Small Towns Podcast
Small Towns Podcast
E 55 Injuries, Recess, Board(or is it BORED) Games?
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Its been a minute, but Dave and Jason are back at it! Discussing board games(Dave feels like they should be called BORED games) Whatever…. Dodge Ball, Throwing balls right at your face…. And Concussions…. The guys have been concussed… More than once… Probably best for us to stick to Corn Hole.
Welcome millions upon millions, practical millions of faithful podcast listeners. We are your hosts, Jason Kimber and Dave Simmons. We'll bring you along with us as we share life stories from our experiences living in small towns, or in Jason's case, an unincorporated community. That's true. Along with genius suggestions for solving world problems and a whole lot of laughs. This is the Small Towns Podcast. Alright, welcome back to another episode of Small Towns Podcast. I am your host, Jason Kimber with the incomparable. I think I've said that before, so it seems weak. But Dave Simmons, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you. Dave Simmons.
SPEAKER_01I think that we've probably how many episodes have we done? Oh, we're like 50 plus. Yeah, I bet we've used the word incomparable 40-something times.
SPEAKER_00And that's my fault, really. And mine. Well, you know what, yeah, you've used it a time or two. Yeah, I've used it. One thing that's interesting, Dave, about this process, and and it's gonna be really hard to not sound braggadocio here. I mean, because we've probably got tens of listeners. At least tens. I know, I know in the intro, millions, possibly billions, and you know, one day it's a goal. We're working towards it. But we do have a few. We got a few, we got a few loyal fans. We had uh my nephew um Bennett, big fan. Big fan. You know, he's he he always looks forward to a pod drop. But I actually heard, now this is we're gonna get we're gonna get serious for just a just a nanosecond, and then we're gonna bring it right back into like super fun, lighthearted. Okay. But my good, like our good friend in the neighborhood here, named Wade, his brother Shane. Shane, recently loyal listener, but gotten a bad, bad bike wreck. Oof. Yeah, bad bike wreck. Like I think, like he was riding his bike, and I don't know all the details. Pedal bike? Oh, pedal bike, like a pedal bike. Big Harley. Uh no, no, no. Fair, fair question. I think like a road bike. Okay. He's wearing his helmet, I'm sure. Okay. Which I never did as a kid, but that's tangent. And but I'm sure glad he was because like I think I think he had like a like a collision with a dog or something. And so he went down, like literally, like, as I understand it, left side of his leg, just mangled, learning how to walk again a little bit, like spent some days, I think, in intensive care. If I'm making these things up, I am sorry, but spoiler alert, he's doing great, he's on the mint. Well, good. And so a little shout out to him. But we thought, like, sometimes can we find humor in some of the darkest places? Well, we're gonna try. We're gonna try.
SPEAKER_01And Shane, we we hope the best for you. We do. Hopefully, everything is coming along.
SPEAKER_00And and and I'm and I'm sure that it will. But you we think about maybe some things that you can do while you're recuperating. Yeah. And maybe some things that you and I did when we faked sick from school. You didn't. Did you fake? I did once, actually. I remember once, very much so. Like a Ferris Peeler type thing. But I actually went to school to start with, and then I called home. You were all in. I called home and I said, uh Mom, I I said, Mom, I don't I don't feel very good. I don't remember how I said it. She came up and got me. She wasn't working at the school yet. You know, later in the world. She was the she was the cook. But in my early years, she was not. So she came up and got me. So what grade do you figure in? I was probably second or third grade. Okay. I'm gonna say second. It makes me feel a little bit better. And she came up and she got me, brought me home, and I can remember walking out of the school. And I remember just I remember doing my best to sell it because Dave, I was not sick. Yeah. I don't know why I didn't want to be there, but I just didn't want to be there anymore. Maybe you had a test. I could have, I don't know. But I walked to be a bully. I mean, it's grouse trick, you know what I mean? Well, somebody's gotta have you gotta have one. I did actually have a bully. His name was um Tony. The Gooch. But my brother, my big brother would always stand up for me, so it was never a problem. Okay, good. So this was not a bully situation, but I wanted to be home. I remember very slowly shuffling my feet, walking to the car. I remember getting home, I remember my mom tucking me on the couch, turning the TV on. Of course, we don't, there's not cartoons or anything, but I'm just at home doing nothing. My dad comes home, I hear my mom talking to him in the kitchen saying, you know, he really was sick, David. Because I think at that point I'd kind of maybe caught my second wind. Yeah. Because I started playing, like, again, we have no, there's there's no DVR, there's no on-demand. I'm not just turning on the cartoon network and watching it.
SPEAKER_01I mean, it's like General Hospital. So you had gotten that huge mat of the game Twister out. Mom, can you go play Twister? Bob, can you spin it for me?
