Flanagan's Hangout and Memory Gym

A recent column about jump rope, jacks and the jingles we sang while playing these games brought in a couple of notes worth sharing. Here goes: “When I was a kid growing up in Rockland in the 1940s, every girl in my neighborhood would play “Donkey” up against the Madden kids’ house,” recal… Continue

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So, we learned during the opening ceremony for the Olympics, the four great Chinese inventions are paper, gunpowder, movable type, and the compass. So what's so great about that stuff? You want a great invention, the greatest ever -- in my opinion, anyway? It's the automatic dishwasher. Wheels and pulleys are great, don't get me wrong. But the most significant thing about their invention is that they laid the way for the ultimate invention of the dishwasher. And yeah, I know movable type is grea… Continue

If, as I read in one of Rusty D’Arconte’s recent columns, the word “pescatarian” has been coined to describe “a vegetarian who eats fish”: * Were my children “seminarians” back in the days when they would eat no more than half their vegetables? * Is a meat lover who requires that his steak be cut into equal-sized pieces a “sectarian.” * Conversely, if you eat an orange or tangerine whole, rather than divide it into pieces, are you a “non-sectarian?” 8 And is my daughter, who has grown up to eat… Continue

When I saw Monday’s Page 3 picture and story on double dutch jump rope jumping -- it’s been designated a varsity sport in New York City high schools -- my first thought was, hey, we used to do that. But to be accurate, I should have thought “they” used to do that. Oh, I jumped rope a time or two. Played a few games of jacks, as well. Tried my hand at a bouncing ball game, too -- can’t remember the name of it, but you bounced a small rubber ball, sang some kind of a jingle and periodically swung… Continue