One of the games we played on the 'playground' as kids, we called Boston Bay. The girls playing formed a circle that was open in one spot. The person at one end was the leader, and the rest of the girls were the chorus. It went like this:
Leader: How many miles to Boston Bay?
Chorus: Threeeeeeee thousand!
Leader: Can I go through your Golden Gate?
Chorus: No! Where's your man and where's your boat?
Leader: Here's my man (points to self) and here's my boat (slugs the next girl in the gut[!]), so open the gate and let me in!
Then the last two girls at the other end would raise their joined hands, and the leader would take the rest of the line through the arch they formed. Once the loop is complete, the leader goes to the end and the girl who got slugged in the gut got to be the leader.
This must have origins somewhere. I'm thinking of immigrants entering at San Francisco, but I can't find any references on-line anywhere. A Google search for "How many miles to Boston Bay?" brings up another Detroit memory, so maybe it was something local? It's entirely possible this had to do with Asian immigrants on the west coast, because we used to play with "Chinese jump ropes" with the chant:
Ching Chang Chinaman
Sittin' on a fence
Trying to make a dollar
Out of fifty-nine cents
He missed, he missed
He missed like this!
Need I remind anyone that this was about 40 years ago? Can you imagine hearing that on a playground in this day and age? Yow.
