The Lazy Days of Summer Quiz | History

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. Do you remember when you were just itching to get out of the house after a long winter? As soon as it was warm enough you were out the door like a shot! If you were like me, a little competition went a long way, and you had friends always ready to race or wrestle with. And maybe like me, you also played this game for keepsies, using your favourite shooter to claim your friends' ducks. What game was it?

Answer: Marbles

I might not have gotten interested in marbles if it weren't for my dad. I basically inherited his bag of marbles from when he was a kid (he was born in 1944) in Germany. He taught me the basics and I generally managed to keep my own marbles when playing with friends.

It turns out that marbles have been around for a long time, but they were not manufactured in any large quantities until the 1800s (first in Germany). Nowadays marbles can be made from a number of different materials, from plastic to glass to stone (usually agate) or metal.

2. There was nothing better on a hot, sunny day than heading down to the local swimming hole to cool off. Clothing optional. And it wasn't a real swimming hole if there wasn't a rope to swing into the water from. Before heading home, what little suckers did you always have to remember to check yourself over for?

Answer: Leeches

I was pretty fortunate in having a gravel quarry a few miles from my house growing up. There wasn't a lot of shade, but I could count on the water (exclusively from rainfall) being pretty clean. We didn't have to worry about leeches at the quarry, but there were plenty of other ponds and lakes over the years that were replete with them.

I was surprised to learn that not all leeches are bloodsuckers, although the vast majority of them are. And of the nearly 700 different species of leech, roughly 500 are found in freshwater.

3. Whether your friends were around or not, you could always manage to find a way to keep yourself occupied. It was simple enough to mark out a few squares on the ground with a piece of chalk or the edge of a rock. What game was this, that really kept you on your toes?

Answer: Hopscotch

I must confess that hopscotch was more my sisters' game than it was mine, but I did play it on occasion. We had a course painted on the concrete pad in our schoolyard, and from time to time competition was fierce. I know that hopscotch courses vary somewhat, and ours had a home and a safe semi-circle at either end, with numbers 1 to 10 between. I could get through the whole course without a misstep, but I wasn't very fast.

One record-setting hopscotch game was completed by Ashrita Furman, who has set more than 500 Guinness World Records (including most world records), as he did finished the course in 1 minute, 1.97 seconds.

4. Depending on what decade you grew up in, you had different ways to get around that involved small wheels and dangerous speeds. Which of these would NOT have been one of your options?

Answer: Pogo stick

Of the four options presented, I only ever owned a skateboard, and I made the mistake of letting a classmate borrow it. It came back to me busted. I lived out in the country, and only had gravel roads to work with in my free time... the skateboard I used at school.

For those who didn't figure out how the picture related to the answer, there is one brand of corn dogs that you can buy that are called Pogo Sticks.

The Pogo stick was invented in Germany in 1920 by Hans Pohlig and Ernst Gottschall, and it was named Pogo as a combination of their names: POhlig and GOttschall.

5. Those cool, summer days right after the rain made it the perfect time to go digging in the dirt for earthworms. And if you found earthworms it really meant only one thing. What activity came next, that might even have resulted in supper on the table?

Answer: Fishing

Fishing is something that I wish I had done more of as a kid. My dad wasn't much into it, though, so I only really had the chance to go fishing when at summer camps or visiting friends' cottages. I mostly remember fishing off the boat dock at Lake Nutimik (Whiteshell Provincial Park, Manitoba, Canada) using jigs and Red Devil spoons.

I also used nightcrawlers (large earthworms) on pickerel rigs. Occasionally I would dig one up myself, but usually they were available at the store for the express purpose of being used as bait. Nightcrawlers are a species of earthworm native to Europe, but they have spread around the globe, often being considered a pest.

6. Your back yard, a field, the street, or even a vacant lot! Anywhere was good if you had a ball to kick around. Or maybe you liked heading down to the schoolyard to play the ballgame pictured here. What was it called?

Answer: Tetherball

I had some pretty intense tetherball contests with my best friend over the years; I really had my serve down to an art form! It is supremely satisfying to make the tether wrap around the pole completely with one throw, watching your opponent vainly try to reach it.

