Kids nowadays rarely play outside with their friends. Most of the time, their noses are glued to the screen of their tablets, smartphones, computers, or other video game consoles. They rarely see the sun or shed a drop of sweat.
Looking at the children now and the games that they play, my childhood seems so radically different. Bygone era, indeed.
Growing up, my parents could hardly keep me inside the house. There were still no video games back then; even if there were, I knew my parents could not afford to buy me one.
So, I grew up playing outside with friends. We didn’t need any fancy, expensive equipment. All I needed were my closest friends and neighbors, and a free afternoon. I go home sweaty but happy.
A Game of Skill That’s Hated by Mothers
One of the favorite games I used to play with my friends are games game played with rubber bands, or lastiko as we call it in our place. I was very proud of my rubber band collection; I spent hours challenging my friends and perfecting my technique.
Rubber band games we are fond of are:
Dampa: Place some rubber bands in a pile on the floor, preferably on smooth concrete. Determine a finish line. Get some rubber bands to fly past the said finish line by cupping your hand and striking the ground – if you get it just right, the air that is created by your cupped hand will fling rubber bands and send them flying. Any rubber band that goes past that finish line is yours to keep.
Rubber bands as bets: We play card games and use the rubber bands as bets. The more popular card games during my times were pares-pares, pusoy and “pataasan ng napili na card from a pile.
Pitik: We roll the rubber bands and each player takes turn hitting the rolled rubber bands with their fingers. The one who is able to take a single rubber band from the roll, wins all the bands in that roll.
Having more rubber bands with you is a badge of honor – a proof that I won in a lot of contests.
For the winnings – I usually braided them and took pride in how long I could make it, comparing it to my friends’, and challenging them so I could get more rubber bands.
Kids in my hometown loved playing rubber bands, but it was hated by mothers. They would occasionally threaten to confiscate these rubber bands, boil them, and have their kids drink the soup.
Rubber Band Soup and Threats of Amputations
I remember my mother using this very same warning of making me drink rubber band soup on one particular day I didn’t go home at the time I said I’d be home. I made sure to follow my mother after that; but at the same time, I learned how to hide my precious braided rubber bands well, just in case.
If threats of boiling rubber bands don’t work, mothers have another trick up their sleeve. They would tell stories of how freak accidents occurred to one kid or another because of too much time spent playing lastiko.
My friends and I would exchange lastiko stories that our mothers had told us. There’s this one story of this kid whose hand had to be amputated because a vein popped from pounding the concrete, while playing dampa. Or another story of a kid losing a fingernail after hitting a concrete when playing pitik or with rolled rubber bands, These types of stories scared us for a little while, so we made sure that our technique were correct and that we didn’t slam our hand or our fingers/fingernails on the ground too hard.
Eventually, we forgot about that and continued to play the game until the season ended. Yes, we treated games with rubber bands like a professional sport, with its own season. And no, not one of my friend’s hands got amputated, nor lost a finger nail. Maybe we were just that good at these games, and not like the kids our mothers told us about.
You Have to Get Good to be the Best
There were other games played with the rubber bands, so if you had a lot of them, you were one of the popular kids. Playing dampa was our way of getting more of it if we didn’t have any money to buy more. I had to get good because I didn’t have that much money to spend on buying rubber bands.
Some girls we knew used to braid it up into long ropes and use it to play Chinese Garter. Some of us boys, would use it as slingshots. We would chase each other around, hitting each other with folded paper as ammunition.
Sometimes, if we collect enough rubber bands, we make it into a ball and throw it around. If you get to unwind an odd number of bands, you can get it as a prize.
Some Valuable Lessons from the Simplest of Joys
We didn’t need those expensive and flashy toys; with just these simple rubber bands, my friends and I had the time of our lives.
Rubber band games taught me valuable life lessons that I still live by. I learned how to play fair and get along with others. I learned to appreciate what little I have and make the most of my situation.
I learned that sometimes, you win some, but you lose some. You have to be a good sport and give your opponent their due, especially when you know they won it fair and square. I learned that sometimes, you just have to go with the flow and enjoy every moment of the game.
Most importantly, I learned that you need to listen to your mother if you don’t want to lose your hard-earned stash and drink rubber band soup. Just go home when you say you’ll go home.
And make sure not to hit the ground too hard, or else your hand will be amputated, or lose some nails.