Kickball, a game originally played with inflamed, sundried elephant testicles, is considered by most people to be a playground activity for children; however, Kickball has taught me some valuable lessons in life.
“In his courageous travels, famed explorer, James Hankinsmak, befriends the Nobui tribe. It is here in this arid climate that Hankinsmak would witness the game that would later bear his name. He wrote of a game played with inflamed, sundried elephant testicles in which one of the testicles was rolled from an elevated mound to a designated Mohafa (or kicker). The Mohafa is allowed to request speed and texture of the roll, and scoring is determined by the distance of the kick. The importation of Hankinsmak's records to the U.S. has been traced to Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine's 1981 World Tour. With this information now in the hands of Americans, the hybrid of Baseball and Hankinsmak was created - thus introducing... Kickball” (The History of Kickball 1).
Childhood is often an age of innocence. It’s a time of learning how to get along in a big world. It’s a time in which friends grow up and discover who they are and who they want to be. Childhood is the foundation of our lives. This is when we establish rituals and rules that can be useful throughout our lives. Sometimes these rules can be learned though a simple child’s game.
In a small suburb, just outside of Washington, DC, the neighborhood of small tract houses was laid out neatly in rows. The homes were built backyard to backyard in the early 1960’s. Each dwelling was a different color, but mostly the same style. Nearly everyone had a metal screen door with their initial proudly displayed in swirling cursive. The postage stamp sized front...
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...e. I thought I was playing a game but I was really getting an education. The funny thing is that although we kept score, I can’t remember who won or lost. I discovered that in life, sometimes it doesn’t really matter who wins or loses. I learned to be nice and not hurt anyone. I was taught how to follow rules and play fair. I found out that a storm drain is too heavy to lift and sometimes we just had to forget about the lost ball. I understood that friends were good to have on your side. Childhood was a time when I felt loved and accepted by my friends. In my youth, I learned how to get along in life by playing a simple childhood game called Kickball.
Works Cited
“Official Rules of the Game,” Kickball. 1998-2011. WAKA, LLC, kickball.com. Web 15 Feb. 2011
“The History of Kickball.” National Kickball Association. 2010. nka-kc.com. Web 16 Feb. 2011
In 1942, a public housing development went up on Chicago’s near north side to house veterans returning from World War II. They were known as the Francis Cabrini Homes, and “were built in an area that had undergone massive slum clearance”. They consisted of fifty-five two and three story redbrick buildings arranged as row houses, resembling army barracks. The Francis Cabrini Homes housed 600 racially diverse families un...
The childhood of a young boy is very crucial in what he will be like in his own life.
Childhood innocence contains curiosity, imagination and a carefree fragile mind that has not experienced the cruelty of the world. Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game expresses that general isolation causes the loss of childhood. In the novel, Ender’s isolation is caused by the hostile characters at the Battle School, the mind game and the removal of the monitor. All of these elements prevent him from getting close to others, resulting in isolation, also causing the loss of childhood.
The origin of soccer in America has long been disputed. Some say that it was brought to America by immigrants. People claim that it was brought by the settlers of Jamestown, New Orleans, and Ellis Island. However, there is another reasonable source that people have discovered. It is have been revealed that the American Indians used to play a game similar to modern soccer called Pasuckuakohowog. It literally translates to “they gather to play ball with the foot”. In Pasuckuakohowog, there were goals that were a half-mile wide and a mile apart from each other. Games involved up to 500 people and were very dangerous. Records show that the game was played in the 17th century. This could prove that Pasuckuakohowog is what started it all for soccer in America.
While all societies acknowledge that children are different from adults, how they are different, changes, both generationally and across cultures. “The essence of childhood studies is that childhood is a social and cultural phenomenon” (James, 1998). Evident that there are in fact multiple childhoods, a unifying theme of childhood studies is that childhood is a social construction and aims to explore the major implications on future outcomes and adulthood. Recognizing childhood as a social construction guides exploration through themes to a better understanding of multiple childhoods, particularly differences influencing individual perception and experience of childhood. Childhood is socially constructed according to parenting style by parents’ ability to create a secure parent-child relationship, embrace love in attitudes towards the child through acceptance in a prepared environment, fostering healthy development which results in evidence based, major impacts on the experience of childhood as well as for the child’s resiliency and ability to overcome any adversity in the environment to reach positive future outcomes and succeed.
The game of basketball is a highly recognized and widely known sport. Basketball was first heard of in the winter of 1891 when a man by the name of James Naismith was told to instruct a physical education class at the Young Men’s Christian Association in Springfield, Massachusetts. Naismith was instructed to put together a game for young men to enjoy while they were at the YMCA. While trying to come up with a brilliant and fun game for these young men, Naismith reminisced back on his childhood in Canada. He remembered a game his friends and him had played all the time: “Duck on a Rock”, which involved trying to knock a large rock off a boulder by throwing smaller rocks at it. Naismith also remembered watching a game of rugby going on in the gymnasium. The game of Rugby involved tossing a ball into a box. After a very short time of trying to make up a game for these young men, Naismith came up with a brilliant idea. Little did he know the game that he came up with just so happened to be one of he most renowned sports in American history. Naismith’s idea pertained to nailing up raised boxes so that players could attempt to throw a ball in the basket. When there were no boxes too be found, he used peach baskets. Supposedly, Naismith came up with all the rules for this game in no more than “about an hour”, according to Alexander Wolff. Shortly after Naismith had invented the game of basketball, graduates of the YMCA traveled internationally which is the main reason as to why this sport is so widely known. The impact basketball has made on the lives of many Americans is incredible in the sense that it has given people the ability to ...
