Lessons Learned: Guest
Blogger- Grandpa A
It
All Happened In A One Room School: Anee-I-Over
Anee-I-Over is
not big in the Olympics; in fact, it’s not included in the phy ed program in
any of our schools or colleges. It was big, however, in One Room Schools of
yesterday because they had no gyms, no swing sets, no merry-go-rounds or baseball diamonds, and no coaches, only a
three acre field with a schoolhouse, a woodshed, a pump house, and two outdoor
toilets, one for the girls and one for the boys. Who could ask for anything
else?
Anee-I-Over was
an outside game and could be played with as few as two people, however, the
excitement heightened when you had four or five on each side. The only
equipment needed was a rubber ball about the size of a tennis ball. The game
started when half of the players lined up on one side of the schoolhouse building
and the other half were on the other side of the building. One player would
throw the ball over the roof of the building, and one of the players on the
other side would catch the ball before it hit the ground or on the first
bounce. The object of the game then was to run around the building and hit one
of the other side’s players with the ball. Half of the catching team would run
around the school building one way and the other half of the catching team
would run around the school building the other way. No one on the throwing team
knew who had the ball, so trickery and deception and an accurate throw served
well. As a player on the throwing team was hit by the ball, he became a member
of the catching team. This game was good for both recesses, the lunch hour, and
before classes started in the morning.
