Speaking of dumb games....

[Hardpan Curmudgeon SASS #8967]

The "Slap" thread kindled some ancient memories of dumb stuff we did as kids.... 

 

Anyone remember "Mumblety-Peg?"  Or the "Stretch" variant?   

 

Played on the playground during recess...?  

 

 

[Pat Riot]

What is “stretch”?

[Forty Rod SASS 3935]

I played mumbly peg with a 3" fixed blade knife.  After a couple of years I was almost unbeatable.  Quit about the time I went to college and haven't so much as thought about it until today.

 

SEE what you did?!

[Alpo]

Stretch, as we played it, was the reverse of chicken.

 

With chicken you start with your legs spread as far as you can. Then the other guy throws a knife into the ground between your legs. Probably has a target at least 3 feet wide. You bring whichever foot is closer up to the knife. And the next time he throws, that target might only be 2 feet wide, or maybe a foot and a half. And when he throws the next time, and you bring your foot up to the knife, you just keep making the target area smaller and smaller. And eventually your feet are maybe six inches apart, and he's ready to throw, and you chicken out.

 

With stretch, you start when you're two feet right side by side, touching. And he throws the knife to one side or the other. And you stretch your foot out to touch the knife. Eventually you get to the point that you can't stretch your legs far enough to touch the knife, and you lose.

[J-BAR #18287]

The first stitches I ever earned were from mumbledy peg... 5 in the back of my right hand, over the pinkie tendon, which fortunately was not cut when my competitor threw his knife at the same time I reached for mine.

 

About 7 years old.

 

Could have been worse.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 1 by J-BAR #18287

[Pat Riot]

My Dad caught me and my brother playing mumblety peg and beat our butts good for it. We were forbidden from playing it. We never played it again. 

[Choctaw Jack]

I remember playing stretch while at Jr. High during lunch hour.

If you got caught with a pocket knife in school now, you would earn a nice vacation.

[Forty Rod SASS 3935]

57 minutes ago, Choctaw Jack said:

I remember playing stretch while at Jr. High during lunch hour.

If you got caught with a pocket knife in school now, you would earn a nice vacation.

I don't know of any kid, boy or girl, who didn't have some sort of knife in my schools from 1947 to 1965.  In high school most cars had a gun rack in the back during hunting season and some nearly always had a rifle or shotgun in them.

 

I never did.  Mine were in the trunk.

[Subdeacon Joe]

Didn't play Mumblty Peg, did play what we called Flip.  

Take your knife, flip it into the air, catch it after half a turn.  Flip it again, this time a full turn.  Again, a turn and the half, and so on until you miss - usually by pulling your hand out of the way.

 

I "caught" a Kabar by the point on my right hand.  Two and a half turns it would have been.

 

 

[Father Kit Cool Gun Garth]

Never heard of it until now.

 

[Alpo]

Now that's the game I learned to play. On up the thread here somebody says that stretch is the reverse version of mumbly peg. Obviously he played a different game by that name. Then somebody else said he got a knife stuck in his hand because somebody threw theirs while he was reaching for his. When I played we used the same knife, and just passed it back and forth. Like Israel and that kid with the limp was doing. So again, different game, same name.

 

There's a Beverly Hillbilly episode. Jed's telling Jethro how to pick up women. Said he did the best on Saturday night down by the General store. He'd be whittlin', well eyeing the girls. And when a girl was eyeing him back, he'd start showing some of his fancy mumbly peg throws. Like a one and a half off the shoulder, or two flips off the ear.

[Subdeacon Joe]

Starting in 3rd or 4th grade I always had a pocket knife, usually a version of