The Foxfire 6 book is chock full of games from Appalachia along with lots of other interesting things. I found the game Please and Displease in Foxfire 6 the following quote is from the book:
Lawton Brooks: We used to play please and displease. Get a whole bunch of us sitting around like us here. I’d say, “Are you pleased or displeased?” If you didn’t have nothing on your mind for someone to do, you’d say, “I’m pleased.”
Then I’d ask the next person, and she might say, “I’m displeased.” Well, I’d ask what it takes to please her. “Well,” she could say, “for Florence to get up and walk around the house barefoot,” or something, and you’d have to follow whatever they put on you. It went around the circle-one person asked a question for his turn. Then it went on around the circle. Sometimes if there were boys and girls, they’d say for this boy to go over and sit by that girl, and that girl to go sit by another boy. Change things around. It was a nice little old game. I always enjoyed playing it.
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I never played the game please and displease that I remember yet it seems very familiar to me. Maybe it’s because it reminds me of truth or dare.
Have you ever played please and displease?
Tipper
Nope! Never heard of Please and Displease. Sounds like fun though, and a little mischievious perhaps putting “couples” together as you see them, or perhaps just as a tease. LOL
God bless.
RB
<><
My cousins and I played that at family gatherings and it was a favorite at birthday parties.
I think Jean’s game is what we called “Pass It On.” Someone would whisper something to the person next to them and they would pass it on to someone else. When every participant had had a chance to “pass it on” the first and last person would compare stories and see how it had changed.
PinnacleCreek mentioned an Ipad. What is an Ipad? Do I need one? Is it like an ionized heating pad? Can you put it on your aching back or your sore feet? Is it also good for warts, age spots, dry skin and wrinkles? Can it take away the waddles under your chin? Can it take years off your appearance in just minutes? Do they have it on TV for just three easy payments of $19.99? Do you get the second one free? Just pay shipping and handling.
Is Miss Chitter’s expression Pleased or Displeased?
Hi Tipper,
Another memory, when we were young we would sit in a circle,whisper to the person to the left something like “G-ma’s cow Betsy is sick”. Then each person adds on a bit more until it gets to the person on the right and then they tell the story. Don’t know what the game was called but an LOL story always came out of it.
God Bless. Jean
Tipper,
I am “displeased”! Could you send someone to East Tennessee to mow the yard and mulch the blooming thangs before the storms tonight?
I think that game could open up a whole new “Can of Worms”! Whatdoya think?
I can’t remember a whole lot about this game…but does remind me of “truth or dare” or somethin’!
Kent, Old Mother Hubbard had the dogs food in the cubbard, until she went there and there was none!
Never heard of that game either!
Later you’all,
Wow, it is so purty outside today…85 here right now…I’ve been working on painting of a branch of Bradford Pear…and prepped the canvas for a branch of Red Japonica…but when I go out I just can’t stop looking at the “flutterbyes” and “birdies”
I swear this one butterfly must have fluttered two blocks before it made it back to the very flower it was feeding on…That could make a great game, everyone get a stopwatch, pick a butterfly and time it as to how long it takes for it to flutter back to the flower!
OH Lordy, I am SPRING DRUNK! LOVE IT. LOVE IT…never know though when one might have to ride a rocket to another part of this world or another realm..”so long john!” as in NK country!
This is a new game for me. I am learning some of the good old fun things that went around in the Applachain area. This seems to be a fun game and one that could get a lot of laughs.
Tipper,
That sounds like something I would
like playing, but I just don’t
have a memory of the names of most
games we played.
Chitter’s hair looks nice, but she
needs to lose those scissors for
awhile. Both girls have got
terrific personalities…Ken
I think I may have played this but it must have not been much because it is a very vague memory.
I wonder if all these kids games were first started by kids or by adults to get kids out from under foot so they could get their work done.
I don’t remember ever playing a game like that. It sounds interesting, though.
We always played that game at our Old Christmas Gatherings on or around the 6th of January each year. Everyone loved it and I believe there was more laughter during that game than any other. I remember one year someone said she was displeased but would be pleased if an older couple would dance together “cheek to cheek”, and they did. The next person said they would be pleased if Kent and I would do it too. Of course Kent had to be funny, so we bumped our behinds! I have a picture of that….
That game went to school and my fifth grade class enjoyed it much more than “Doggie, Doggie Where’s Your Bone” during birthday celebrations!
I remember something like that, but nothing really pops out. Looks like fun though
This game seems so familiar to me, and it seems I have played it some time in childhood. I cannot remember much about it, so maybe only played it once. We had many old games we played on my Grandpa’s farm place. We often played until it was too dark to see anything except fireflies, and I never recall playing with a storebought toy. There was hopscotch, homemade slingshots, tag, and some that were so backwoods they never made it into the Firefox books. We made up games where we would make hideouts in fallen trees and haystacks. One favorite thing I did with a very young Aunt was go through Grandpa’s carrot patch and pulled up all the carrots. If they were big enough to eat they were eaten. If still small we promptly planted them back. It still amazes me how good-natured my Grandpa was when he saw the destruction. How did we make it without an Ipad?