Put Your Feets In

Several years ago, we bought a book called 'Step It Down' which was a collection of African American jump rope and game rhymes but most of the material was foreign to me. It turns out that this is something that the web can do something about. Having gone back to my old neighborhood, I'm thinking about the things that made it what it was and trying to recover what was there. So I'm going to establish the tag 'foot rhymes' in Technorati so that perhaps over time we can get some traction over that.

I think the most popular of all of them is Bubblegum Bubblegum in a Dish which you'll see in the video.

So the drill went a little something like this. Whenever teams were to be chosen, somebody would call out "Put your feets in!", and if they were quick enough (but it was a little bit rude to), they would call out "Saying it". Whoever said 'saying it' first got to call out the rhymes until all the teams were chosen. I was being generous by letting somebody else say it.

For more important games, and to be more fair, sometimes you would put both feet in. That worked especially when people had counted into the rhymes and knew which number to pick (or not to pick) in order to get on the team they wanted. In order to hedge this multiple ways, whoever was saying it could decide to use a rhyme that didn't have a user-supplied component. Also he could use alternative endings like "You are out" or "You are not it" or "You are not the one to be it".

The classic from our neighborhood was Eeny Meeny Dissaleeny, which I have never had to write in my entire life, but here it goes.

Eeeny meeny dissaleeny
oop op op a-leeny
otchy kotchy liberace
I love you

now you could end it there but we added stuff

not a peach
not a plum
not a stick of bubble gum

go to school
break a rule
tell your teacher shes a fool

if she slaps you don't you cry
take your books and say goodbye.

Nobody would do eeny meeny miney moe, but on occasion the person saying it would run out of rhymes and use that old lame standard.

I seem to recall that there was a rhyme that had something to do with Popeye.

There was also

My mother and your mother
hanging out clothes
My mother hit your mother
dead in the nose
what color was the blood?

(red)

r-e-d spells red and you are not it

Also very popular was Mickey Mouse

Mickey Mouse
built a house
how many bricks did he use?