Title: King of the Hill Game

General Information about Item:

Customary Lore, childhood game

Language: English

Country of Origin: United States

Informant: Ryan Cashman

Date Collected: 5/20/2019

Informant Data:

Ryan Cashman was born on December 11, 1999.  He grew up in Belle Mead, NJ and attended public school as a child.  He has two younger sisters that both still live in Belle Mead with their parents.  As a child, Ryan would take the bus to school, which allowed for him to become closer friends with the other children that would ride the bus with him.  Ryan is currently a freshman at Dartmouth College, and he still maintains a close relationship with his childhood friends from school.

Contextual Data:

Social Context: Ryan shared this story as a part of a Folklore collection project for Russian 13.  Ryan took the bus to school, so before the bus arrived at the bus stop, he would interact and play with the other kids at the bus stop. This created a new group, which were the kids that played King of the Hill, as described below, in the winter at the bus stop Ryan went to every day before school.

Cultural Context: This game was seasonal because it was only played during the winter, and therefore is an aspect of Northern American Suburban culture.

Item:

Children that attended public school with Ryan would play King of the Hill at the bus stop before school.  This occurred only during the winter after snow plows would leave large piles of snow by the bus stop.  The game worked so that before the bus arrived, one child would go to the top of the snow pile and therefore would be deemed “king of the hill”.  Subsequently, the rest in group would try to knock that person off the top so that they can become the new “king of the hill”.  This cycle would continue until the bus arrived at the bus stop.

Informant’s Comments:

Ryan still has fond memories of playing before the bus came, and it made the experience in the cold much more enjoyable.

Collector’s Comments:

I was familiar with this game as well, however in my hometown it was played year-round and at different location instead of one specific place and time, as was the case with Ryan.

Collector’s Name: Mathieu Freeman