NEWS for North Dakotans
Agriculture Communication, North Dakota State
University
7 Morrill Hall, Fargo, ND 58105-5665
February 19, 1998
Tom Isern, Professor of History
North Dakota State University
©1997 Plains Folk
The mail in response to recent columns on recess games of the old country schools has been frequent and fascinating. My use of the "old country school" label, though, prompts this correction from Rita Maisel, Superintendent of Schools in Cavalier County, North Dakota—"Not quite all of the rural schools are gone." Well taken.
She also writes about a variety of games played in the schools of her teaching experience. "Most people of my generation remember Pump-Pump-Pull-Away," she says—what I have been calling "Pom Pom Pull-Away." Also, "We spent many hours sliding down he hill near Belcourt [N.D.] on cardboard boxes until someone invented plastic sleds. . . . When I taught in Colorado I first encountered four-square, which is played literally everywhere now.
"Quite a few of us have sore knees today from jumping rope hour after hour on school porches. . . . And then of course there were O'Larry's and Poison—bouncing ball games which were best played with golf balls. We never purchased these balls, and unless you were high society you never visited a golf course, but every child tried to have one or two in their pocket when they went to school."
From Bruce, South Dakota, Hildur Ulvestad tells of a game new to me, "Seven Steps." One pupil is named "it." The game starts at a corner of the school. All the pupils except the one who is it then begin to circumnavigate the building. They are permitted seven big steps, then they have to stop, while the one who is it goes away and hides.
When the it returns, the pupils try to sneak around the school without being seen in motion. If spotted moving, the it sends them back to the starting corner, to begin again with seven steps. "The object of the game," Ms. Ulvestad writes, "is to sneak around the schoolhouse without being caught moving. The last one in is it for the next game."
When I saw the heading, "Seven Steps," atop the note from Ms. Ulvestad, I was reminded immediately of a recess game we played at Pleasant Valley School in western Kansas. This was the school catty-corner across the quarter from the house where I grew up. My father and grandfather attended the same school. In my time we had an outstanding, 17-year-old teacher right out of high school normal training.
Our game—and I wonder if others knew it—was a football game called "Three-Step." To begin you chose teams and then designated goal lines, perhaps fifty yards apart, and sidelines. One team then kicked off to the other. If someone on the opposing team caught the ball in the air, that person was permitted to take three steps forward before returning the ball by kick, punt or pass. If the ball was not caught before it bounced, then you had to return it from the place it was caught. The object was to drive the other team so far behind its goal line that it could not return the ball to the field.
One strategy used on catching a ball was to mark the spot, back up, and then make a triple jump of your allowable three steps. That advanced the ball, but it also allowed the other team to get organized and cover the field. So the other strategy was to catch the ball on the run, take your steps quickly, and then pass or punt it into an open space, hoping for a big bounce.
This recess game was in one way inferior to many others, because it emphasized the greater skills of the older kids and did not provide good roles for the younger ones. What drove its popularity, of course, was the influence of popular culture. The boys in the school were thinking ahead to high school football, and they wanted to play a football game.
Many thanks to all who have written me their experiences with country school recess games. This is a subject I'm going to have to take up in a more organized way; it's important to a lot of people and deserves to be made a matter of record.
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Source: Tom Isern (701) 231-8339
Editor: Barry Brissman (701) 231-7866