The only times I can remember choosing teams for games was in school, when teachers chose the captains and then make the captains choose the teams. (I hated being a captain, because if I didn't choose the best players first, I'd get hassled, but if I didn't choose my friends first, they'd be mad at me, so pretty much I had a choice between being hurt physically or mentally. I'd usually choose physically, since I was pretty well aware that the fourth-grade politics of who's friends with whom would last a whole lot longer than some bruises.)

When we were playing something like street hockey, we all had roller blades, but there was only one kid who had pucks and sticks, so he'd decide who was on which team. (And he'd usually decide pretty fairly, since after the first few times, it's no fun to play against a bunch of kids you can easily beat.)

I've heard a lot of stuff about how damaging playing tag is, but that's actually one of the most adaptable games ever. We usually had two trees designated as bases, and the rule was that you could stay on base for 30 seconds at a time. When I started having knee problems, the rule was that I could stay on base for two minutes. My best friend's youngest sister, born when we were in third grade, has Down Syndrome. For awhile when she was a toddler, when she wanted to be involved in whatever fun was going on but couldn't walk yet to actually play, we'd sit her in the middle of the yard and designate her as a base, so people would always be stopping to sit down and hold her hand a play with her for a minute or so. TV/Book tag was also great for those of us who were better at thinking fast than running fast, but the kids who liked running could still do a lot of it, if that was how they wanted to play.

What's four-square? I'm wondering if it's similar to the handball (or hand tennis) that we used to play when I was at high school.

You draw a big square, divided into four smaller squares, on the blacktop. One kid stands in each square, and you bounce a playground ball between each other, and there are some rules that I can't remember about where it's allowed to bounce and the order in which people have to hit it.

have you seen the UK equivalent, Bulldog? 30 kids each side of a "pitch". They run at each other and try and force the other side back. No rules

I have. shudders

And I thought having to play rugby was bad.

It's like handball, but not against a wall. We used to play "British" Bulldog growing up. We also used to pllay what we called soccer-baseball, and something called "All around the World". Did other people play Elastics?

You draw a big square, divided into four smaller squares, on the blacktop. One kid stands in each square, and you bounce a playground ball between each other, and there are some rules that I can't remember about where it's allowed to bounce and the order in which people have to hit it.

Yep, that's the one (we used a tennis ball). My school had two varieties: upball, where your shot was legal as long as it bounced in someone else's square, and downball, where it had to bounce once in your own square and then in someone else's. The first variant was really all about the power - it only had to bounce once, so you hit it as hard as you could and made them run for it. The second was a much more skilful game. Good fun.

Did other people play Elastics?

French Skipping, with a loop of knicker elastic? Yes. If that's not what it is, clearly not.

French Skipping, with a loop of knicker elastic?

We called that Chinese Jump Rope. It was a fad for awhile when I was about 10, and they sold already-made elastic loops in different colors for about a dollar or two. Never thought of just using regular elastic.

French Skipping, with a loop of knicker elastic? Yes. If that's not what it is, clearly not.

Ours was a bunch of rubber bands joined together, and people would hold it at different heights (ankles, knees, arms-length, hips, waist, underarms, shoulders, arms-length) and other people had to jump over them without letting the elastics touch the ground. Up to about hips, you had to clear the elastics without touching them at all.

We called that Chinese Jump Rope.

I figured it probably wasn't from France.

I can't remember the rhymes we used, which is odd, because when I knew them I thought I'd know them forever.

But have you seen the UK equivalent, Bulldog? 30 kids each side of a "pitch". They run at each other and try and force the other side back. No rules

We had to play this in gym class in elementary school. Only with fewer kids, because we had a class of 20 or 21. Still. (shudder)