SPEAKER_00Uh right foot. Shh shut up. Zip it. Zip it. Um, and so, but sort of thinking about uh board games. Those things you can do when you're bored.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, because I think it's apropos. Yeah. No, because I I mean they're on boards, B-O-A-R-D. Yes. But I'm not a big fan. Never have been even like card games when everybody wants to sit down and sit down and play cards. I think it might be a little A D D in me. I just have a hard time sitting there playing games.
SPEAKER_00I I know, like I for sure have A D D. Listen, I I'm happy with it. But Heather's the same way as you. She hates board people. B-O-R-E-D is the way I think. She calls them too. She hates them. And for her, she'll play like if it's a if it's like a quick moving, fast action game, she'll play with it. But like if I were to say, hey sweetheart, you want to sit around and play a game of risk? Yeah. Or maybe battleship? Yeah. She that's a hard no.
SPEAKER_01Monopoly. Everybody loves Monopoly. You don't do you realize? I don't think I have ever played a full game of Monopoly in my life. That's something that you and I have in common. Really? You haven't either? I don't even know the rules. I don't even know what to do. One time my buddies got into it. I don't know why. It seems silly. Ridiculous. I mean for a bunch of teenagers to sit around and play Monopoly, but they're like, hey, come play. And I'm like, it doesn't I don't really want to. And they're like, no, just play. Well, I think they like were making up, hey, you should do this. Alright. I was done with the game, and I mean the game can last hours, right?
SPEAKER_00I I I don't know if how does it end? Is it when when somebody owns all the I'm gonna be saying somebody they don't even know? I was done in 10 minutes, 15 minutes. And I'm like, well, that was dumb. I only know like catchphrases from Monopoly, like, do not Pascal.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And that's actually that's the only catchphrase.
SPEAKER_01I have zero desire to sit down and play a game of Monopoly.
SPEAKER_00I can't think of anything else.
SPEAKER_01I'd rather just sit there and raw dog the night. Just nothing.
SPEAKER_00Sit there, I'm looking straight at the wall. You know, every time you say that, you want to know the quote that comes to my head. It's uh it's uh the great movie Princess Bride, and where he says, You keep and when when inconceivable he says, You keep saying that word. I do not think it means what you what you think it means. I'll just I don't know. I mean, we're that's teen talk too.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I could yeah, I could just sit there and look at the wall and be just as happy as playing the we'd rather raw dog than the game. I'm just gonna raw dog the evening and let everybody else play it. Okay, I like that. Um now but there are there any board games that you liked? No. Not a one but there are plenty of things that you know yet you played because everybody else was. Yeah. And I and I blame some of the ills of society on some of those games. Oh, yeah, okay. I mean you can't tell me that the game operation didn't mess you up.
SPEAKER_00No, how would it not? Because like Yeah, so operation. So explain it to me because I I mean in this.
SPEAKER_01I think it is. It's gotta have like a like a warning. Just don't get into this because it's gonna bring up issues in your adult life. But basically the idea is is you're looking at this electrified box that's gonna it's gonna zap you if you touch the edge of certain edges, and it gives you these little tweezers.
SPEAKER_00But it's got this goofy-looking guy on it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, almost a clown-looking guy. And he's got like the funny bone, and the heart, and the femur, leg bone, or whatever. And your job is to pluck it out of there with these little tweezers, but if these metal tweezers touch the edges, it's gonna zap you. I don't can you imagine sitting in the boardroom with at Tyco Toys or whatever. Yeah. And they're all, let's see. I think maybe we should make something that'll zap the children if they do something wrong. Really just jold them. If they just mess up the tiniest little bit, shock them. Yeah, you're just we're just gonna shock them. Now we're not talking like dead, but we're gonna shock them enough to get zapped.
SPEAKER_00Do you do you think they created this game like for fledgling young wannabe doctors? Well, I think they sold it that way. You want to be a doctor? Try this game. Operation! And then, like, it seems like when if you would if with your metal tweezers touch the metal side of this box, like I feel like his nose would light up. It did. Yeah. It did. That seems very good. As if you needed to say, oh, I touched the edge. It just zapped you. It just zapped you. I didn't need to see the red light. It's like the great movie Ghostbusters, which I don't think you've seen. Did you see the original Ghostbusters? Oh, yeah, of course.
SPEAKER_01Whatever you do, do not look directly at directly at the trap.
SPEAKER_00Look at the trap ray. Look at the trap ray. The very opening setting of that movie, it's got um, it's got uh why did I just lose his name? Bill Murray. Thank you. I'm so sorry. Bill Murray. If you're listening to Bill Murray, I'm so sorry. I'm sure he is. I'm sure he is. But he is running that test where he's trying to get the boy and the girl to guess, to read what's on the other side of the card, and he is lying, so the girl gets all of them right. And the guy actually gets some right, and he shocks him every time and everybody's gum falls out of his mouth. So like you're playing, you're playing operation.
