When I was a kid, we played outside until we couldn't see and had to go in. I rode my bicycle and played tag football, kick the can, and hide-and-go-seek.
My first encounter with a Kelly was not on a musical scale. It was from primary school. Dave and I went to primary school together and we were like boy scouts.
I remember growing up, having sports to go to, having recess, those were the things I looked forward to. Yes, I'm an athlete, but I had buddies who weren't, and they looked forward to it, too.
Of course, in our grade school, in those days, there were no organized sports at all. We just went out and ran around the school yard for recess.
I try to take the approach that everyone really is an athlete at some level. I mean, we were all on the playground in the beginning. Some of us just stayed there.
The sole forms of social interaction I was aware of as a kid involved a jungle gym and a sticker book. It was only in high school that ICQ - a prehistoric form of instant messaging - was first incorporated into my cultural vocabulary.
Sixth grade was a big time, in my childhood, of hoops and friendship, and coming up with funny things.
If we're going to change the game it has to start at eight, nine and 10 years old. When we were that age we'd go to the pond or backyard rink and throw a puck on the ice and play five on five, or seven on seven. You get this creativity and this imagination that comes from within, just having fun on the pond. Now kids are so focused on team play, and the coaches are so focused on positioning. You can't change it at the NHL level.
As far as the game of marbles is concerned, there is therefore no contradiction between the egocentric practice of games and the mystical respect entertained for rules. This respect is the mark of a mentality fashioned, not by free cooperation between equals, but by adult constraint.
I take a slow sip of lukewarm coffee, reopen the book, and read the words scribbled in red ink near the top: Everyone needs an olly-olly-oxen-free.
I grew up on 'S.N.L.,' doing all the sketches on the playground.
I've always negotiated the world very physically, from football to tussling at the playground to taking my clothes off.
As the skipping rope hit the pavement, so did the ball. As the rope curved over the head of the jumping child, the child with the ball caught the ball. Down came the ropes. Down came the balls. Over and over again. Up. Down. All in rhythm. All identical. Like the houses. Like the paths. Like the flowers
I was brought up in the north of England, which is probably no rougher than anywhere else, but I remember as a child being kind of mesmerized by girls fighting on the playground.
Even at recess, in elementary school, it was just a known thing that I was one of the fastest in the school.
When I was on the playground, people were calling me Jackie Chan.
