Cops 'n robbers, cowboys and indians, war

[cosine]

Bob F.'s post in this thread and my subsequent response got me wondering: How did you play cops 'n robbers, cowboys 'n indians, war, etc. when you where little?

For me, my brothers and I would play outside in the yard (we had a pretty big yard). My parents wouldn't buy use toy guns (which we would probably break almost immediately, when we would get a super soaker once in a while it never lasted for more than a summer) so we got really good at improvising.

I would make pistols by rolling up a sheet of typing paper, and putting a twist about one third of the way down the tube. I then would fold that down, leaving me with a rolled up tube of paper in the shape of a barrel and a grip. I would also use plastic coat hangers as EBRs. Flip it upside down and you've got yourself a pistol grip!  Other things we would use would be the plastic kiddie sized hockey sticks as rifles, and an assortment of pistol-shaped garden hose attachments as handguns. We also had a whole bunch of plastic bowling pins in varying sizes that we would use for grenades when we played war. In fact, I don't think those bowling pins ever got used for bowling.

As for the actual play we would pretty much just chase each other around the yard pretending to shoot at each other, but as we got older we would start hiding around corners. In fact, I would work my way around corners by stepping away from them, and slicing the pie around that corner. I, of course, didn't know then what it was that I was doing. 

I remember we would have a lot of arguments about who and when one was shot and who and when one really wasn't. 


Ah, good times, good times. 

[Standing Wolf]

I remember we would have a lot of arguments about who and when one was shot and who and when one really wasn't.

In my neighborhood, we were expected to "take your deads," meaning we were supposed to fall down and writhe around in great agony for awhile. Only sissies didn't "take their deads."

[Nightfall]

Cant remember ever playing cops n robbers as a kid. Until I was 6 or 7 I played Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles with my neighbor, until we moved. My new neighborhood had no boys close to my age, but the next door girl would play making out with me behind her fence, which I found to be a far superior game. A couple years later we moved again, this time to a rural area. I spent the rest of my youth playing put on some camo and run around the woods. Occasionally this was accompanied by find cover that can stop the incoming paintballs, and learn to haul butt through thick undergrowth, or that old classic lets see what happens when we combine these chemicals and set them on fire.

But no cops n robbers. Maybe thats where I went wrong&

[280plus]

We played "army" mostly with sticks but there was the one lucky kid who got a popgun for Christmas and was the envy of the crowd. He quickly learned it would shoot dirt clods out if you stuffed them in there. Dirt clods also became known as dirt "bombs" and were used in a similar fashion as grenades.

[HankB]

IMHO any American male who didn't play some variation of "army" or "cops 'n robbers" or something of the sort when he was a little kid just isn't right in the head. (Maybe he was destined to become, as Johnny Carson used to say, "a little light in the loafers.")

Of course, when I was a kid, the games were usually "army" or, more simply, just "guns" as nobody wanted to be the "robbers" or the "indians" . . .

I remember we used to meticulously set up armies of toy soldiers and then gun down the opposing forces with rubber bands . . . I had a neat rubber band gun, shaped like a thin automatic, which would fire 6 or 8 rubber bands in sequence as fast as you could pull the trigger. ("No fair!" was the usual response when I pulled it out . . . but it was slow to reload.)

Then we discovered the virtues of firecrackers . . . 

[Fudgieghost]

Oh man. . . playing war. . . . yes all the time. . .

The time: early to mid-sixties
The place: central New Jersey, recently built suburban tract housing development
The Weapons: Mattel "Tommy Gun" ----with the camo!  Sometimes with the caps---but often got FTF with those. . . or Mattel "Winchester" rifle. . .or some POS thing that sparked when you pulled the trigger. . .one time a de-milled Japanese rifle(!) that some kid got from his dad.  Came home for some food and drink (tough out there in combat!) and my parents flipped out with that one.

Tactics: One group would go out and hide along a trail to the "lake" (actually a dammed stream---only area that wasn't bulldozed for the homes built nearby), the other would "patrol" and get ambushed.  When you were "hit" you had to count. . can't remember if it was to 50 or 100. . . then you got up and resumed the hunt.  We did this ALL DAY on the weekends.  Mom: "where you going?"  Me: "out to play"  Mom: "ok, be back for dinner."

Loved this when I was about 8--10 or so.  I was very good at "dying".  Would roll down hills dramatically. . . it's one thing I'm good at. . .

It's interesting to live to a time where what you did as a child is unthinkable for children now. . . we'd run around like this with our toy guns, no one gave it a second thought. . . 

