Iko Iko
(Hawkins, R / Hawkins, B / Johnson, J) Performed by Belle Stars
My grand-ma and your grand-ma were sit-tin' by the fire.
My grand-ma told your grand-ma: "I'm gon-na set your flag on fire."
Talk-in' 'bout, Hey now ! Hey now ! I-ko, I-ko, un-day
Jock-a-mo fee-no ai na-né, jock-a-mo fee na-né
Look at my king all dressed in red I-ko, I-ko, un-day.
I bet-cha five dol-lars he'll kill you dead, jock-a-mo fee na-né
Talk-in' 'bout, Hey now ! Hey now ! I-ko, I-ko, un-day
Jock-a-mo fee-no ai na-né, jock-a-mo fee na-né
My flag boy and your flag boy were
Sit-tin' by the fire. - My flag boy told
Your flag boy: "I'm gon-na set your flag on fire."
Talk-in' 'bout, Hey now ! Hey now ! I-KO, I-KO, un-day
Jock-a-mo fee-no ai na-né, jock-a-mo fee na-né
See that guy all dressed in green? I-KO, I-KO, un-day.
He's not a man, he's a lov-in' ma-chine
Jock-a mo fee na-né
Talk-in' 'bout, hey now! Hey now! I-ko, I-ko, un-day
Jock-a-mo fee-no ai na-né, jock-a-mo fee na-né
I was thinking about my niece the other day -- about how at her elementary school they have pretty much completely destroyed all opportunities for kids to play at recess (what with separating each grade into different limited areas of the school yard and forbidding them to mix, not allowing kids to bring balls to school if it's not their field or court day, refusing to allow the kids to play with the snow that will eventually come; I guess I understand no massive snowball fights like we had, but also no forts, no sculpting, no sliding) -- and I felt sorry for her: I loved recess when I was little, and we played hard. There's no deeper meaning to my song choice this week, it just always reminded me of a schoolyard chant.
I loved jumping rope when I was a kid, and although I did have a skipping rope that I could play with by myself, eventually all the girls in our class wanted to play group skipping games with a long rope. As I didn't have a long rope -- and had zero chances of being bought one -- I was usually forced to hold an end of a rope belonging to someone else; a popular someone else who always made sure her popular friends never had to be an end; her rope, her rules. Eventually someone would trip up and I'd get to go in. I remember when there were suddenly two long ropes and we were learning how to double dutch; lots of tripping up and lots of even the popular girls needing to take their turns on the ends. Isn't it a little sad that my niece is not only missing out on this exercise but this important life lesson, too?
Another game we played was "jumpsies" (and as I've never heard anyone else talking about it, I'll describe it here). Someone would get a package of small elastics and attach them into a long rope. As with skipping, two people needed to hold the ends while the long line of girls performed their tricks; a holder getting to join the game only when someone messed up. At first, the rope was held ankle high and the jump leader would call out a trick -- horse jump, twirlsies, double jump, stamp it -- and after she made the jump, followed by the rest of the girls, the rope would be raised to the knees, the hips, the waist, underarms, shoulders, and sky high. You couldn't touch the rope as you went over until you got to underarms, and after that, you could even use your hand to lower the rope as you jumped. This game was insanely fun, but as eventually everyone had their own elastic ropes, no one would want to be an end holder and the game fizzled out.
There was also a juggling game that we would play (I don't think it had a name). You'd take two tennis balls and juggle them underhanded against the school wall while singing:
One two three O'LaryLost my balls in a cemeteryIf you find them, give them to MaryOne two three O'Lary
Once you made it through this first round cleanly, the second round was made harder by juggling overhanded at the last syllable of every line. The third round saw you tossing the ball straight up on the last syllable and the fourth round had you allowing the ball to bounce back to you on the ground at the final syllables. On the fifth round, you'd do all four motions -- underhanded, overhanded, toss up, and bounce back -- while drawing out those syllables. Anyone who made it through all this cleanly (and it wasn't all that hard) then started over again doing the whole thing with only one hand. This would trip people up, but it was pretty hard to get someone to give up her own tennis balls to let me have a go at it -- which is totally fair, and since my older brother played tennis and road hockey, we had enough tennis balls around for me to sneak a couple to school with me. It was eventually a fun game to be one of a dozen girls singing and juggling in unison against the school wall; this was more group-inclusive than it may sound (and more fun than holding the end of a skipping/jumpsies rope for an entire recess).
The teachers also provided organised sports over most lunch hours for grades six to eight -- flag football in the fall, indoor floor hockey or volleyball in the cold of winter, softball in the spring -- and while this wasn't mandatory, most kids joined up and I know I loved playing at any of it (even if I had to run home to eat lunch quickly and run all the way back to make it in time). Obviously, to make this work you need teachers who are willing to give up their own break time (fat chance in today's world of union rights over student happiness; they won't even let kids inside out of a "light rain" anymore because there's no one willing to supervise them), but this mixing of grades and abilities led to community-building and skills-stretching; I honestly see no good at all in my own niece not even being able to hang out at school with her best friend who is a year older than her.
When winter came, we would wear grooves into the slope down to the sports field that would eventually be as smooth and frictionless as luge-runs. Even in jeans (and no one wore snow pants to school back then), kids would line up and fly down the hill, often jumbling into a heap at the bottom on purpose; everyone laughing hysterically as a new body would land on the pile. Teachers would see this and nod approvingly. We'd make massive forts and piles of snowballs and have all-out snow wars; no one complaining if they took a hit square in the face; them's just the chances you take. When we were older, we'd often play squish the banana: just about the whole class would squeeze together in an interior angle of the school walls, everyone trying to make it to the center where it's warmer. I wouldn't say this wasn't about squeezing our pubescent bodies together, but it was a good game to keep warm on the coldest of days, and the boys knew that the girls wouldn't play anymore if they got grabby. Again, we couldn't have played this without the teachers' knowledge -- and I'm sure they understood the subtext of what was going on -- but no one ever stopped us.
Here's what's sad: when my girls got to high school, they were glad they wouldn't be forced outside for recess anymore. Imagine hating recess! No more standing in a drizzle like huddled cows; no more teachers desperately consulting the thermometer, hoping the temperature is just above frostbite-level so they wouldn't be forced to keep the kids inside; no more rules and boredom and wasps and lack of shade. I hate to sound like one of those, "Back in my day..." old ladies, but back in my day? Recess was better.