SPEAKER_01Well, I wonder what came out first Ghostbusters or the game of operation? Because I I would like to think that one inspired the other, as far as that scene goes.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that very well, because that was very operation-esque.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well, another game back then was remember the game Concentration? Where it's a yellow box that you push down the center of it, and it's basically on a timer. It's on a timer and it clicks. And your job in the seconds that it gives you is to put all the little different shapes in the different spots. But if you're too slow, that thing's gonna pop up and concentration or perfection. What'd you call it? Hmm. Was it perfect? It might be perfection. Well, I had that concentration is something else. Yeah, I think it's perfection. I think it's perfection. But that what a horrible name for a game. Yeah, you can't if you don't, if you don't get it perfect and fast enough, it's gonna shoot up. And that's that was akin to the jack in the box.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, but the thing is, like, listen, can we talk about perfection for just a little bit more? Because like when you you would you would actually wind the timer yourself, and you also remember that like you you couldn't it there was a ticking sound, but you couldn't see it. You had no idea how close um you were, and then as soon as the timer was up, the the bottom is just gonna shoot up at you. It was yeah, I just did a quick factory, it was perfection, that's it right there. Yep. Ours was yellow. Yeah, ours was yellow too. Don't tell me does it still exist? Well, it says eBay, but there I mean surely you can't no, that looks like a new one. Hasbro gaming, and look at that one, that looks way newer. Ours was yellow.
SPEAKER_01We got some sick minds over there at Hasbro.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, like you can't tell me, uh maybe you already mentioned this, but like those games, without question, have have contributed to the anxiety levels that so many.
SPEAKER_01They have to have. And you know what other game is you know there's games out there where you give it to a kid or they get it for a present, and the parents are looking at the givers and say, What have you done?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and then you you say to them, like, what did I ever do? Exactly. Let me throw one out for you. Yeah, hungry, hungry hippo. Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_01The worst just clunk, clunk, clunk. I think my dad had banned that one. And it and kind of recently, when our kids were little, and for some reason they're still a hungry, hungry hippo at my mom and dad's house, I think my dad might have hid that one.
SPEAKER_00Now, I have actually seen, and maybe you have as well, like a bigger, big kid, maybe even adult version of Hungry Hungry Hippo. You have to have like a like you gotta be in a gym, you gotta be inside of a gym, and you got these roller carts, like almost like a uh a creeper that you would slide underneath a truck, a mechanic, you know? Yep. A dolly too. A dolly, thank you. And you're on your belly on that. So it's two teams. It seems seems seems awful creepy. And then you're tied to a rope or your feet are. I can't remember how it is, so it's in teams, and so you've got like a basket or something, and all the big old balls are in the middle of the gym, and then somebody throws you out, and you try to catch as many of those balls as well. Well, that sounds fun. Yeah, well, way better than the board game.
SPEAKER_01Well, the one where you actually are just clamping down on that little handle and it just grabs the marbles. That is the loudest, most obnoxious game. Besides that, I Play-Doh is another one. Don't give my kids Play-Doh. No, I know my kids are too old for Play-Doh now, but that stuff's disgusting. Stinks, first of all. It smells. It just it's there's a weird smell to Play-Doh. And so whenever Susie let the kids play with Play-Doh, when she knew I was coming home with from work, she's like, Okay, dad's coming home from work. We're gonna get all this play-to-put away. So I didn't have to see it. Oh, hurry, hurry, kids, hurry, kids. Your dad's coming home. Hurry, your dad's gonna need to be furious.
SPEAKER_00Put the play-doh away. That'd be like, ever play Kriplunk? No. Kreplunk was uh it's like it's like kind of like a marble game, but you've got this plastic cylinder, goes upright, and there's holes in the middle of it, and you stick all these sticks through the whole, through the cylinder itself, and then you pour marbles on top. So they do remember that. I don't I didn't remember that what it was called, though. Okay, yeah. And the sticks provide like a a resting spot for these uh for these marbles, and then only four can play. Up to four, no more than four. Two is fine, too. And then you pull a stick out, and then the marbles fall down into your little area, and whoever gets the most marbles loses. So you'd be very careful about you know which stick you pull out. Kind of like an older version of Jenga.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, an older version of Jenga. But I kind of like they both they there's a difference to them though. I like the idea. I mean, could you can you see where the marbles are in that when you're pulling those sticks? You can.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's a clear tube, so you can for sure see it. Um well that's a fun one. It is kind of fun. It um way better than operation and perfection. Those things just give me a little bit of anxiety. Um I loved games though, like Risk and stuff like that. I didn't mind that. Not Monopoly, no. Battleship, eh, too boring for me, but um What about a good old Connect 4? Oh, I like Connect 4. Yeah, I like Connect 4.
