Brewster Rockit by Tim Rickard for March 13, 2014

Tot bot must not have promised the Romulans that it wouldn’t use it….

The only one using a helmet on an Earth space station is a human?

This jarred my memory. Some seventy some years ago we kids used to holler OLLY OLLY OCEAN FREE! Does anyone know where that came from?

That’s the same thing we said. The first time I ever saw “oxen free” was in a very old Peanuts strip.

According to wikipedia…...“Olly olly oxen free (and variants: ollie ollie umphrey, olly-olly-ee, ally ally in free, ally alley ocean free, etc.) is a catchphrase used in such children’s games as hide and seek to indicate that players who are hiding can come out into the open without losing the game, that the position of the sides in a game has changed (as in which side is in the field or which side is at bat or “up” in baseball or kickball), or, alternatively, that the game is entirely over.

It is thought to derive from the phrase “All ye, all ye ‘outs’ in free,”,“All the outs in free” or possibly “Calling all the ‘outs’ in free;” in other words: all who are “out” may come in without penalty. Various calls used for such purposes have gone by the collective name of “ollyoxalls” in some places.

The phrase can also be used to coordinate hidden players in the game kick the can, in which a group of people hide within a given radius and a “seeker” is left to guard a can filled with rocks. The seeker has to try to find the “hiders” without allowing them to sneak in and kick the can.

In many areas the phrase used is “All-y all-y in come free”, to tell the remaining hidden players it is time to regroup in order to restart the game. The phrase is announced by a hider who successfully sneaks in and kicks the can.

An old version of the phrase is “all ye, all ye, all come free.”

Back when I was kid and we play Hide and Seek, and I couldn’t find my friend (or friends), I just said “Come out, come out wherever you are!”

Thx, PColli. I was wondering about that.

In playing hide and seek. What’s more fun, running and hiding or standing there shouting random numbers at the person trying to count?

ALLy, ALLy OUT’S IN free.

We thought it was modified from “Ally, Ally All’s in Free”. It wouldn’t take much of a phonetic change to go from “All’s in” to “oxen”.

Another theory is German: “Alle, alle auch sind frei!”

Don’t look now, sniff for the heated oil and burning circuits, listen for the scraping clicking and buzzing,.If all else fails use Mommy radar.

If Snow-Tot were there, they could play Hide and Seep.

Careful….. he might charge you according to his “clocking device”.

As long as the dude does not sneak up on anyone and tickle them it is ok.

Read what “JediGirl” says… that’s where I was going with it… Pam is human, so I did it from a Federation point of view…