There is no clear consensus on the origins of tetherball, but the theory I like best is the one about the Tatars who would attach the heads of their vanquished enemies to a rope on a pole and then proceed to beat the head about with a stick. A little bloodthirsty, perhaps, but a better origin story than most.

7. You had to be careful playing this game, depending on who you played it with. If you had a really good spot you sometimes had to hope that your 'friends' didn't just leave you there and go home. You knew you'd won when you heard the words "Olly Olly oxen free!" Which game?

Answer: Hide and seek

As I alluded to in the question, I have had experience with being left in my hiding spot... usually by my sisters. I prided myself on being a great hider. We usually played a version of the game where you had to make it back to base (where the seeker counted) without being caught.

Whether you played the 'get back to base' version or the 'wait to be found' version, the same call would be made when the game was over, whether it was the seeker giving up or just time to go home. "Olly Olly oxen free" doesn't make much sense if you think about it, but it's a classic case of language changing over time and distance. A few different phrases are considered the most likely origin; I will list three here:

"Calling all the outs in free!"
"All ye All ye walks in free!"
"Ally, Ally in come free!"

8. A good, brisk wind made for the opportunity to get out and show off your skills. You'd grab your diamond (or maybe your delta) from the closet and make sure your spool was still intact. Then you'd look for a wide open space to fly in because, trees aside, you really had to be careful of what hazard?

Answer: Power lines

As I mentioned previously, I grew up out in the countryside, roughly four miles from the nearest town. I had scads of space to fly kites, and we had a few different types over the years. Mostly, though, we ended up buying the diamond (shaped) kites or the delta wing kites. It was only ever a fun time-killer for me, but I had some friends who would build their own kites and go attend kite festivals regularly.

With mankind's fascination with flight, it was no big surprise to me to learn that the kite has been around since the 5th century, with the Chinese claiming that their philosophers Mozi and Lu Ban invented them. With their easy access to silk, paper and bamboo, they had the perfect ingredients to make their kites. Of course, back then they didn't have to worry about getting electrocuted by power lines.

9. Helmet? What was that? About the only 'safety' feature you had on this means of transportation was a bell, and you probably didn't use it to warn people of anything. What did you use to go everywhere, race with friends, jump ramps, wipe out, and generally feel free?

Answer: A bicycle

I don't think I wore a helmet when cycling before I was an adult. My bicycle was my pride and joy - it sported Spider-man stickers and black rubber handgrips that made a terrific popping noise when I pulled them off. I didn't have a bell like the one in the picture; I actually had a good, old-fashioned squeeze-horn.

As an established country-dweller, having a bike was pretty much essential. I may not have had the ability to change gears on my bike, but it made having to go miles to visit friends much better than walking.

My earliest bicycle (that I can remember) was a BMX. They started to become popular in the early 1970s, so had already been around for a decade by the time I was old enough to ride. At the same time (early 1980s), mountain bikes began to flood the market. Soon enough (late 1980s), I was tearing across my neighbours' fields with abandon.

10. A good way to kill a couple of hours was to gather up your friends and play a game of bat-and-ball. There were any number of variants to the game that you could have (and did) play, but which of these games did you likely play if you grew up in North America?

Answer: Baseball

As a kid I always liked to play in the outfield, 'cause the farther away from the batter, the more effective the taunts about their inability to hit the ball. And then, when they DID hit the ball out to me, I became the hero when (if) I caught the ball. Unfortunately, it was generally a rare occasion having enough other kids around to play a real game (the nearest neighbour with a kid my age was a mile away).

It is generally agreed that baseball's origins can be found in England with medieval bat-and-ball types of games played among the peasantry. As a modern game, the first published rules of baseball were composed by Alexander Cartwright in 1845. For this masterpiece he is known as 'The Father of Baseball'.

Source: Author reedy

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor bloomsby before going online.
Any errors found in FunTrivia content are routinely corrected through our feedback system.

The Lazy Days of Summer Trivia Quiz

If there is one thing that hasn't changed over the years, it is the lure of the outdoors on a beautiful summer day. Do you remember filling your hours with any of these pastimes?

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