SPEAKER_01It create it's crazy to me when you sit down and play Connect 4 right now, you're like, how's anybody ever lose?
SPEAKER_00And yet, every once in a while you're like, oh, oh, how did I miss that? Yeah, I missed it. Connect 4, and then you the big dramatic sliding of the things while the things come out. Um now these are not necessarily board games, um but um recess games.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I'm just looking at your paper here. Yeah, um let's look do you think that they're still playing Red Rover in elementary schools? Without a neck brace just on hands? I part of me hopes that they are. I want it toughens kids up, right? For sure, for sure. You gotta get through that. And it hurt, I thought it hurt to hold that person.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and then sometimes if you're holding hands with somebody who's like taking it way too serious, and they like they got the grip of steel on your hands. You your shoulder might be coming out of socks. You're like, I am not letting go. I don't care if a Mac truck runs through the street. And you always get the big fella.
SPEAKER_01You know, the one that had grown a little sooner.
SPEAKER_00The Jason Kibber with the mustache at 14. And you say Red Rover, Red Rover, you're like, don't send Jason right over. Send Jason right over. What are you going to do? Why did you ask him to There's nobody else. He's he's the last one he's gonna come, and then I'm running. I'm running, and I'm looking for my weak link. Yeah. Who's the smallest looking child out there that I could just bust through that?
SPEAKER_01But I would think that Red Rover has since been banned from this.
SPEAKER_00Probably. Because there's two, there's, you know, if let's see, Red Rover, Red Rover send. I don't really know who this Red Rover person is, but the person that's so if the guy doesn't break free. He's now on your team. Yeah, but he's either he's either got the wind knocked out of him, depending on the height of the of the human chain. Yeah. Now, if you're a real jerk on that human chain, you put that up. You go high. You go high, and you got it basically a clothesline.
SPEAKER_01That's right. I think the first time the the WWF started, they're like, Do you guys remember playing Red Rover? Let's just go off this belt over here, this this ring over here, and come back in and just boom, and we're just gonna take you out of the neck.
SPEAKER_00Or take the wind right out of you. And then again, if you don't break free, then you're dying. But if you do break free, then then either your hands have been crushed, or or anyways, it this or you'd catch them, like they would double over on your arms and they would flip because you've got them just whipping over the top of your arms.
SPEAKER_01I think Red Rover probably should have been banned a long time ago. I about dodgeball.
SPEAKER_00One of my favorites. Um you know, they're well enough. They're not super fast. Well, and you don't throwing isn't your best. It's not my yeah, and we all know you taught me how to throw at baseball, which I'll be forever grateful. But throwing a dodgeball is a a little like there doesn't have to be a lot of finesse in that. No, you just throw it at fish.
SPEAKER_01You just throw it. The way they were the big rubber balls. Yes. Yeah. And I you could play, we played in the gym, yeah, but there was also a tennis court that I remember playing on at Providence Elementary that had the two back things, which it wasn't as good because the the balls could go further out. But I just remember playing, and you know, when you're a third, fourth, fifth grader, you're taking it serious. For sure. Or I was, yeah, for sure. I was gonna drill anybody I could drill, and I was trying to catch them and the whole thing. But then there was always those few people who just stand at the very back on the wall. Yeah. And you can't cross mid-court. No, so you're trying to launch it all the way back there, and they have no interest in catching it or anything, they're just sidestepping everything from a distance. I'm like, this game is never gonna end. And it's it's a jerk move. It's a jerk move. So when they introduced the rubber balls that were smaller that you could really pull. You could bring some heat with those things. Those poor girls in the back were fair game at that point.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so I I think this is purely only a different iteration because of the grassroots gym itself, where I went to elementary school, is like we had a gym, but there also were like um there was like a big circle that was like it wasn't, it was kind of painted on, but it's a huge circle. And sometimes we played dodgeball where you would be inside of the circle and everybody was outside of it, and then you would because it wasn't to have gym, and then you would if you were inside you were fair game and you would try to throw them that way. And that's tough because shooting fish in a barrel. Yeah, you got people all it's way harder on the inside. Oh, yeah, because you could be coming from behind you anywhere, any which way but loose, buddy. You you grass creakers are that's more it's it's rough, and it it's it we almost took that. You were using baseballs too, weren't you? Whatever we could find. Again, give the quote from the great movie Dodgeball.
SPEAKER_01You can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, exactly. We have you heard of the game Annie Eye Over? Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Okay, we'd say any eye over, I think.
SPEAKER_00Any eye over.
SPEAKER_01I think so.
SPEAKER_00I feel bad for the people who had any value by the way. Audi eye over. Oh one guy that's got the outie walks around. I guess that's me.
SPEAKER_01Well, we would play. Well, how about Annie? If you're gonna Annie Eye over, there's gotta be a thousand Annies. And everybody just stands there. Annie I over, we don't have an Annie. Send Annie over.