[Sindawe]

For the group I grew up with, the game was Army.  We used to play in the greenspace behind our houses. that was bordered on the east by a four lane major road.  Could never do that in today's sissified culture, since we all had VERY realistic looking toy guns.  A couple of bolt action Springfield rifles, a Tommy-gun and one kids has a full sized M-16 toy gun.

[Stetson]

When we livind in Houston, ages 0-12, we played all over the neighborhood.  My next door neighbor was a former Navy SEaL(yes a real one but I didnt know what one was at the time) and he would play too.  Al the neighbors would leave the gates open so we could use their yards too.  One lady had some fruit trees and small, not ripe oranges make painful missles.

When we moved to Colorado we lived on 6 acres.  We graduated to making wooden guns out of old barn lumber and then eventually making trebuchets and catapults to lopb dirt clods and the kids from the next dirt road over.  We also all teamed up and made cannons, a forge, swords, and then home made blackpowder rifles.  They worked but were a bit powerful for us before we learned it doesnt take much powder...well, not as much as we thought 

[Werewolf]

Time frame 50's and 60's.

We played army on a piece of land in TX behind our subdivision that was perfect for it. Gullies, ravines, small hills, copses of trees and lots of rocks and boulders. A perfect playground for young boys. There was usually anywhere between 6 and 20 boys that would play two or 3 times a week Between ages 5 to around 10 we generally used sticks or rubber band guns. Around about 10 we started using BB guns with the rule no aiming for the head.

We were lucky I guess - no one ever got their eye shot out.

On the other hand with BB guns there was no doubt when someone got hit. It was worse in summer than winter. In summer bare skin often got hit. Usually the BB wouldn't penetrate but occasionally one did get just below the skin - when that happened a truce was called while the injured party or a bud dug it out which wasn't all that hard - they didn't go in that far.

Those BB gun wars were where I learned that motion was life and standing still would get you shot. Shoot and move - shoot and move. That was a well learned lesson.

[Modifiedbrowning]

Back in the day the big thing in our neighborhood was homemade slingshots. Find a nice Y branch and cut it off, strip it and add some rubberbands.
Acorns were the usual ammo, along with whatever else was handy.
One guy even had so many rubber bands tied together that he could fully extend his arm.
Good clean, albiet painful, kid fun.

[Vodka7]

We played "army" mostly with sticks but there was the one lucky kid who got a popgun for Christmas and was the envy of the crowd. He quickly learned it would shoot dirt clods out if you stuffed them in there. Dirt clods also became known as dirt "bombs" and were used in a similar fashion as grenades.

You didn't grow up in a Columbus suburb did you?  That's, to the letter, exactly what we used to do.  All the plastic guns got broken quickly, but one of us had this beautiful lever action metal popgun.  Bombs were seasonal though, depending on what was available--acorns, dirt clods, and very briefly pine cones until someone's older brother taught us how to make a really mean snowball with ice in it.  Really though, I think we spent most of our army time in the woods building forts, trenches, those holes covered with leaves that only work in cartoons, and sniper nests as far as we could climb in a tree.

Worst injury was when one kicked got poked in the eye by another kid's bayonet (stick).  Now, the actual injury ended up being just a cut near the eye, but when you're that young "poking an eye out" is just about the worst possible injury you could possibly imagine.  We were all afraid our mothers were right and he'd have to walk around with a glass eye for the rest of his life.

Now, the best times were when someone's dad bought or showed him something new.  The level-action was a big hit, and when somebody's dad came home from the surplus store with a stick of camo paint, we were in heaven for the three days until it ran out.

Of course, this was a long time ago, in a suburb that's grown exponentially.  The woods we used to play in were basically a huge undeveloped area between two neighborhoods.  I went back a few years ago, and instead of two neighborhoods with a nice free zone, you've got one absolutely gigantic neighborhood.

[280plus]

Naugatuck, CT mid to late 60's. 

[grislyatoms]

We used to make poker chip "guns".

Items:

A 2x4 about 3 feet long
A wooden spring-type clothes pin
A bunch of rubber bands
staple gun
poker chips

Staple one rubber band to the end of the 2x4, and loop together a couple more to the first one. Disassemble the clothes pin and staple half of it to the other end of the 2x4 and put the rest of the clothes pin back on.

Place a poker chip in the rubber band assembly and stretch it back, catching it in the jaws of the clothes pin.

Push down on clothes pin and zoom, there goes the poker chip!

My best friend's yard had hundreds of poker chips everywhere. His Dad got pretty torqued when he found out from whence they came, but oh well, it was really fun.

We also made nunchakus out of broomsticks and laundry cord, and all other sorts of crazy stuff. My grandma never did find out why her brooms kept disappearing!