Shoe Kicking Competition: Remember that swing-set I mentioned we had? We utilized it in many different ways. We found out that if we swung hard enough and gained enough momentum, with a forceful kick, we could send a shoe (or flip-flop) great distances. The game was simple. Using the swing, we had two chances (both feet) to see who could send their shoe flying the farthest. We could take as long as we needed to get high enough to launch the shoe as far we could. Seemed harmless enough right? Well there were two problems. We didn't understand physics very well yet and there happened to be a large male mulberry tree 30ft from the swing set. If a shoe was kicked of at the highest point of the forward arc of the swing, the foot most likely sent the shoe straight up with little horizontal momentum. Sometimes the angle of the kick would just miss the sweet spot and the shoe would zing towards the tree. We even sometimes purposely tried to kick the shoe over the tree for bonus points. However, all of these antics led to many shoes getting stuck in the tree. My parents got sick of retrieving them and thus gave the game the ban hammer.
Hula Hoop Battle: Hula hoops could only entertain in their natural use for so long. Of course we found "better" ways to use them. In Hula Hoop Battle a minimum of two people were required, but you could include as many people as hula hoops you had. You and your opponent selected their hula hoop of choice and then stood about 25ft apart. Using a countdown of 3-0, you and your opponent would toss the hula hoops into the air at each of them. The goal was to hit your opponent's hula hoop and knock it backwards towards them. Every time you succeeded, you got a point. If they both went backwards, it was a draw and no points were awarded. If they both missed, also no points. The point cap changed each time we played so as long as you hit that number, you won. Children are not always aware of their surroundings as we liked to play this game near some pine trees. On occasion, a hoop or two would end up lodged in the branches of the pines. Those instances contributed to the game's banning, but the final nail in the coffin came on a cold, overcast, fall day. Tim and I were outside and playing with the hula hoops when I challenged him to a game. Things were going mostly well except for an argument or two of who got the point. Then, during one toss, I decided to heave mine up really high. It missed Tim's hoop, but began falling perfectly towards him. I think he was paying more attention to where his went because the moment he looked straight up, the hula hoop crashed into his face. The cold, hard plastic obviously didn't feel good and I didn't mean to hit him, but he went and told mom anyway. Not wanting to deal with more potential injuries, mom put an end to hula hoop battle.
Civil War: As most young boys do, if something we were playing with looked like a gun, we acted like it was a gun. Every once in awhile we'd come across a fallen branch or twig that looked like a shotgun or pistol. Then we'd pretend it was a gun and pretend to shoot each other. It ended up being a lot of "your dead!" and "no I'm not!" Over time we would find branches that were too perfect and we'd hide them in places where they wouldn't get ruined or taken. We also had plenty of walnuts around and they were small and green, just like grenades. We decided one day that we had enough to have an actual war. This war was going to be a three way battle between Zach, Tim, and myself. We grabbed all of our gun-sticks and walnut-grenades and took positions on the front hill facing the golf course. We each had a tree and began pretend firing upon one another. At some point, Zach and I thought it would be funny to team up on Tim and convinced him to go by the stone covering a drainage pipe. As he "fired" upon us, Zach and I took our hoard of walnuts and began launching them at Tim. I don't recall if we actually hit him, but I would say it was a good possibility because he quit mid barrage and told my mom. She was not pleased that we had made "guns" and were "shooting" each other. Her public enemy number one was also walnut stains. She gave us a pretty stern warning to not attempt this game again. In reality, while that was the last of Civil War, it didn't stop us from throwing walnuts at each other for all sorts of reasons in the future.
Alligator: I'm cheating a little as this one wasn't 100% banned. More like, constantly stopped. We had a small gravel driveway flanked on both sides by two small banks. Those banks allowed us to pick up speed running down one side to be able to scale the bank on the other side with ease. We would even take small riding toys and see how far we could get. I don't remember whose idea this was, but one day we decided to create our version of Sharks & Minnows, not knowing that that game had already been in existence. The gravel driveway became a "river" and the person in the middle was the alligator. Everyone else had to try to run across without getting eaten (caught). Last person alive won and the first person caught became the new alligator. Nothing too crazy. The problem was that kids are clumsy. Add that in with us older ones being a little more rough and a gravel driveway, led to a bunch of cut-up knees and elbows. Once the casualties rose to an unbearable level, the game would receive a temporary ban.
Whack The Walnuts: This is the most notorious banned game of them all. It started harmless enough, but took a dramatic and scary turn which landed it on this list. Every year Grandma Watkins would make all of us kids Easter baskets. Well she wouldn't actually make the basket itself, but she'd buy the decorative grass and candy to fill them up with. The baskets she used were made to last as they were this incredibly hard plastic with a thin metal handle. You could leave it outside in the elements and it still wouldn't crack and fade as today's plastic baskets do. Sarah had a pink one that she saved all those years and it eventually ended up with our outdoor toys in the shed. One day, Zach and I found some rope and decided to tie it to the handle on the basket. Then we flung the basket over a low tree branch and filled it to the brim with walnuts. Zach then went and found the biggest branch he could carry and told me to pull the basket up and down like a piñata. Zach would then swing the large branch as hard as he could at the basket and try to knock out as many walnuts as possible. This game we invented became very popular amongst all of us kids and it was played quite often. I think we eventually made the rules that you got 10 swings or 5 bucket hits, whichever came first. You won by knocking out the most walnuts. Sarah also didn't mind us using that basket as it took hardly a dent from our brutality. It was always funny when someone whiffed really hard or the person pulling the basket up and down had to dodge rogue walnuts. This game managed to stick around for a long time, until one fateful late spring night. I was stuck inside with my dad going over my dreaded math homework. Suddenly, the door of the house swings open and we hear a loud wailing. Then as my Dad and I look up, there stood Tim in tears with blood streaming down his face. "WHAT HAPPENED!" my mom shouted aghast. "Stephen hit me in the head with a tree branch!" Tim wailed. Apparently, Tim was the one pulling the basket up and down and 3-4 year old Stephen was the one swinging at the basket. I don't know why they thought it was a good idea to let a kid under the age of 5 use an incredibly large branch for this game. Thankfully, Tim's head wound turned out to be a small cut and no stitches were required. Unfortunately for us, one of our favorite invented games was banned effective immediately after that incident.
(Bonus) Sled Wars: Sled wars was never actually banned but based on the previous causes for banning a game, it should've been. Every winter, once the hill in our front yard was covered in snow, we hauled out plastic sleds, foam sleds, snow boards, and basically anything that could shred snow. Being the creative kids that we were, simply riding and racing sleds wasn't enough. We created a no holes barred version where as soon as you took off you did whatever was necessary to win. Some of the stunts I pulled were as follows: If my opponent passed me, I would leap out of my sled, onto my opponent's, and try to push them out and win the race in their sled. I would try to race down standing on the sleds at times and maintaining balance was hard enough. But it was more crazy when we tried to physically push each other over while racing down the hill. I sometimes deployed my other siblings to interfere with whomever I was racing. One more fun, but usually ineffective tactic was to load up the back of the sled with snow balls and wail them at each other on the way down. One could say sled wars was probably the most dangerous game, but we loved it more than the bumps and bruises we acquired than to tattle to our parents that so-and-so hurt us.
There were a handful of other very minor games that we did not event, but got banned due to things like broken windows, broken toys, or having country club members get mad at us. There were probably other games that my siblings created that got banned, but these were the most memorable to me. Even though many were short lived, they did indeed cure our boredom.
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