SPEAKER_00I don't know. Do you think you would be like anti, like A-N-T-E? I don't even know what that means.
SPEAKER_01Uh like you Annie up? Yeah, maybe. Look, I don't know why those things started that way. But those are like violent games, which I I I I Well ours when you just loved them. Well, what was it? Help me remember Annie I Over. Annie I Over, we wrote the ball over. Well, you wouldn't.
SPEAKER_00Everybody else would. I would kick it, buddy. I would kick it. We would we'd play with either soccer ball, or again, those big red, red, which were awesome. And what we would do is if you caught it, and that there this game obviously had a lot of um you honor honor policy.
SPEAKER_01I remember now.
SPEAKER_00So if you caught it, then what would happen is that you would run around the house, and then you would take that ball, whoever had it, and you would give it, probably never to me, but give it to the person who had the best aim and the strongest arm, and then just start hucking that ball and hitting kids. And then they're on your team, and then on your team.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I do remember that now. We'd play the football. So you could really launch it over it. Could you and then you would throw the football people? Oh yeah. Okay.
SPEAKER_00Probably a nerf. Okay. Probably getting hit with football would be different than getting hit by a few.
SPEAKER_01Speaking of, you know what my friends and I used to do, and I and I stand behind it. It is, I still think it's super fun. With a nerf football, you stand, um, you're probably 20 yards apart, maybe 25 yards apart. Okay. The guy with the ball is waiting as the other guy is sprinting towards him as fast as he can. Okay. And when he gets at about seven yards, you throw it at his face as hard as you can. And the guy's job is to try to catch it. Catch it.
SPEAKER_00It sounds like an awful game.
SPEAKER_01It was so much fun. I mean, you did that in elementary school? No, we were a teenager. We were high school age. Okay. Just idiot kids like, hey, let's try this. You run at me as fast as you can, and I'm gonna throw this right at your face. What if you and you try to catch it?
SPEAKER_00Does he like tackle you?
SPEAKER_01Does he lower shoulder? No, you're just trying to as quick as you can with your hands. You gotta have fast hands and you gotta have good hands to catch that thing. You know, I I'm gonna regret saying this for sure, but we ought to try that sometime. Oh, I do it with my sons. I'm like, run at me and I'm gonna throw this at you as fast as I can. And and it's funny because when when the guy is expecting the throw, he starts to kind of almost cringe away, you know, like I I'm supposed to be running my fastest, but you haven't thrown it yet. And uh now what do I do? I'm getting closer. Throw it all right. Just throw it. Yeah. Um one thing that my sons and I have done, and I I attribute their they have they've got really good hands when it comes to sports. I will say that for them. And one of the games we played since they were very little is I called it the pop fly game. Have you seen us do it? Yeah, I have seen it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and we've played it a time or two.
SPEAKER_01And and I don't think people quite reckon realize how it's a skill that I have. I can hit that tennis ball straight up. Straight up. Straight up. And it's not like underhand, just it is a full-on and it's going straight up. And that thing is up there. And every time the first time people see it, that they're like, oh it's impressive. And so the j the idea is to catch it one-handed. And poor Caitlin Whipple. She came over what she was little at this point. Uh hopefully she listens and she remembers. I should have had her sign a waiver. Yeah, you should have. But one of the first ones, right in the face. Oh. Sorry, Caitlin. It is a tennis ball. Boom. Right in the face. But um, then we'd get to the point where I can I'll hit one and I'll give it a count of probably three seconds.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Boom, another one. Boom, another one. So there's three up there. Yeah. And you're going to catch the one, and then to catch the other, and then to catch the other, and it got to be. It was fun.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I uh we've played that at your place before.
SPEAKER_01Have you ever it then turned into the line drive game where sounds like a good game? Yeah, you ought to do this. This is the kids all love it too. Well, they s they say they do. Once they come too, they absolutely love it. Once they come to, but we're probably only 20 yards away, and I just hit it at them as hard as I can. Baseball? No, that's a tennis ball. Tennis ball, tennis ball. Sorry. And when they were younger, we would let them have their baseball gloves. Oh, yeah. So it was a good way to see if you could work on that. Work those hands. But as we get a little older, the glove comes off. Sure. And now we're trying to field it with our bearings.
SPEAKER_00Now that your kids are older, do the tables turn? I mean, are they getting it at you? They would like to.
SPEAKER_01Again, I don't want to be too boastful. No, go ahead. There is there's a skill to hitting that ball straight in the air and at somebody. Yeah. And I have that skill.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01But anytime somebody says, let me try that, I mean, we're running all over the place.
SPEAKER_00I want to say that down in your house one night, we've tried that. And even because I can if I'm I can't play tennis, but I can hit a tennis ball far with a tennis racket because it's pretty easy to do. Yeah. But to get to go straight up in the air, not a chance.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and I can keep it in probably uh a radius out from me in any direction about 15, 20 yards.
