Mumbletypeg

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bertl

bertl

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Here is an informal survey. How many remember playing mumbletypeg years ago? When played at school during recess, it probably wasn't a BUCK knife since Buck pocket knives weren't available until well into the 60s. I'm sure by that time the game was frowned on by school officials, and of course now you would be expelled for bringing a knife to school. I don't recall any serious injuries from the game. I remember three versions: Stretch, Chicken and H.O.R.S.E. My favorites were Stretch and Chicken. Usually it was played while standing up but sometimes when sitting on the ground with your legs spread. There was another version that involved seeing how deeply you could put the blade in the ground.

Bert
 
bert, I remember all those games and played them. I carried a knife to school from 5th grade all the way thru until graduation. Nobody thought much of it. We only pulled them out to sharpen a pencil or clean the mud off our boots. We were good boys. DM
 
Always had a 2 or 3 blade slippy in a back pocket, grad from 8th grade in '68, Mumbletypeg was played by the older boys , I was a fair to average player.
 
Yep, I got my first knife at the age of 6 and there was a fair amount of talk between my Mom and Dad if I was old enough at that age. I had to prove myself and I think that is what is lacking with today's children. Their parents just give them everything they want with no follow up by Mom's and Dad's. Any way I had a knife in my pocket every from then to now. A knife in a kids pocket was a tool not the Demon weapon the media has turned them into.

When I was older about 12 or so we played Chicken.
jb4570
 
When I was 10 I received a 2 bladed knife for being the best cursive writer in grade 5 from the teacher. Times have changed and not always for the better.
 
Played chicken about 7 or 8, barefooted. I wasn't chicken, but have a scar between my big toe and second. Bled like a stuck hog.
300
 
We couldn't openly have knives in school. And I didn't play until late teens but after school in the park there were a few games of chicken occasionally. My favorite boots had a knife slice in them with blood stained leather.
 
Played at recess in the 1960; but the game was always called "Chicken" (never heard the word Mumblypeg until I started visiting pocketknife collecting websites). OH
 
Played stretch a lot when I was in the Boy Scouts. Every camping trip and often after our meetings we'd be out in the yard playing. Sadly the kids now days are trained to be terrified of anything that may possibly construed to be a weapon. Not all I know, but a large number.
 
Short answer: No.

Got my first knife at age 8 in '75, carried it discreetly even to school until junior high when I moved to North Carolina and knives were banned. An art teacher in 7h grade saw me doing some task with it, held it for me until the end of the day and warned me not to bring it so as not to be expelled.

Scoutmaster dad and Life Scout brother forbade mumbletypeg. Eagle Scout uncle explained it to me, but by then I had it in my head that it was a bad way to treat a knife so I never cottoned to it. I was never a Boy Scout so maybe I just never had the right influences to do it.

But other kids and I did stand against barns, trees, and fences and invite each other to throw darts and knives to see how close we could get.

Ah, stupid youth!

Zieg

P.S. I'm pretty sure it wasn't my moving to NC that precipitated the banning of knives in school. But I could be wrong.
 
I got my first knife when I was 6. It was a tiny automatic with pearl handles. You pulled a knob on the rear of the knife and it flew open, powered, I guess, by a spring.

I played all of those games with my cousins and friends. We all carried knives to school and we never had an issue. I wonder what changed in our culture?
 
I graduated high school in 1998. In our metals shop our teacher required us to bring a knife in to learn to sharpen it our freshman year. The next year we built one. Every September we brought in hunting knives to sharpen up before deer season and we even sharpened knives for others to raise funds for the class. All on whetstones and ceramic rods.
All through high school if a teacher needed a knife to cut something (usually the female teachers) they would ask if they could borrow a pocket knife from someone.
 
We played stretch, but don't really remember it at school. Knives were o.k. Guns were also allowed as long as you took them to the shop class. I went to a small rural school.
 
I teach at a 4H shooting ed camp. Kids can bring guns but not knives. The guns get checked in and locked up. Knives would end up causing trouble. Kids are allowed to use knives and in the forging class have even made knives. They just can't walk around unsupervised with them.
 
That game cost me my Scout knife (Imperial, 1950s model), when a muffed throw meant it went lost forever among autumn leaves in a park, more than 50 years ago. Never did find it.

But I did get a same-model replacement a couple years ago:

tumblr_mv1e090UVy1r4zf5xo2_500.jpg


I don't throw knives any more.
 
We played it as young kids at home, not at school. You weren't suppose to have knives at school but most of us did.
 
Esav, that's a good thread.

Chris, for stretch two players face each other and take turns throwing the knife into the ground. The knife is thrown to the outside of the person (usually no more than 12" from the foot) who then moves one foot to the knife position. The game continues until one person can't stretch any farther and can't pick up the knife without falling down. Chicken is just the opposite. The knife is thrown between the feet and the foot is moved in. It ends when one person decides their feet are to close together. The other games consist of throwing the knife in certain ways that everyone has to try to copy.
 
If you wanted to play the game right you had to pound a wooden peg deep in the ground. Loser had to get the peg out of the ground with their teeth.
 
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