We are doomed II: California elementary school bans tag after it got too rough

[MechAg94]

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/03/14/elementary-school-bans-tag-after-altercations.html

Hopefully, this doesn't spread outside the state of California or at all.  Apparently the school said the kids were tagging too hard. 

I don't know what to say.  First Dodge Ball and now Tag.  What is next?

[K Frame]

Give those little bastards some lawn darts and we'll see how quickly tag comes back.

[mtnbkr]

Give those little bastards some lawn darts and we'll see how quickly tag comes back.

I fondly remember those.  They were especially fun at my maternal grandmother's house.  She lived on 1.5 acres in the country with a softball field across the dirt road, perfect for tossing them as high as you could or over the house.

I only caught a couple in the head.  I'm mostly ok.  Mostly.

Chris

[Ben]

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/03/14/elementary-school-bans-tag-after-altercations.html

Hopefully, this doesn't spread outside the state of California or at all.  Apparently the school said the kids were tagging too hard. 

I don't know what to say.  First Dodge Ball and now Tag.  What is next?

As I recall, already banned in school districts in several other states. In this case, CA wasn't first. I think we actually had a topic or two on it in the past.

[makattak]

Don't ban tag. If students are pushing other children down, PUNISH THOSE CHILDREN.

More of the "zero tolerance" stupidity.

"We don't like the results when people use discretion, so we'll just punish everyone involved rather than look for the guilty parties. Additionally, the guilty parties might be someone either economically or racially oppressed and that would look really bad on our diversity scores. So we're not going to do it."

[grampster]

I recall lying one's hand on the ground and with one's pocket knife and see who could stab between the fingers the fastest without drawing blood.  Or who dared to climb the tree the highest and crawl out on a limb and break it off and ride it down.  etc etc etc etc.  No wonder we have a nation of pussies now a days.

[makattak]

I recall lying one's hand on the ground and with one's pocket knife and see who could stab between the fingers the fastest without drawing blood.  Or who dared to climb the tree the highest and crawl out on a limb and break it off and ride it down.  etc etc etc etc.  No wonder we have a nation of pussies now a days.

It's enforced. It's part of trying to turn little boys into little girls. (Schools basically consider boys defective girls.)

[Ben]

I recall lying one's hand on the ground and with one's pocket knife and see who could stab between the fingers the fastest without drawing blood.  Or who dared to climb the tree the highest and crawl out on a limb and break it off and ride it down.  etc etc etc etc.  No wonder we have a nation of pussies now a days.

Shows you came from a tougher generation than me. 

We didn't use hands, we used feet. You would spread your feet about three feet apart, and the other guy threw the knife into the ground between your feet. Wherever it stuck, you had to move one of your feet to that point. Continue making the distance smaller until you cry "chicken" or get a knife in your foot. I wore waffle stompers on "chicken" days. 

[HankB]

I don't know how I managed to survive my pre-teen years with BB guns, riding a bike without a helmet, drinking from a hose, fire crackers and M-80s, carrying a pocket knife, or being away from home for HOURS of unsupervised play . . .

Is it too late to turn my mother in to CPS for child endangerment?

[KD5NRH]

I don't know how I managed to survive my pre-teen years with BB guns, riding a bike without a helmet, drinking from a hose, fire crackers and M-80s, carrying a pocket knife, or being away from home for HOURS of unsupervised play . . .

Let's not forget gas cans, spray paint cans and other implements of mass destruction.

Lighting up a small puddle of gas around a spray paint can then running as far away as you were sure you could punch through with 10 pumps on the Daisy was particularly entertaining.  Flaming paint would go everywhere.  Definitely not a drought activity.

(A clogged spray foam can hit just right with a .22LR will flock a good size cedar tree with foam, BTW.)

[T.O.M.]

Shows you came from a tougher generation than me. 

We didn't use hands, we used feet. You would spread your feet about three feet apart, and the other guy threw the knife into the ground between your feet. Wherever it stuck, you had to move one of your feet to that point. Continue making the distance smaller until you cry "chicken" or get a knife in your foot. I wore waffle stompers on "chicken" days. 

We played the other way in our Scout troop, and called it "Stretch."  You stood face to face, and threw your knife into the ground next to your opponent's feet.  They had to stretch their feet to the knife and pick up the knife.  Loser was the first to fall over.

[T.O.M.]

Let's not forget gas cans, spray paint cans and other implements of mass destruction.

Lighting up a small puddle of gas around a spray paint can then running as far away as you were sure you could punch through with 10 pumps on the Daisy was particularly entertaining.  Flaming paint would go everywhere.  Definitely not a drought activity.

(A clogged spray foam can hit just right with a .22LR will flock a good size cedar tree with foam, BTW.)

Anyone else ever make a tennis ball mortar out of the old metal tennis ball cans?  Use a church key to make a small hole in the side of the can at the bottom.  Squirt some lighter fluid in the can, then drop in a tennis ball.  Squirt a line of lighter fluid leading up to the hole, and then light off the fluid trail.  Occasionally, someone would hose down the ball with fluid and you would end up with a flaming tennis ball flying through the air.  That tended to get the attention of parents, and was frowned upon.

[MechAg94]

We didn't have trash service.  I had to (or got to) burn trash regularly.  We knew what would blow up.  Best explosion was actually a tennis ball.  Made a nice mushroom of smoke.  We never could duplicate that.  Mostly we liked to stick plastic milk jugs on sticks and drop bits of molten plastic on ant beds and stuff.

Playing with matches was never a issue for us. 

[Hawkmoon]

I don't know how I managed to survive my pre-teen years with BB guns, riding a bike without a helmet, drinking from a hose, fire crackers and M-80s, carrying a pocket knife, or being away from home for HOURS of unsupervised play . . .

All of the above, except ... POCKET knife? I usually wore a Bowie strapped to my belt. I spent hours in the woods across the street from our house, practicing throwing it at trees. (Never got any good at it, I'm sorry to say.) I wish I could remember if I wore the Bowie to school.

[Jim147]

Small town here they still play dodge ball of all things.Not sure how these children are still alive.

[K Frame]

I fondly remember those.  They were especially fun at my maternal grandmother's house.  She lived on 1.5 acres in the country with a softball field across the dirt road, perfect for tossing them as high as you could or over the house.

I only caught a couple in the head.  I'm mostly ok.  Mostly.

Chris

Funny you should mention tossing them over the house...

I was friends with a guy in 8th grade or so, Scott. That would put us about 14.

He had a younger brother, Rick, I think, who was a couple of years younger, maybe 11 at the time.

Scott was a bruiser for his age. Big and really strong. His brother was well on the way towards being a bruiser, but the puberty fairy hadn't really landed yet.

They're playing around with lawn darts one day, and Scott decides to chuck one over the house, sort of a 1 1/2 story Capey Coddy kind of thing. Being big and strong as hell, he easily makes it over the house.

Rick decides to give it a try (or he was dared to), so he hauls back and lets fly... just as his Dad pulls into the drive way, and just in time for all three of them to watch Rick's lawn dart sail up, fail to reach escape velocity, and come down, very nicely drilling a hole in the roof -- through the shingles and sheathing -- about half way up.

I wasn't fortunate enough to have seen it, but from what Scott said, it got kind of exciting.

Of course, he told me this a month later, after he and Rick were finally released from their double secret grounding for life...

[SteveS]

Small town here they still play dodge ball of all things.Not sure how these children are still alive.

Same here. I think many places don't ban these kinds of games. I know the media seldom lies or exaggerates things, but I suspect they may be making this story seem bigger than it actually is.