SPEAKER_00Which is impressive. Because it's so it's it's basically going straight up and almost going straight down.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and so you can we can we don't have to have a huge area to do that. But um we did it in the windstorm the other night, which was fun. So I was I was almost hitting it towards the Duffin's house and it was bringing it back back to you, and it was fun to try windage and elevation.
SPEAKER_00You mentioned something earlier, and I didn't mean to I hope I didn't cut you off, but not to jump back on dodgeball, but I feel like you played like a different version of dodgeball.
SPEAKER_01No, um with kickball, we played and then kickball, because we we've talked about this and I see what you wrote down there. We played a um Danish style, did you? Do you even know what that means? I don't even know what that means. So with kickball, you it's like baseball for a lot of people, and you have bases, but with Danish style is just down and then back. Okay. So you're you're going to a s a distance of oh where probably second base would normally be. Yeah. But instead of going to first, you run straight to second and then you go back to home. And if you can drill somebody with the ball before they get there, then they're out. Oh, which was kind of fun.
SPEAKER_00So um I loved playing kickball growing up, and we would you'd uh either play it with a soccer ball, but I love to play it with those big round red rubber balls. Well, those would go. Yeah, you could kick those far. We'd play in the gym and we'd always get in trouble because we'd kick it up high and we'd in inevitably break a light every single time. But um just maybe a month or two ago, um so my calling at church is activity day later, so we got like these boys. Uh my buddy Brett and I, it's like the nine and ten-year-olds, and we're doing activities with them twice a week. Kind of twice a month. Twice a month, yes, right. Twice a week. Twice a week, my gosh. Time to move. Time to move. Um, but we did a group one with the girls and the boys, and we played kickball. Now, mind you, we've got ages from like seven and eight clear up to nine to ten. So there's a big age range, and there's this one girl, she was sweet. I won't, I mean, I won't say her name and uh I I wish I could, but she was a fantastic kickball player. Really? And she played she plays soccer and whatnot, and um, but there were some kids that had never played kickball before, so they didn't know the rules, and and at that age is you got people that are out there kind of looking for four-leaf clovers as well. You know, I mean, you got the whole the whole gamut, and she was here to play, and she caught a ball, and she just hooked it at the kid as as this little guy was trying to run to first base. She nailed him, yeah, she nailed him hardcore, knocked him down. That's what okay, you know, we're gonna have to adjust these rules a little bit. Like, we just need to roll the ball in front of them. It's the it's a child's version of the Hunger Games. It really is. She was, and I was probably, she was like, You got him! I was like, shit. You did, you did. You were voted tribute, you're in. Sorry. It was so awesome, but I was I was like, okay, well, we we probably need to maybe adjust. Maybe these kids have not played before, but it was but but listen, that kid's gonna be better for it. Yeah, he is, or worse. Um, I I I'm all over the board here, but I played a game, and I'm this is not this is not a made-up game, but we played it a little bit more um intense. We've heard we've heard the game The Floor's Lava. You had to play it in tents, yeah, which means it's a real challenge. This is a three-man tent at bet, you know, bet best. Like at a pup tent. It was in tents, T-E-N-S-E. Okay. And you know, my girls is that they're little or whatnot, they play floor's lava and throw the couch cushions on the floor, you know, that type of stuff. Well, we played outside, and again, as you mentioned earlier, it's a bit of a bit of a version of parkour before parkour was a thing. So we'd be outside and we'd either be out in the corrals, and again, you had to hop from either fence to fence, a pole fence, or um could you drink could you jump on a dry uh cow patty? No, no, that's considered lava. It's lava. Anything that's ground or organic, if you will. We were thinking about organic at the time. Okay. But cow poop, no, negatory. But at the store at uh Grass Creek, at the Grass Creek Co-op at the time, we had one, two, three, four. I think five. There was like five large gas tanks, four or five. One, and they were on top of the ground. So you see these huge gas tanks, a huge one, and then there was three ones in front of it. It kind of looked like a big old jelly roll, you know what I mean? And then one that ran perpendicular to them. So these four were all the same size. I wouldn't even know what to guess how many gallons they were, but you know, hundreds of gallons. And then the big one, and again, all the gas the gas truck would come, fill that up, and that's what would pump out of the gas. Well, we would play on these things. Probably not safety. Were you smoking at the time? No smoking, but you could open up the lids and actually look down and see your reflection in the gas. I mean, like, and you take a big old sniff. I mean no wonder you love this game. Yeah, I love this game. Well, this the huge gas tank on the end, like, you had to be kind of a big kid in order to you would jump from one to one and then up on top of the other one. And I was playing with my brother Wade and our cousin Scott and my sister Lisa was there, just a few other kids running around, and we're hooligans. Hooligans, we're playing tag or whatever, floor is lava on this thing. I go to make a jump from the smaller tank to the next one, lose my footing, and bam, my head, good boom, right into the side of that gas tank. And I mean, funk! And I don't remember too much of a concussed. I was concussed because I just fell back onto the other gas tanks and somebody hit go ya bum! You know what I mean? I do remember waking up later that night over at my Aunt Robin's house. I was when I came to when I came to when I came to, I was at my Aunt Robin's house. We were watching a movie in heaven, I think probably some Chilean scones. I don't know, but I was concussed, and I can remember, I could still the sound and the oh worst headache ever. It's probably got a bad neck, even today.
