into the deep end as a little kid didn't know how to swim. Right? I don't think we do that anymore. But we should. But in any case, the the one memory I have is because I was so embarrassed. Riding this bike for the first time, no training wheels. I'm at my grandmother's house, so she lives in a regular neighborhood, long streets, plenty of room to move. People I mean, so here's the thing. A lot of places that I've lived, or in fact I'm living now, we don't have sidewalks. And there's no place to park your car because the streets are too narrow. Well, I grew up in Southern California. in Fountain Valley and there was plenty of room to move and plenty of places to go. And even though I had all that room to learn to ride a bike without turning wheels, the minute that that person let go of my seat, my handlebars didn't work. I don't know what was wrong with them. Operator Air, I believe, but they wouldn't go to the left and they wouldn't go to the right. And the silly person that let me go I wasn't even headed straight down the street. At least this is what I remember. No, I was heading straight for somebody getting into their car or getting something out of their car because all I remember is my front tire credit carding the person right in the bummer. And I have never felt so horrified in my life. it wouldn't have been so bad if I would if the person was turned around and maybe I hit him in the leg, but the fact that My front tire went neatly in between his butt cheeks was yeah, it it it was an experience that I will never forget. But it never happened again because that was like throwing me into the pool without floaties in the deep end. You learn the hard lesson right away, and you don't allow yourself to do some shit like that again. So Every time I got in that bike thereafter, number one, I was always pointed in the right direction. And number two, I just the handlebars started working again. So there's that. But more importantly, owning a bicycle was freedom. And it kind of implied that. If your parents went and bought you a bicycle, they are assuming the same way that we did when we bought our kids vehicles or allowed them To get a license to drive ours, is that they were gonna be going places that were out of sight. And not that us latchkey kids, it really mattered to our parents anyway at that time. but if they knew all the places that I had traveled on all the bikes that I'd ever owned while I was still a young boy, not even a teenager, I think they'd be appalled. and what I remember, especially in the summer. Is riding up to the local theater as soon as it opened. You, you know, scrounge for change in the seat cushions at home, or you bum some money from your grandma, or maybe you got a cool ass friend that's, you know, gonna pay for you, but you go watch a movie, start the day off that way, and you're there all day. Because what'd you do? You theater hopped. But the bicycle just didn't take me to go theater hopping. The bicycle took me to the YMCA. The bicycle took me to Miles Square Park, which is just like it sounds. I know I didn't say it backwards. That's just how it it it is a square mile, but they call it Miles Square Park. I don't know why. Anyway, that's the people in Fountain Valley. In any case, beaches. I live down like straight down the road from Huntington Beach Boulevard and I could jump on that bus with my bike. Take it the whole way, straight to the beach, all the way. And I mean, who could ask for anything better than that? But ninety nine point nine percent of the time after I got a bike, yeah, my parents weren't totally sure about where I was at or what I was doing. And that's okay. I'm still here to talk about it today, so I must have been doing something right. But I will say the bikes were not my friend because I was in the crosswalk and I was going across the street. I'm not sure if I had a a walking man sign or not, but two old people in a Chevy van, one of the old Chevy panel vans that says free candy on the side. No, but yeah, they almost ran me over. That same bike, that same yellow bike. I was on my way to get a newspaper and Something else from the liquor store and because I had a bike, they're like, Here you go, go get our paper, go whatever, whatever it is, go get the milk. And so I was in the crosswalk and I was crossing the street on my bike. Luckily I could see him turn the corner out of the corner of my eye as I'm going across. I had to jump off my bike. And they ran it over and drug it for I don't know, about a hundred feet. But all I can think about, and even now, is like, what if I was still on it? Man, see, so people drove like dicks even back then. Anyway, that's only one occasion. Another occasion was kind of my fault. I was coming out of a a gas station and I was leaving on my 10 speed and I cut the corner instead of going to the the curve and getting into the crosswalk. I cut across. And I was actually in the street and I was probably almost to the median and not in the crosswalk yet. When somebody who was making a left coming towards me from oncoming traffic ran into me as well. I d I just don't understand what people are looking at. I mean, sure, was it partially my fault? Of course it was. But you don't see the person on a bike. And I wasn't a little kid at this time. I think it was in eighth grade, seventh grade, eighth grade. But that's besides the point. All of it boils down to skateboards and bicycles were transportation for us and they took us everywhere. Whether it be a a BMX track, a skate park, it didn't matter. We were gonna go somewhere and we were gonna get some heads knocked. We were gonna get some abrasions, we're gonna get some cuts, we're gonna get some road rash. And we were not in short supply of those things. Meanwhile, you come back, you meet at your local place where you're gonna meet, like you do