Soccer has proven to be a notable sport throughout the years starting with its unique history. Soccer began all over the world tracing back thousands of years. The Chinese, Japanese, Italian, Ancient Greek, Persian, Vikings, as well as other nationalities all played a form of the game soccer. In China and Rome, games that were similar to soccer were played around 200 B.C. (Helmer and Owens, 5). People believe that soccer started more than a thousand years ago when villagers killed attacking pirates by cutting off their heads and kicking them around (Helmer and Owens, 5). As time went on, people in Europe also played a game similar to soccer during Medieval Times. In fact, soccer was used to prepare warriors for battles in Ancient Greece and Rome (Dilov-Shultheis). In later history, the English called the game “Football” because soccer was played by kicking the ball with the foot (Helmer and Owens, 6). The name “soccer” came to be when the American’s Association Football was shortened to assoc., and later to soc. Eventually in 1895 it was called soccer (Helmer and Owens, 9). By the late 1700s and 1800s, soccer was played in many universities, but the rules were not ...
When Willy and Linda purchased their home in Brooklyn, it seemed far removed from the city. Willy was young and strong and he believed he had a future full of success. He and his sons cut the tree limbs that threatened his home and put up a hammock that he would enjoy with his children. The green fields filled his home with wonderful aromas. Over the years, while Willy was struggling to pay for his home, the city grew and eventually surrounded the house.
The communities were built with an abundance of houses that would allow families with all of the same interests to reside as one and work together as community. These communities would have community events to bring the community closer. The citizens of these communities were the typical American families with cars and children that lived in the house with the white picket fence. The citizens of the communities would compete to see who had the best decorated houses and win awards. It kept the community members involved in the community (Hales, Levittown: Documents of an Ideal American Suburb). This type of community helped camouflage the lives of
The actual playing of basketball originated in 1891 by Dr. James Naismith when he had to come up with an “athletic distraction” for the students attending YMCA International Training School. Denying the idea of going outside to play sports like soccer, football, etc. Dr. James Naismith thought back to his childhood days, recalling a game called “duck on a rock”. The concept of this old game was one player was required to defend an object called the “duck” while players on the opposite team threw small rocks to knock it down. How Dr. James Naismith was able to forge a well-known sport from that type of a game will forever be a mystery, yet he set off to work using two peach baskets nailed around 10 feet high. Since the sport he created wasn’t a real sport yet, they were forced to use a soccer ball, aiming to get the ball into the peach basketball while resisting the opposite team trying to defend their basket. The goals, being baskets, presented a problem, when a team eventually scored they had to come up with a way to get the ball out of peach baskets. In order to do so they used a long pole and pushed against the bottom of the basket to be able to get the ball out of there. By creating this game, Dr. James Naismith has been able to bring countries together by eventually bringing this spo...
Finally, we have reached the age to play sports, but what sport would be the best? Many kids turn to baseball and football because these are America’s past time sport, but there is always a select few that choose soccer. Why, because their parents force them to play. Soccer, in a parents point of view, is seen as a safe exercise sport, you can make friends and most important, get outside. At such a young age, kids have never been the best at following directions, which leads to chaos on the field. Kids swarm around the ball wishing for the chance to kick the ball a couple of times. In all truth, “Kids don't grow up wanting to watch tag on TV, or be a professional tag player, and that's really how most kids who play it view soccer. It's fun, its outdoors and it involves running around, but that's about it” (Emen). Besides the fact of parents forcing soccer down the kids throat, they get the image that soccer will forever be a disorganized sport, which in all truth can be at some points. The main reason for this is because in America, we were never taught how to play s...
Childhood and adulthood are two different periods of one’s lifetime but equally important. Childhood is the time in everybody’s life when they are growing up to be an adult. This is when they are being considered babies because of their youthfulness and innocence. Adulthood is the period of time where everybody is considered “grown up,” usually they begin to grow up around the ages of eighteen or twenty-one years old but they do remain to develop during this time. However, in some different backgrounds, not everybody is not fully adults until they become independent with freedom, responsible for their own actions, and able to participate as an adult within society. Although childhood and adulthood are both beneficial to our lives, both periods share some attributes such as independence, responsibility, and innocence that play distinctive roles in our development.
People in both ancient and modern societies have enjoyed playing sports in the spare time. The different shapes of athletic equipment, uniforms, and balls such as basketball, baseball, football, and soccer ball are designed differently to serve the purpose of their sports Also, each sport has been developed in various ways.
A childhood is the delicate phase of every adolescent's life where they must mature into their own person, with their own responsibilities. Although every individual will eventually bloom with their own personality, morals, and perspectives, the education and values we learn and see along the way add to the fingers that mold. We begin when we are born, and are taken in by strangers. These priceless people show us love, and just how strong attachments can be. Family ties snare us in their loving webs and become the support network to catch us throughout our youthful falls. They are our first real pictures of people, and their actions and emotions immediately become examples.
Childhood is the most unforgettable period of my life. Everyone has childhood memories. My childhood memories took place in Eritrea. These memories that are happiest and saddest memories are still in my mind. Sometimes I remember things that have happened in my childhood period and they just make me laugh. Childhood memories can be bad or good, but we can’t forget them. For these reasons, childhood memories are the most important parts of my life. Specifically, also I have some good memories of childhood.