2024, Family, Games, home, Kids, Media, Uncategorized

Croquet, Anyone?

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As you read this, I am on my way to South Dakota with several hundred children’s books, about a dozen Tintin comic books, pesto, home canned tomato puree, and a croquet set. The Tintin books are for my son. (Daughter will eventually get the Calvin and Hobbes three volume boxed set.) My son and daughter in law may view this as me just coming to babysit, but I see this as a way of clearing things out of the basement and garage as we get ready to move.

We played croquet about 10 years ago when our son and daughter in law were here for a visit. I think we had bought it new at that time. Grandson was not yet born. It was an impulse buy on Husband’s part. Prior to that visit, I don’t think I had played croquet for more than 40 years. I remember cutthroat games at my cousins’ farm in Magnolia, MN. There was always the possibility that Cousin Jack would club Cousin Jeff as part of their never ending conflicts and struggles for supremacy. I never got clubbed.

Our son and daughter in law have a huge back yard, so I think Grandson and I and his parents will have some croquet games during my visit. My memories of the rules and the setup of the wickets are foggy, so I will go on-line to figure out how to set up and play. I promise not to club anyone if I lose.

What outdoor games did you like to play? Any Tintin or Calvin and Hobbes fans? Any conflictual cousins?

40 thoughts on “Croquet, Anyone?”

  2. big calvin and hobbs fan here. dont know tintin
    outdoor games included croquet but mostly catch 500 (catching hit pop ups) card games base ball football basketball badminton mumblypeg and hide and seek . one side had cousins that were fun and were great fun to hang with in fargo and detriot lakes. other side were prissy people whose snooty outlook made it a challange to hang with them. they seemed to enjoy themselves and i enjoyed time on my own to hanging with them

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  3. We had a croquet set, and my memory of set-up is also pretty vague.
    From Wiki: “Croquet appeared in England around 1851. It belongs to a group of games called ‘ground billiards’ which includes games like golf, trucco, and pall-mall that have been popular in Europe since at least the middle ages.” and

    “Croquet was an event at the 1900 Summer Olympics. Roque, an American variation on croquet, was an event at the 1904 Summer Olympics.” but was then eclipsed by the upcoming tennis.

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  4. We had a badminton set and played some when I was in high school. My folks had played tennis when “courting”, and just occasionally later on, but I never really learned.

    Son Joel basically learned to read using our Calvin & Hobbes books – I think we had most of them at one time. I still have The Essential C & H.

    Lots of cousins on both sides, and if there were conflicts they didn’t involve us. My dad’s side was the more sober tribe, whereas my mom’s family was pretty zany. I see several of the zany ones on FB, which is fun.

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        1. Kinda like tag that I remember. One person was the ghost and there was a base you had to run to m, to be safe.

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  6. Calvin and Hobbes: BEST comic strip of all time!

    I was a sports kid, so any sport would do for me: football on a vacant lot, basketball in the driveway, hockey on the dinkey little rink my folks made where the garden was (maybe 25 ft x 25 ft), baseball, wiffle baseball in the front yard (no worry of broken windows), kick it and run, hide and seek, army, (that game where you throw a ball over the roof of the house to another person who tries to catch it), croquet, tether ball at the neighborhood park, etc. etc.

    We didn’t hang with our cousins much,so no big conflicts.

    Chris in Owatonna

    **BSP** Austin ArtWorks Festival is this weekend in beautiful downtown Austin, MN. Activities all day, both Saturday and Sunday. I’ll be chatting with another author about the challenges and rewards of switching genres. For me it was going from three thrillers to writing my standalone middle-grade thriller. Lots of other authors will be there throughout the weekend, and dozens of visual artists will display
    their work. Weather looks great. Hope to see you there. **END BSP**

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    2. The throwing the ball over the roof game: Ante Over, or as we used to say it Annie Annie Over.
      How, I wonder, do these games, and rhymes, like jump rope chants, get transferred from generation to generation of kids? It’s mysterious.

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  8. In mid 80s a group of about 8 about.to-be-seniors discovered the history of croquet and got into it with costumes and holding games around town. The police tried to chase them out of parks and public places. The wonderful chief told them to leave them alone and let them have their clean fun. One weekend they had a marathon of games from 10 to 5. Another weekend they set up a court on a huge mowed field for which they had to make many wickets. I had egged them on in the beginning. We went and watched them a couple times. What a joy.

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    1. About the same time, Robin and I joined the Living History Society of Minnesota, a group dedicated to study and reenactment of civilian life in the 1860s. It was a fun group and, for the most part one serious about creating an accurate depiction. The costume was very much like that in the header. Historical patterns, drafted from original garments, were available and Robin and I crafted our own mid-nineteenth century garments. There were a number of events our group participated in, some as invited guests and some impromptu, such as an ice skating and tobogganing party. One of the activities we would use as a period-appropriate pastime was croquet.

