Freedom on Oxford's Playground

The four trees was just one symbol of freedom on the Oxford School playground. We also had the "snowball area." Imagine such a thing today! This area was just north of the main blacktop. You went there if you wanted to throw snowballs and didn't mind being hit in return. We had two rules: everything below the head and no iceballs.

Of course some kids got hurt. There'd be bloody lips and black eyes occasionally. It's called kid life and we'd learn how to navigate through it. Who to trust, who to keep away from.

We played other rough games. Mr. Berry was a, oh, what would you call him? We called him Mr. Berry, but I guess today you'd call him a paraprofessional. He wasn't a teacher. Just a guy who patrolled the lunch room and playground. Later on he married one of the fifth grade teachers, who thereby became Mrs. Berry. She was my fifth grade teacher, and she once told our whole class we "could all go to hell." But that's another story.

Anyhow, at lunchtime recess, Mr. Berry would organize these massive games of tackle football. Imagine 30 to 40 boys on each team, all crammed up over the scrimage line. Mr. Berry was always the quarterback. He'd get the snap and toss it off to one of the sixth graders. We'd smash each other like crazy; seldom did anyone move the ball very far, let alone score a touchdown. I don't think we even had a goal line.

Red Rover was another game we played. Miss Mary organized that one. She was another parapro, and the mother of one of the girls in my class. In Red Rover, you've got two teams lined up facing each other about 20 yards apart. Boys and girls. You grab on tight to each other's elbows. At the start of the game one team would all yell, "Red Rover, Red Rover, let Jimmy come over!" or Roger or Linda or Sam or Barbara, etc. Whoever was called would have to run full force through the opposing line, breaking the arm-bonded chain, usually at its weakest point. If you broke through, you got to take somebody back to your side. If you didn't, you had to stay with the other team.

Of course, the smart thing to do was not to call the biggest or smallest kids to come over. The big ones would smash through and the small ones wouldn't do much to reinforce your line. But eventually, you had to call the biggest kid over, for often he was the only one left. Usually that was Sam. One cold late winter day we called out, "Red Rover, Red Rover, let Sam come over." We had doubled our line to the point where sam would have to break through not just one but two human chain links. Sam was big, not fat. A muscular kid and a borderline bully. He ran like a bull toward our ranks. When he hit, the whole chain burst backward like the ropes in a slow motion boxing movie. Our entire line, dozens of kids, fell to the ground beneath Sam's force.

But he didn't break through. End of game. There's the bell. Back to class.