"The Way we Played" Pimple Balls, Awning Ball and Tire Ball in old North Philly

I was looking for stories of Halfball. I had learned that the official halfball was made out of half a pimple ball. But when I Googled for Pimple Ball I found mostly dog toys. I guess the human pimple ball has gone the way of halfball. Though, you should know that there's a site dedicated to halfball, and official halfball equipment - which means you can actually spend money to get official versions of what was, to most of the people who played halfball, the apotheosis of unofficialhoodness. Oh the endless ironies of the marketplace...

Howsomever, I did manage to find this delicious reminiscence called "The Way we Played," in which Stanley B. Kurtz describes some of the games he remembers playing when he was a kid in North Philadelphia. Here, I learned about Awning Ball, which launched my search for Pimple Ball and struck me as the paradigm of non-commerializable, quasi-legal kids games of yore and not-so-yore. I quote:

This game required two items - a store awning (preferably already lowered) and a pimpleball. On Seventh Street between Montgomery and Berks was an assortment of small stores. Most had awnings to protect them from the sun. We'd roam up and down the street casing the awnings before picking one with just the right angle. Shuster's Fruit Store was the best, but sooner or later the dirt-covered ball would plunk into the tomatoes or grapes, and Mr. Shuster would rush out and sweep us away with his broom - notwithstanding the presence of his son among the players. Dave had little influence with his father.

But until then, we played awningball. Either two boys played or two teams (two boys each) opposed each other. The goal: Keep the ball on the awning. If it hit the ground or rolled off either end, it was a point for the other player or team. We'd run back and forth hitting the ball with our palms - no fists allowed - forcing shoppers to detour off the sidewalk into the street or under the awning.

There was a certain art to the game -placing the ball where the other guy couldn't reach it, or tapping it lightly, barely landing it on the front edge of the awning. It was an intricate ballet of graceful arms, twisting bodies and fast feet, particularly when Mr. Shuster's broom showed up. Then it would be time to move on to the next awning.

Please don't think that I advocate such behavior. Well, all right, think it.

Also in the same story, Kurtz tells us about Tire Ball, which wasn't a ball at all, but a 4-6-or-so-inch piece of bicycle tire. According to the author, the tireball, though not actually ball-like at all, had some remarkably redeeming attributes: " Thrown end over end and hit by a bat (a broomstick smuggled from home with the broom end left on the closet floor for mom to scratch her head over), it sailed remarkable distances. A bit tougher to catch than the symmetrical pimpleball, it merely presented another challenge to overcome."

More testimony to the transforming power of play, and the transforming need to play, with whatever, wherever, with whomever, whenever possible.