      Most of our friends in the LHS have retired from the organization, as have we, though we, and they, retain an avid interest in that period in American history and the culture thereof.

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  9. Rise and Shine, Baboons,

    We ran barefoot and wild most of the summer, mostly in our neighborhood, playing all the games already mentioned while the mosquitoes chased and bit us. Then all night we would scratch and itch. I remember that as so much fun. We also spent a lot of time catching fireflies and keeping them in jars.

    Although I had such a negative experience with several cousins ( and that was really bad. An adult needed to intervene, but I guess the adults chose not to ). ‘Nuff said about that because I have written about it before. However many other cousins on both sides were so much fun. I loved that part of family involvement. One set of cousins, children of Donna and Jim, have been sending pictures they are finding. That is an emotional roller coaster remembering the fun and the disasters ( the leeches, the bad “cabin”–really a dilapidated farmhouse–dad’s wheelchair brakes letting go so he rolled into the lake, etc. ). Uncle Jim really had us out in nature learning to explore the world. The painful part is just Dad’s illness and how it devastated his life.

    I often thought the cartoonist of Calvin lived at my house. There were periods when Calvin’s 8 year old life corresponded with my son’s age and it was sooo accurate.

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  10. We had an old croquet set. It must have been my grandparents set and my dad inherited it. We just set up the wickets and practiced shooting through them. I don’t remember ever learning the rules of the game.

    We didn’t see our cousins very often, so no conflicts. We all got along pretty well whenever we were together.

    Our favorite outdoor activity was swimming and bike riding. I enjoyed riding my horses. We played kickball once in a while. We also played hide and seek at dusk on the summer nights.

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  11. One home the x and I owned had a yuuge (sorry) backyard with an area of moss. I never did figure out what combination of shade and ground conditions caused that but it made for a soft, non-bumpy surface for croquet.

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  13. I remember being in 4H and attending a gathering at another kids house and playing croquet. Exasperated, I smacked the mallet on the ground and broke the handle. It wasn’t my intent, I was kinda showing off, but the Dad was “disappointed” in me. Or some such words. Still remember that.
    Maybe that’s why I don’t do outdoor games so much these days.

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  14. My grandfather had made a croquet set that we grandkids sometimes played with. We had to be careful of the mallets, though. Sometimes the head would fly off the handle. I don’t know who eventually ended up with it. Maybe it just fell apart. My family had our own croquet set and we played it quite a bit – mostly following the actual rules though we made up a few. Other games played by the neighborhood kids included softball (our large backyard was the field), badminton (a few birdies ended up on the roof), kick the can, variations on hide and seek, capture the flag, Annie Annie over, tag and freeze tag, and tickle witch.

    Big Calvin & Hobbes fan!

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        1. You needed at least 4 kids to play tickle witch – a mom, children, and the witch. The witch would hide. The mom would tell her kids “I’m goin’ downtown to smoke my pipe and I won’t be back til Saturday night. Don’t let the tickle witch in”. Once mom was gone, of course the witch would come knocking and the kids would open the door. Realizing it was the witch, the kids would run with the witch chasing them. If she caught one of the kids, the witch would commence tickling her victim. At least that’s how I remember the game.

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  15. There was one summer where swing the statue was big in my neighborhood. One person would swing all the others around and however you landed, you had to stay still like a statue. Then the one who did the flinging would go around and judge who was the best statue. Was all fine and good until I landed badly and broke a finger. That was the end of that game.

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  16. Geez. As I read through this, I am imagining trying to convince kids growing up today that this is a good way to spend a Saturday afternoon. I’m guessing there would be a lot of eye rolling and sighing.

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  17. We were a tennis family. I don’t remember owning croquet or any other serious sporting or game equipment at home because tennis happened in our family four to five times a week.

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  19. Anyone remember Captain May I? Leader would direct you to do something (take 3 steps, do two jumps…) that moves you forward to the finish line, and you’re supposed to say “Captain, may I?” If you forget, you have to go back to start.

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  20. Yes with lots of cousins close by we played badminton and a little croquet. But bing an Italian family we mainly ( all ages) played bocce ball. Like croquet it was made more challenging if the terrain wasn’t flat.

    I am chuckling though thinking of croquet as an Olympic sport and imagining it being shown today on TV/streaming….

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  21. Bocce ball for my Italian family – challenging if terrain not flat- same for croquet. Can you imagine croquet as an Olympic sport today- Sat night live (or better John Cleese) could do a funny take on this. We also played badminton ( mostly cousins at least 10 nearby) but adults joined the bocce game. Posted earlier on word press but it didn’t show up.

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