every single day. You're gonna throw them bikes down, because that's an indicator for your other friends that are looking for you where you're gonna be. Maybe you're in someone's house, maybe you're in the backyard, maybe you're at the park. But no matter what, the laying down of the bikes and the cluster of them. was always a good signal to let your friends know where you were at. You know, our generation, we didn't need equipment to have a good time. It was helpful. It made things funner. But I'm telling you right now, you if you put a a kid from our generation in a sandbox with another kid, they're gonna figure out something to do. Whether it's making mud pies Making a mess, period, or carving out dirt tracks for your matchbox cars or your evil canival. You're making whoop de doos and all these other ramps for your stompers. You're doing all those things. And speaking of ramps, going back to the BMX bikes, going back to skateboarding. Well, I remember a time, and I still to this day have not dabbled in it again, and that's building a ramp. Now, me and my friends got it in our head that we could build one ourselves just by using the scrap wood that we had lying around. And because Animal Chin and the search for Animal Chin and Bones Brigade and skateboarding was huge. I myself had a Nodis copice board. With slime ball wheels, independent trucks, I mean the whole nine. Before that, I had added a shitty Nash board that I truly learned to skate on. The thing weighed like a hundred pounds. So when I got this this actual competition style board of a well-known skateboarder, it it was night and day. But when you have those things, you want to use them properly, And just because you got a professional style board, you think you're professional, but you're not. And so we tried to build a rant, watching all these videos and first off, we didn't have the type of money they did, and we didn't have the materials that they did. What we did have was some two by fours and some corkboard. And so we did a pretty good job of making the frame and the ribs and all the things that we needed, but skinning the ramp itself for the launch part, nope, we had corkboard instead of plywood. And I said, that'll work. Let's do it. And so luckily we set it up to where it was pointing directly into my friend's front yard in the grass. and and I took that thing on at like 35 miles an hour. And between my little ass weight and the momentum of the skateboard Two things happened. The skateboard went right through the corkboard into the middle of the ramp and got stuck, and I kept going. Head over heels, I'm pretty sure I did a double tuck and I landed flat on my back and knocked the damn wind out of me. It was from that day on that I knew that I was not gonna be a maker of skateboard ramps. But that didn't stop me from. Going a hundred miles an hour down a six percent grade that doesn't look that bad in a car, but you get to the top of it and you, you know, stand on your skateboard and you look down and you realize maybe I shouldn't have done this. But why have the tools if you're not gonna use them? So and that was that was the feeling about having those things. You know, the BMX bikes, the being able to go out, and although we were and out, you know, having competitions. Right. You're you're out on your Huffy and you know, you're jumping dirt ramps and you're going to the local track thinking, yeah, I can be just like my friend who's sponsored. No, that don't that shit don't work either. So that being said, freedom was key as a kid. And I think we had plenty of it. I don't know about y'all, but I cherish the memories that I had playing with the friends that I had during those times and playing the games that we played together. And I know everybody's read the the meme, but it it's true when you think about it. One day At some point in time, you played those games for the last time with your friends. But one thing is for certain those games we played taught us lessons about how to get along with one another, conflict resolution, being able to figure things out without the help of your parents, the independence that you were given, because you had two wheels or in some cases four wheels. And if you didn't have any wheels at all, the independence was still there. I think those lessons have followed us into our current lifetime and hopefully we pass that on to the next generation, which is our kids as well. And if you're like me, it's always interesting to think back to a a simpler time. where you could make something out of nothing with the kind of creativity that you had. So in closing I'll say this. Those games weren't about winning. It was about how to win. It wasn't about losing. It was about losing well. It was about making friends, following the rules, and understanding when and with who you could bend those rules a little bit. But most importantly, it's about the memories. It's about the things that keep you grounded, the things that remind you that we've all come from the same place. We all live the same life. And although our cultures be different, our upbringings are different. The things that we do now might be different. But we as humans, as people, as Adults with that inner child screaming to get out from time to time. We are all the same. Thanks for listening. before you go, I'd love to hear your story. Every episode may start with a memory, but it doesn't end until you share yours. So leave a comment below and join the conversation. And if you enjoyed today's episode, please like, subscribe, and share it with another Gen Xer who'll appreciate a trip down memory lane. Until next time, take care of yourself, take care of each other, because the memories may belong to the past. But the stories are still worth telling. I'm Chris. This is Average Joe. Let's talk about it. And we'll see you next time.