Games We Played - by Vivian Honorio

The big yard fronting the primary building in Herran was just the best place to spend our recess and lunch breaks. Didn't we have those huge acacia trees rooted on large cemented "flower pots"? I recall playing ship: whoever stayed on the cemented base of the trees could not get eaten up by the sharks outside the pots. We'd push each other off those pots until we'd work up a sweat. I remember playing garter. Now there were two ways of playing that! One way was to do the exhibitions, first kicking the sides like 5 times on both ends of the garter, then there were the criss cross, the jumps, and I believe we brought up those darn garters all the way up to our waist for I don't know what? I hated wearing those Gregg shoes with buckles as they got caught in the exhibition part of the game. Then there was the "real" garter game where we'd have to clear the height of the garter which was way past the height of the tallest elementary girl! I was always awed by those girls who had those long legs and just managed to clear it. If I remember right, it was Cristina Ramos who was our usual bet to beat the upper graders as she had very looooong legs.

Didn't we also play with colored strings? I remember having to do some sort of manuevering of the string with all your fingers until you go way past all the steps and freeing the string from your partner? Then we had the piko. I remember drawing the patterns in the floor using orange chalk from broken pots. Now where'd we find those broken pots, I can't recall. Then we'd fashion our pato from all sorts of things: our hankies, wallets (containing laminated cafeteria chits) , etc. but the best patos I think were pieces of bark we chipped off from the beautiful trees as they wouldn't jump that much. The running and "rough" games we played were melting candle, touch taya statue and the boat is sinking.

I also remember playing the jackstones. I don't recall what grade I was, I believe though it was already in the Antipolo days mostly as we had a lot of the marble flooring... just perfect for the game. I remember the exhibition part of the game such as around the world, begging, the dot, the cave, the fence, around the world with begging, etc. I think we had to do 10 of those before we could rewind and do the game all over again. Of course there was also the chinese jacks (with monggo beans.) The exhibition part I could recall was the the cave again, the fence again, the begging again and the ballet.....

There was also the sipa (a million rubber bands tied up together) and I think I was kinda good at that. Of course the champions were Mia Gadi and Bernie Veloso and I could recall they could do that 100 times without missing the ball (both using the inside and outside sorta kick).

Since Antipolo had huge pockets of free space, we played kickball all the time. Again I always looked up to the girls who could just kick the ball way too far for the "fielders" to catch it. Way too far would mean up the hilly red soil of the rugged terrain of our beautiful school. Then we'd also have those good pitchers who would roll you a fast, curve ball until you'd strike out. I would be one of those who'd usually strike out being one of the "weak, payatot ones". Of course there was also the catchball as how Mon, you pointed out, for the "strong," and the patintero for the highly mobile ones.

Nowadays, my daughter Maia would get the usual jacks sometimes in her party loot bags and she would just set them aside as she finds it too difficult to learn. I always thought that all little girls were gifted with the talent of playing the jacks. I guess nowadays this new generation's sense of fun would be anything to do with the TV and video. I wish I could still have time to show her what the real fun games are all about. ---Vivian