Anti-I-Over

My husband and I grew up in the same small town in Montana, and many of his childhood memories mirror mine. The other night he called out, Anti-I-Over! in response to a baseball play on TV, and I laughed, realizing I hadn't heard that in years. But I laugh at my husband a lot. Ever since we've been together, without ever discussing it, we play a kind of word game. We use words from our childhood that are now considered vintage. I hesitate to call them vintage because it makes me feel old, but that is one of this era's neat words.

Policemen were called the fuzz, and we wore threads that were cool (I still use that last word a lot.) When someone said something obvious, you came back with a roll of the eyes and Duh, Ralph! And if you needed to respond in the affirmative, or were just bored and wanted to hear yourself, you would shout loudly, DOY!? with a goofy look on your face.

I always thought Anti-I-Over was actually Annie I Over, as if one of the neighbor boys was tossing his sister over the building we were playing by. I remember the game having to do with an individual kid/team of kids on two sides of the structure, usually a garage. One team would holler anti-I-over, then heave the ball, up and over. As it cleared the roof top, the other kid/team would have to catch the ball before it hit the ground. I don't know how one side knew if the opposing side caught the ball, or not, but the winner usually clobbered the loser.

An indoor game we played was Sargent. A big kid pretended to be asleep on the couch, and it was the little kid's job to keep Sargent from rolling off. As the big kid feigned restless sleep, he allowed the little kid to save him a number of times. But just as the little kid's confidence grew, the big kid steamrolled over the little kid, squishing him/her flat. It was simply another way to clobber a little kid.

I remember playing outdoors a lot. We played Swing-the-Statue, where oldest brother Bruce (big kid) usually did the swinging. The Swinger would spin in a circle while holding the wrists of a much smaller child. At maximum velocity, he would let go and, after flying through the air, the little kid would have to freeze in the position they landed in, thus creating the statue. I vaguely remember being judged against other kid statues, all frozen in place on some body's front lawn. Of course, the swinger would also be the judge. Big kids lorded over little kids in all games.

Mother-May-I was a little kid game. One child would be the Mother, and face a group kids far down the sidewalk. The objective was to be the first kid to reach Mother. Taking turns, a kid would ask, Mother, may I take 2 giant steps? or 10 baby steps, or whatever the player thought Mother might agree to. Mother could say yes, or no; it was their decision. But, players were allowed to sneak ahead when Mother's back was to you. She could face the players, or turn away. Again, it was done at her discretion. So you see, it wasn't really a game at all, Mother had almost total control of the outcome. Winning the game by sneaking was difficult to pull off.

I doubt I ever reached big kid status, and was clobbered a lot, but I had a wonderful childhood, anyway.