SPEAKER_01Probably. I'm thinking it was from that. Did you ever have a merry-go-round at your elementary school?
SPEAKER_00Not out to grouse, no, but I know exactly what you're talking about. I love those things.
SPEAKER_01Well, for children, I don't know that that was the move either. I mean, no. We used to get that thing cooking so fast that you could literally people kids would hold on to the bar and their feet would just fly out.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, they would just take, they would be the inert inertia?
SPEAKER_01Something. Something. Yeah. And if you let go, they're gone. They're gone. We used to get that like you would get one leg on, one leg off, and just start pumping it. And you'd get a bunch of people around there doing that, and then a couple people just hanging on for dear life.
SPEAKER_00That's it's it's so scary because if you're remember at the inside, there were bars that you could hang on to. Yeah, but if you were on the inside and if you let go, you're I think inertia, I think that's correct, it's going to take you to the outside, but not before you bang your hand and your plink going around in there.
SPEAKER_01Or how about on a swing set where you'd get an underdog from somebody and you're getting super high, and then you would jump, you would launch yourself out of the swing set and land it.
SPEAKER_00Boom. Stuck the landing. My nephew Ian, who um who is no longer with us, dang it, super sad. But he was the one that taught me initially when remember he was the my 11-year-old nephew that busted my finger when he's tried to teach me how to play catch. He was 11, I was like 30. And it was on you. I stand by it. It was on me, it was for sure on me. But when he was even younger, we were out to their house for Thanksgiving, and um I was pushing him on the swing, and he came up and saying, Uncle Jason, go higher, go high, give me an underdog, give me an underdog. I'm like, Okay, okay, you want to go high? We'll go high. Oh, this can't end well. It didn't end well, buddy, because it was not a big full-time swing set, it was just more of a smaller one. I went all the way up, I'm a tall guy, and I brought up so high that he let go and he just plummeted to the ground. That's probably why I broke my finger.
SPEAKER_01Okay, Jason, what have you done?
SPEAKER_00It was just, I mean, the tears were flowing and it was horrible. I mean, I I'm gonna have to answer for that.
SPEAKER_01But some of those old school swing sets that were in backyards that were too they weren't strong enough. And that like when you'd get going, the legs of the swing set would come off the ground.
SPEAKER_00But so you'd have those, but then do you remember the ones that were at like city parks next to like the 10-story high metal slide that would get hotter than hogs. Oh, yeah. Yeah, you know, those types of things.
SPEAKER_01They had a fire pole off the back of it, which seemed dangerous too. Very dangerous. I don't I don't I think we've probably gotten a little bit better uh playgrounds now for children.
SPEAKER_00But have we? I mean, I mean I know.
SPEAKER_01Are we creating softies? Is that what you're asking?
SPEAKER_00That's what I'm getting, man.
SPEAKER_01I mean, a little concussion here and there isn't the worst thing, is what you're saying.
SPEAKER_00Listen, I've had more than I've been concussed more than once in my life, and I'm fine.
SPEAKER_01I think I was concussed trying to slide down the neighbors. They had a driveway that was a steep one, yeah, and it was it was facing the opposite direction to where it's not getting the sun, so it was straight ice. And so we were waiting at the bus stop and we would try to just slide down it on our feet. Yeah. And I went that my feet came out one time, and I remember conking my head pretty hard.
SPEAKER_00On the back?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. But I went to school.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you're fine. The teachers probably didn't even notice. I was just fine. They're like, would somebody please wake little Dave Simmons up? Hey, would you nudge him?
SPEAKER_01He threw up a minute ago, but he's fine.
SPEAKER_00Back just real quick, back to dodgeball. Have you played recently? No. Well, I mean, go to the like uh trampoline, the fun or the you know the trampoline park or whatever. Yeah, yeah, you can play a little dodgeball in there with the kids.
