What do you call that children’s game where you hold hands and spin around until you’re too dizzy to stand? Sally Jarvis, who grew up in Eastern Arkansas, says she and her childhood playmates called it Going To Texas. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Going to Texas Game”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, this is Sally Jarvis. I’m calling from Federal Way, Washington.
Hi, Sally. Welcome.
How you doing?
Well, I was talking to my son not long ago, and I mentioned this thing that I used to do as a child. I’ll call it a game, for lack of a better word. And we would hold our hands out. One would be palms up and the other would be palms down, and we’d hook our fingers together. We kind of put our feet close together and leaned back and go around in a circle as fast as we could until we got so dizzy we couldn’t stand up. And we called that going to Texas. And I don’t know why.
And you were how far from Texas? You were in Washington State then?
Oh, no, actually, I grew up in Arkansas. Going to the state next door then.
Right, the big magnet next door.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah, I was actually more in eastern Arkansas than I was in Texas, but, you know, still next door. I’m not sure if that was some sort of a, we’re getting so dizzy we can’t stand up, and we thought Texans were dizzy. I have no idea where it came from. It’s just what we called it. I was wondering if you have any idea of the origin of that, or if you had heard it, or heard it called other things.
I have not heard that. It sounds like you would get really, really dizzy, though, right?
Yeah, that was kind of the idea, believe it or not. I don’t know. I’m not sure why we thought that was fun, but apparently we did.
Oh, very much so. I don’t know anything about the term going to Texas, but watching kids spin around getting dizzy, yes. But the holding the hands, the particular configuration of two people holding hands, I’ve seen that. But I don’t know of a name for it.
No, and I don’t think of it as a real pastime that would actually have a name. You know, it might happen spontaneously while you’re out on a picnic, but I can’t imagine having a game like that. Did you do that when you were young?
Well, yeah, but just spontaneously. It wasn’t like, oh, let’s go outside and play going to Texas. No, the older kids. I mean, usually we were outside and, you know, we’d just be bored and we’d be looking for something to do and somebody would say, oh, let’s go to Texas and we’d, you know, do that. Maybe you heard the other kids, you know, the older ones driving across the border to buy beer or something. I don’t know.
Yeah, how close were you? In northeast or southeast Arkansas?
Not real north, but, you know.
Well, I bet we three aren’t the only three to do that, and I bet other people, maybe they did have names. We could put this out to our listeners and see what they have to say.
Sure, yeah. If you’ve got a name for the getting dizzy game, other than getting dizzy, 877-929-9673, or email us, words@waywordradio.org.
It does remind me of a game we played called Swinging Statue, where the older kids would swing the younger ones around and then let go of you.
Oh, right. And however you landed, you had to freeze like that.
Right. We call that frozen statues.
Oh, there you go.
Yeah.
Well, Sally, thank you so much for calling. We’re going to get some answers about this, I’m sure. So keep listening, all right? Take care of yourself now, all right?
Okay.
Bye.
Bye-bye.
