(Team)

There were usually the four brothers, the minimum number to pick two teams and have a game. The Imaginary brothers stayed away for fear of not being accepted.
Games then were born of poverty and imagination, not from media hype to promote capitalism, such as the necessity of three hundred dollar hockey sticks.
My favourite category wasn’t those that involved balls, or those that involved nets, or even those that involved exercise. Undeniably earthy, it was those that involved spittle. Customarily pure unadulterated spittle, but occasionally some foreign object like a watermelon seed, a paper wad, or penny thrown in. If you had a cold, you weren’t allowed to compete, for that was quite naturally an unfair advantage. Similarly, the use of any liquid that may substitute for, or stimulate saliva was banned – forbidden as per the holy but unwritten rule book. Certainly there was no theft of Dad’s ‘Hagen. That would have been easily detected by the colour code. The gooey stuff had to be produced biologically, without outside interference of any kind.
There were many variances: distance, targets, quantity, rate, or combinations of both. When it came my turn to choose and there were no watermelons around, it would be: Which team can fill the cup highest in ten minutes from aiming directly above, but without bending the knees?
Back then I had no idea why, but I seemed to have uncanny ability at this one; therefore it behooved me to choose it. The team would take turns hovering over the glass. Whilst one would aim, the other would work on creation of more slime, each facet a definite skill in and of itself. (Mother was never impressed if we forgot to wash the glasses when the fat lady sang.)
Many years later, my dentist mentioned I have atypical highly productive saliva glands. I keep it a secret. Some brothers hold grudges.