Roof Volleyball

Sorry I forgot to add a story yesterday, will have to do two today. Happy Easter.
And yet another Summer Story.

Everyone has favorite games they played around the neighborhood when they were little: tag, hide and go seek, duck duck goose, etc. We played all these too, but we had our own special games. Although "city" (see future entry) comes close, by far the most popular was/is "roof volleyball". (All those ESPN 7 fans out there, feel free to add your memories of this wonderful game in the comments section!)

During beautiful summer days the NG would gather together in our swimsuits and shorts, ready for a tough game of roof volleyball. Our team, "the frosted flakes" (we're grrreat!), would gather on the grass in front of the house and make some crucial decisions. We wouldn't pick teams or anything like that, we all played against the roof - we had to settle on court size. See, the lower level roof stretches all the way across the front of the house, over the garage and porch. If we played ultimate court, that meant using the whole lower roof - which meant playing on the driveway as well as the grass. this was usually used for games in which our team numbered over 7 players since none of us particularly enjoyed diving on pavement. If we played large court, that meant the grass (from the right edge of the roof) to the driveway line. We used this side more when we were older and had at least 5 people playing. But our standard court as youngsters stretched only from that right edge of the roof to the edge of the bushes in front of the porch entrance,a distance of about 8ft.

Everyone would select their positions. (5 players meant 2 in front, 2 in back and one middle; 4 was 2 front, 2 back; 3, 2 front, 1 back; with 2 or 1 it was pretty much a free for all.)
We played by what we considered standard volleyball rules. The game began with volleying the plastic playground ball between us and the roof in order to decide which team would serve. When we served, the person in the back corner would hit the ball either over hand or under. More often than not, the ball hit the tree on the right, rather than the roof on the left. (But what do you except from a 7 year old?) When the roof served, one of us simply threw the ball up on the roof and let it roll off and into play.

My parents used to sit on the porch to watch us play, but they soon learned this was not a safe area to view from. Wild serves and volleys would crash into their chairs or thud against the living room windows.

Out of bounds meant over the imaginary lines drawn down from the above mentioned boundaries, behind us or under the roof (onto the porch). The only way we scored was if the roof hit the ball out of bounds. So, if we served the ball onto the roof and the roof returned it by rolling it onto the driveway - point for us! The roof scored or regained control of the ball whenever we failed to hit it back onto the roof (a common place event when a team consisting of people between 4 and 5 ft plays a roof 8ft high at it's lowest). The roof earned many of its points by spiking the ball. If our team returned a roof play and hit the underside of the roof - the roof spiked it pretty much straight down with little chance for us to hit it back. If we were lucky, it spiked into the garden between the grass and the porch, this counted as out of bounds. otherwise, if it spiked unto the grass, roof's ball :(.

We played until 15, with of course, requiring that 2 point gap to actually win. It was a long time before we beat the roof - we still don't sometimes. But it's a great game and anyone who's played it can testify to the great fun and enjoyment created by roof volleyball. Come over and play sometime!

(Originally posted April 20, 2003.)

Hyper