Thursday, September 28, 2006

Grab A Loop, Battling Tops

So I was on this website the other day looking at old vintage games and toys and I came across this classic!!!! Oh yes...Grab A Loop!!
My sisters, cousins and I would play this game in our grandparents basement every Christmas when we would all get together. It consisted of these belts that you would strap on and each belt had a certain number of loops attached to it and the goal was to try and grab people's loops! We would SCREAM!!! The excitement and also the terror of someone grabbing your loop caused us to let out the most horrifying scream! My Grandma would come running down thinking that someone had been killed. She finally got rid of the game. We were all very sad. It is still topic of conversation when we all get together!

Another game that we enjoyed in our grandparent's basement was Battling Tops.
The battle to see who's top could remain standing! You had a little white launcher with a string attached that you would wind around your top. You would put it in your little launch station and pull so that your top would go at maximum speed to win the battle. The tops would go at it for awhile sometimes spinning around the arena, or sometimes bumping into each other...I can still hear the sound! Sometimes if you were daring you would take your launcher and with the string you would play "jumprope" with the top. Yeah, you were cool if you did that. I think one of the coolest parts of the game were the names of the tops...each one had their own name... Hurricane Hank, Twirling Tim, Smarty Smitty, Dizzy Dan, Tricky Nicky and Super Sam. My grandma eventually got rid of this game at a garage sale...but wait...good news...I bought it back for 25 cents! It's living at my sister's house!

Carrie, Gret, Jill and Laura- I wish I could be with you when you read this post!!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

YES! You've got yourself a couple of gems there! These are two of the greatest games of our childhood! Grandmas house always ment an afternoon in the basement. Thankfully there was a closet chock full of antique games with which we could amuse ourselves! Eventually they were weeded out, based on the noise factor. Poor grandmas nerves couldn't withstand all the girly screaming. We were left with Tiddly Winks and the one with the Cat on it and cards....

Anonymous said...

Does anyone remember "Put and Take"? Did it have a cat on it where the "kitty" was? Battleship and Clue were too quiet. It was much more fun to play house. I always wanted the long silver satin clutch purse, not the small green one. Although they both scared me trying to open and close them without pinching myself. Remember filling the tiny little perfume bottles with water? And the old black phone that we weren't supposed to touch but always ended up getting down from on top of the piano?

emily said...

Awesome!! I do remember all of that stuff! That is hilarious! The only part about playing house was that I always got stuck being the dog!

Anonymous said...

Sorry, Em...you were the youngest and you had to be whatever we told you to be. That's just the way it goes. I think I still have some scars from Grab-A-Loop. Little girls can be feisty. "Put and Take", I think was, in fact, the one with the "kitty" on it. Let us not forget "cootie".

Meghan said...

I love you sisters! It is so precious to read your blogs...remembering the good 'ole days. Ahhh....memories. Jill-I loved playing house too! Why is the real thing not as fun? I guess maybe because everything went just the way I wanted it too when I played house:) I never had to wash dishes or do the laundry...hmmm.

Anonymous said...

Oh my gosh! I was laughing so hard! I am sooo out of the loop! No pun intended. Why am I the last to know about this blog thing! These are two of the greatest games of all time! There is nothing that even comes close on the market today. If you stop and really think about the loop game...it is sooo lame! You basically just run around and try and grab people's loops! Why was that so fun? But it was. Here's the other thing...I never knew she got rid of that game because we screamed so much! That is classic!! Ok, well I promise to try and stay up on all these hot topics from now on! By the way, cootie rocks and the perfume bottles with water were my favorite!