School has changed markedly since 1946
Early in my school career, recess was my favorite course. In those days, we got a 20 minute recess about mid-morning each school day, another half an hour after lunch, and maybe 20 minutes in the mid-afternoon. It always seemed to me that the bell rang calling us back inside about 5 minutes after recess began. The big school bell was rung to start and end the lunch hour, but as I recall, each elementary teacher had her own small bell to call in her class from recess.
Seeing the downtown school campus these days is astonishing, just to notice the change from the way the playground looked in 1946. One of our favorite pieces of playground equipment back then was the merry-goround. Many days, the bus would get us to school early. That was great, because it gave us some merry-goround time before school. Usually there would be four or five of us on it at any one time. We were kind of rough with each other. One of us, often me, would climb inside the framework, so we could turn it from there. That way we could get it going extra fast. The object was to try to throw off those that were just hanging on out on the perimeter. Sometimes we got a little too rough and got hurt. But I guess we didn’t realize we weren’t supposed to get hurt.
There were also swings, a slide and a teeter totter. My wife remembers how Gene Messer used to get on the swings and swing really high, almost like he would swing over the bar. If I’m not mistaken in my memory, there was a small grove of trees in the west center of our playground, and a well, and for years there was a drinking fountain out there.
Playing jump rope was really popular among us younger kids in those days. Almost always it was a group game, with two people turning the rope, and kids would “run in,” jump the turning rope for several jumps, then “run out.” Often, as the mood struck, the turners would go “hot pepper,” turning the rope faster and faster. Some kids were really good, keeping going even with “hot pepper.”
At one time, several of us kids played jumping boards. A plank was centered on a block or big rock, and two kids got on the ends and jumped, throwing one into the air, to come down and throw the other into the air. That one was fun but dangerous, and it was easy to get hurt.
Shooting marbles was also popular. Some of the kids shot marbles for keeps, but I hated losing my marbles, so I usually only played funnzies. We all had our favorite shooting marble, a prized possession. I never knew how to spell what we called them — a Taw, I guess. We also often played Mumbley Peg. I’m not sure that game would be permitted for kids at school today. It was played with open pocket knives. You started by marking a rectangle in the dirt, dividing it in half, then throwing your knife to stick in your competitor’s territory. If you had a good throw and it stuck, you could carve out some of your competitor’s territory as your own. Sometimes we would lose out and end up with only a little square.
Some of the girls played hopscotch on the sidewalks. I guess we boys pretty much thought hopscotch was a girls’ game; we didn’t usually do that one.
Activities on the high school grounds involved lots of softball. The softball fields were in the north of the campus, where the Intermediate gym stands now. Sometimes we “chose up sides” for a game between teams, but much of the time we played workup softball. In work-up, the players change positions each time there is an “out.” There are three batters. If you get put out, as when you hit a grounder and get thrown out to first base, you become right fielder. Then, fielders shift positions left, the left fielder becoming third baseman, second baseman going to first, first baseman to pitcher, pitcher to catcher, and catcher becoming a batter. If you hit a fly ball that is caught, whoever catches it takes your place as a batter, and you take his place on the field. There was no fence in our left field, but if we hit the ball into Sprigg’s yard or down over the hill, we usually could run the bases and get a home run. I really liked playing work-up softball.