SPEAKER_01Have you noticed that the the dodgeballs they use now are the are they soft? You can squeeze them and they're soft. It's almost like a foam type thing. Nerf-esque? Almost. Okay. But the problem with those is they're light enough that you can throw them very, very hard. Yeah. But there's no, you can't aim very well with them because they're light enough that they're just gonna like slide, curve. Yeah, they might catch something.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So one time, year, this was years ago, but I was a grown man. Okay. And um I some people go, hey, they're gonna they're doing a dodgeball league for adults down at the down at the sports academy. What possibly could go wrong. Yeah. I'm like, what? They're like, yeah, come play. All right. So I show up again. This is grown men playing dodgeball. And I'm a I can throw, I can catch, I'm a pretty athletic dude. I'm standing there, you know, maybe midway back. I'm not the guy that's gonna stand on the wall. Uh it's not me. No, the back wall. No, no. I'm in there and I'm just kind of standing there in what I would call an athletic position, you know, just trying to see what's going on, and all of a sudden, just right in the face. And I didn't even see where it was coming from. It's like coming from like three o'clock. And I'm like, hmm, I just got drilled right in the face. Just in so you just could it was in your peripheral. Because the curve. Oh, it's I mean, and I'm convinced that the guy wasn't trying to throw a curve, but it just they slide. If that I'm yeah, okay. You know when you hit a golf ball and you can slice or you can hook, these will slice or do weird things?
SPEAKER_02I guess you're in the face.
SPEAKER_01Well, I better be a little more prepared. Yeah. So the game goes on, and I'm standing there again, all of a sudden, right in the face. Again, I'm like, this isn't fun. No, and you're like, what is happening? And I threw my arm, they're so light that I'm like, I'm throwing my arm out for nothing. What are we what are we doing? Yeah. Never went and played adult adult dodgeball again after that. It's not fun.
SPEAKER_00No, I mean, and some of these some of these games are not there. Yeah, we that ship has sailed for both of us. And again, you're very athletic, so I'm not I'm not indicating. Well, but if you and I were to try to play a quick game with our with our friends Red Rover, Red Rover. Oh my gosh. Send me. Send Jenny over because she's little. And you and I, we would clasp pants so tight. And she would whip red over. And then right when she got there, we'd pull it up just so it got about neck high, and then she would just kind of like I'd just flip over.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I am at the point where my game now is cornhole. That's yeah, that's the speed I'm looking for. Yeah. I'm convinced that you give me six months of no work, straight cornhole, I could be on the tour.
SPEAKER_00Well, listen, you've you you throw a pretty good game. I mean, you yourself, myself, Cray, and Griff, we've played a time or two.
SPEAKER_01We have, but it like if all you had to do. Like, if you did you watch any of the Olympics and think, give me six months, I could do that. No. No, I did not think that even once. I mean, there's somewhere. I'm like, you're not getting me on the you and I are not gonna be doing any like synchronized diving. No, no, that's it. First of all, I can't wear that uniform.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, that's absolutely but there's you can't wear that uniform. Yeah, it wouldn't work for me. I'd be I'd be probably terrible at pole vaulting. Uh there's there's some like I just pole vault.
SPEAKER_01Um, okay. Uh but I'm watching some of the like Cordhole. I'm like, yeah, I mean, I could be wearing one of those getting sponsored by Bush Beans in no time.
SPEAKER_00Well, you would they're very well maybe we'll see it in uh LA in 2028 because I mean we had breakdancing for Crying Hell out. Kind of.
SPEAKER_01It's it sounded like some people break danced and some people didn't. Plus her heart from Australia. See I she's one of your Aussies. She's one of my Aussies. Oi, oi, oi. Yeah, there's some things I'm like, I mean I could try Badminton. Badminton? Did you see how fast those things are coming though?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's next level, but I do think maybe some of the um I don't know. They haven't like like even like rifle shooting and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. You know. Yeah, that's probably not for me. But I'm pretty sure. I'd like to. Give yourself six weeks. Six months. No, I need six months, but I'd have to drop everything. You know, and I, you know, got mouths to fix it. Yeah, you got responsibilities. Yeah, and I mean I don't want them, but I got I got them. Somehow I got 'em. But uh, yeah, this has been fun. Growing up in these small towns, you're gonna play some of these games. I wonder if kids growing up in inner cities ever played Red Rover.
SPEAKER_00You know, I hope they I hope so. I hope so, but I do think there is some benefit of these, and and there are so many more. Maybe uh put them like when we post these on social medias, I'd love to hear people's games. Uh, you know, because we've played a whole slew of them. Way more than this, outside fox and geese, dog and deer, pom-pom polaway, kick the can. There is no way those are things. All things. Kick the can, I've heard of it. Kick the can, pom-pom polo, you better believe it. Pom-pom polaway? I don't even know what it means, but it's just a basic game of tag. We'll we can dive into it later. I don't think that's a game. Remember, it's small towns games, buddy.
SPEAKER_01Very small. Thanks again, folks, for listening to another episode of the Small Towns Podcast. We're pretty sure we've changed your life for the better. If not, well, we'll try again next time.