Handy Handy Over

When I was just a youngster at the local one-room country school house we used to play a game called "Handy Handy Over".

To play the game you need a small easily tossable squishy ball and a building with a simple gable roof.  The more kids the better.  We had about 15 to 20 kids at our school back in the day.  It's long closed now.  The Unicameral decided to pass a law to nuke all of the remaining Class I schools to supposedly "save money".  Some reports have it as a fiasco on that level and others. 

For example, it might have, at least in part, lead to the defeat of the supposedly politically unchallengeable former three-time national champion college football coach, Tom Osborne, and current congress critter who was running for governor of Nebraska.  I happened to do the transcription on that particular recording when I was at the Nebraska Farmers Union mostly working on wind energy related stuff [1][2][3].

What an unsubstantiated and downright weird, politically and otherwise, thing to claim on Osborne's part.  Needless to say, the pro-Class I rural folks were none-too-pleased to be linked as being racists or enablers not to speak of regular type opposition by the candidate.

Osborne: Class I Schools Can Lead to Segregation

I have my own personal issues with country schools (I found myself really stiffled educationally) but this blunt instrument approach was not the way to go to deal with those issues in my opinion.

I expect the law to be revoked in an initiative measure but the damage has largely been done and some of them might be closed for good even if the initiative passes.  The court system helped the powers that be out on that one by not staying the closings until the people had a chance to vote on it.

But I digress...back to the other kid's game.

You divide the kids into two teams of roughly equal numbers, one for each side of the building.  One side gets the ball and tries to toss it over the building after calling out "handy handy over".  If the toss fails, as with some of the smaller children giving it a try, you call out "pigtails"
.
Once the ball gets over the other side tries to catch it before it hits the ground.  If they do catch it, they can then make a raid on the other side from both directions.  Ball behind back until it's too late for the hunted.  The team under attack tries to make it to the other side without getting tagged or beaned by the ball.  Then the toss and catch (or drop) process repeats.

All the tagged players are now part of the capturing team.  At some point, there's only one kid left against the full complement of mini-raiders.  There's always a 50-50 chance of picking the right side to escape around but at some point that will not be enough and the game will end.

I don't know if kids play this anymore but thought I might pass it on for those interested in alternative games for children and as a historical data point.  Probably would also be fun for adults for that matter.  Maybe I should make a wikipedia entry.

Handy Handy Over

When I was just a youngster at the local one-room country school house we used to play a game called "Handy Handy Over".

To play the game you need a small easily tossable squishy ball and a building with a simple gable roof.  The more kids the better.  We had about 15 to 20 kids at our school back in the day.  It's long closed now.  The Unicameral decided to pass a law to nuke all of the remaining Class I schools to supposedly "save money".  Some reports have it as a fiasco on that level and others. 

For example, it might have, at least in part, lead to the defeat of the supposedly politically unchallengeable former three-time national champion college football coach, Tom Osborne, and current congress critter who was running for governor of Nebraska.  I happened to do the transcription on that particular recording when I was at the Nebraska Farmers Union mostly working on wind energy related stuff [1][2][3].

What an unsubstantiated and downright weird, politically and otherwise, thing to claim on Osborne's part.  Needless to say, the pro-Class I rural folks were none-too-pleased to be linked as being racists or enablers not to speak of regular type opposition by the candidate.

Osborne: Class I Schools Can Lead to Segregation

I have my own personal issues with country schools (I found myself really stiffled educationally) but this blunt instrument approach was not the way to go to deal with those issues in my opinion.

I expect the law to be revoked in an initiative measure but the damage has largely been done and some of them might be closed for good even if the initiative passes.  The court system helped the powers that be out on that one by not staying the closings until the people had a chance to vote on it.

But I digress...back to the other kid's game.

You divide the kids into two teams of roughly equal numbers, one for each side of the building.  One side gets the ball and tries to toss it over the building after calling out "handy handy over".  If the toss fails, as with some of the smaller children giving it a try, you call out "pigtails"
.
Once the ball gets over the other side tries to catch it before it hits the ground.  If they do catch it, they can then make a raid on the other side from both directions.  Ball behind back until it's too late for the hunted.  The team under attack tries to make it to the other side without getting tagged or beaned by the ball.  Then the toss and catch (or drop) process repeats.

All the tagged players are now part of the capturing team.  At some point, there's only one kid left against the full complement of mini-raiders.  There's always a 50-50 chance of picking the right side to escape around but at some point that will not be enough and the game will end.

I don't know if kids play this anymore but thought I might pass it on for those interested in alternative games for children and as a historical data point.  Probably would also be fun for adults for that matter.  Maybe I should make a wikipedia entry.