Mayah ReaveleyFollow

Date Collected

Winter 12-3-2017

Place item was collected

North Logan, Utah

Informant

Ashton Reaveley

Point of Discovery/Informant Bio

Ashton Reaveley is my younger brother and he is 13 years old and he lives in North Logan, Utah. He is in the eighth grade and he plays drums and is in his school band. He also plays competitive basketball.

Context

I interviewed my brother when we were in the kitchen of our house. It was later in the morning on a Sunday and I was drinking coffee at the counter facing him while he was making himself coffee and we were the only ones in the house. During the interview, he forgot to put his mug in the coffee machine when he started it and had to run to put it under the coffee as it came out while he was talking, which is why we were laughing during the interview. My brother and I used to play this game with our cousin and occasionally her younger brother and there was not much of an age difference unless he played. My cousin is two years behind me, my brother is one year behind her, and her brother is four years behind him. When we played with our younger cousin, we had to help him play the game. I can’t remember anytime where we played with anyone else and we never played with more than four people at a time. We would only play this game outside when the trampoline was positioned next to our deck so that we could go in- between them during the game. I don’t remember ever playing this game anywhere other than our house. This was a game that we invented ourselves rather than learning it from someone else and we had to come up with the rules to the game as well as follow them. We stopped playing this game around when I was around ten years old and he was seven.

Text

Me: How do you play “what’s on the stick?”

Ashton: Well there’s a person with a stick, and they say two things that you can be (collectors note: I remember the other players asking the person with the stick “what’s on the stick” at this point, which is where the name of the game comes from), and, two people go on the tramp and they decide which one they’re going to be, and then, when they’re ready, the person with the stick... [running to put his mug under where the coffee is coming out of the machine while talking]

Both: [laughing]

Ashton: ...goes and tries to get someone [laughing] who they think is the thing, so yeah.

Me: So, where are they? (Ashton: [laughing]) Where are they when they are playing the game?

Ashton: The trampoline. Me: All of them? Ashton: Yep, for the most part. Me: Who would you play this game with? Would you play it with adults or just kids? Ashton: Well no adults are weird so I play it with kids.

Me: Alright.

Texture

When I interviewed my brother, it seemed like he didn’t remember the details of the game as well. He was more casual after the coffee-spilling incident, laughing a lot while he was talking. He didn’t give me as many details because I used to play this game with him than he probably would have given someone with an outsider’s perspective.

Course

Introduction to Folklore (ENGL 2210)

Instructor

Lynn McNeil

Semester and year

Fall 2017

Theme

G6: Competition Games

EAD Number

1.5.163

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