Party games and not dances, closed door and corner kissing, musicals, cross questions and crooked answers

            In the hill country where I grew up there were not a lot of things that were acceptable to the mores of hill people. This was in pre-television days and there was not a lot that a boy and girl could do that would not be censored. The big no-no was dancing. This was a sin that the people looked down on, however it was ok to play games. One game I witnessed was one in which the boys and the girls would stand in a circle and when the music would begin the game would begin. I had never been to a dance of any kind so I did not know what a dance looked like. But since television I have witnessed square dancing so that was what they were doing but it was ok because after all it was just a game set to music.

            Another acceptable game we liked to play was for the girls to go into a room and line up behind the door. The boys would line up outside the door and knock on the door. The girl on the inside did not know who was knocking and the boy knocking did not know what girl was behind the door. The girl would open the door and the boy and girl would lock arms and go outside of the building and walk around the building kissing at every corner. This game was played at night preferable in the school house since it was the largest building in the area. I don’t know if every boy and girl kissed because you would sometimes get paired with someone you did not like. I never did get paired with anyone who did not kiss me. The value of this game is that it gave opportunity to shy girls or shy boys to get to kiss and begin to get to know someone of the opposite sex.

            The most boring thing for me was the musicals. The people who could play an instrument or sing could participate; that left those of us who did neither to just sit and listen. When I could choose I chose to stay home.

            A fun game we played was cross questions and crooked answers. You divided up with girls on one team and boys on the other. You then separated and someone would give the boys the questions and someone else would give the girls the answers. You came back together and stood in line facing each other and the boy would ask the question and the girl would answer. You had to ask and answer the question three times without laughing. An example would be: Boy’s question. Does your mother let you kiss boys? The girl’s answer. I get the hiccups when I laugh a lot. Since the person making up the questions and the person making up the answers do not know what the other person is doing you can get some pretty funny answers to the questions. Then you would switch off and let the girls ask the questions and the boys answer.