Now, anyone who grew up in New England or eastern New York has been to Old Sturbridge Village (OSV) on a fourth-grade field trip. I’m a case in point. As part of Ms. Record’s history/geography class, we piled onto a bus and endured an eternal bus ride (about 90 minutes) to the place where time stood still. Once there we went from meeting house to schoohouse to mill to shop, hearing stories from OSV’s inhabitants about what they ate, how they slept, and how they earned a living. I remember eating a soggy peanut butter jelly sandwich that day and trudging along within our group as only a fourth-grader can.

But, on my second visit, over 25 years later, I partook in what is perhaps the coolest part of Old Sturbridge Village: the games. One can, as one is casually strolling along the horse paths, pause between the meeting house and the church or the shop and get in touch with one’s inner colonial child.

Most of the games from that era have two essential elements: a stick and a hoop, both of which are made out of wood.

My nine year-old niece and I were skipping along by the Friends Meetinghouse when we happened upon our first game: trundling. Trundling involves a large wooden hoop that is about an inch thick and has a diameter of a few feet. It looks like a hula-hoop. To trundle, you take the hoop and roll it in front of you and roll the hoop forward by batting it with a stick. First one to the other side wins. It’s clearly a game of skill, as one must keep the hoop upright with just the amount of force applied by the stick. This action is called “trundling the hoop” and, if you think about it, resembles other field sports that involve a foreign object and a race to the other side. Sorry girls of 1832, this one’s for the boys.

Trundling is also aerobically challenging, even though the playing field could be measured in dozens of yards. So off we went.

At the tavern, the rest of my family played board games, checkers and cribbagge, while I read the railroad flyers on the wall.

Tucked away on the other side of the village, across from the Hands-On Craft Center (where one can fashion a candleholder out of tin, if one so desires – cost $5) is game central. Here one can play Les Graces, a game that involves two people, two sticks per person and one shared hoop. The sticks are about twice the size of chopsticks and the hoop is about a foot in diameter. Ribbon is tied to the hoop, indicating this was a girl’s game. You’re basically playing catch with the hoop and using your overblown chopsticks to do so. The trick is to throw the hoop with sticks crossed into an “x” pattern and catch the hoop with sticks parallel. The learning curve on this one is steep, but once you catch on, you catch. Hand-eye coordination is essential here, but aerobic fitness is not. By far my favorite game of the day.

The last game we played that day was Quoits. Quoits resembles horseshoes, with, you guessed it, hoops instead of shoes. The diameter of the hoop was awfully close to the diameter of the stick it was supposed to go around (you’ve played a version of this game at the carnival so you know what I’m talking about), and I met with zero success. Ringers are worth two points, and in the absence of a ringer, the closest hoop earned one point. I am very bad at horseshoes and surprisingly, even worse at quoits. I yearned for Les Graces, just a few wistful feet away.

Because I spent so much time catching the ribboned hoop, I missed my opportunity to join a 19th-century baseball game at the Center Meetinghouse.

Next time.

Old Sturbridge Village is open year-round except winter Mondays. It’s worth the twenty bucks.

Tracey McCormick is Managing Editor at GreatHistory.com.

The rude pioneer-style cabin inside the memorial building’s marble walls was long purported to be the very one Lincoln was born in on February 12, 1809. In reality, the one-story cabin you’ll see was originally a two-story house from a farm nearby, purchased by speculator A. W. Dennett who trimmed it down to one story and toured the country with “the house Lincoln was born in.” He also had a cabin he claimed was Jefferson Davis’ birthplace. For an entertaining read on Dennett and the history of the “Lincoln cabin,” check out Did Lincoln Own Slaves? and Other Frequently Asked Questions, by Gerald J. Prokopowicz (Pantheon Books, 2008).

Take Highway 84 east from the birthplace site and, after a short drive though some pretty country, you’ll come to Route 31E and Knob Creek, where the Lincoln family moved to when Abraham was two. It has another reconstructed log cabin and offers a nice spot for a picnic, away from the crowds at the birthplace site. Or, if you go due north from the birthplace site you’ll soon be in Hodgenville, where a statue of a seated Lincoln is at the center of town. Kentucky’s Official Lincoln Museum is on the town square, with memorabilia and dioramas of his life, from “The Cabin Years” to “The Berry-Lincoln Store” in which he was a partner to scenes of his great speeches, the Matthew Brady Studio where the photo was taken that graces our five-dollar-bills and on through to the assassination at Ford’s Theater.

It isn’t, of course, but a 351-foot obelisk does tower over the fruit trees and cornfields. It is the Jefferson Davis Monument, erected at Fairview in memory of the little crossroad town’s most famous resident, the one-and-only president of the Confederate States of America, born in a log cabin here June 3, 1808. Regardless of your feelings about Davis or the Confederacy, this monument is worth stopping at, if only to take an elevator ride to its top where you get great views of the countryside. These elevator rides to the monument’s top are normally available every half-hour, 9-5, May 1 through October 31.

Inside are displays of items related to Davis’ life and to “The Late Unpleasantness” of 1861-1865, including a Sharps carbine carried by a Confederate soldier. (The South only had the industrial ability to make ersatz Sharps, but the real thing could be taken from a Northern soldier who had no further use of it.) You’ll also learn about the “Orphan Brigade,” a brigade of Kentucky Confederates whose surviving members were instrumental in getting the Jefferson Davis Monument constructed. Among the brigade’s commanders during the war was Brigadier General Benjamin Hardin Helm, who was married to Abraham Lincoln’s sister-in-law Emilie Todd. After Helm was mortally wounded leading the brigade at Chickamauga, Lincoln invited Emilie to stay in the White House, until both of them became aware of the political liability her presence presented.

Stopping at this tall obelisk is a great break from highway hypnosis on a hot, muggy Kentucky summer day: history with a view.

He’s best known for his many short stories with “a twist at the end,” such as “The Gift of the Magi” or “The Ransom of Red Chief.” Between 1899 and his death in 1910, he composed over 600 short stories, something he began writing to support his daughter while he was in prison for embezzlement. There is continuing debate about his guilt. He married Sara Lindsay Coleman in Austin in 1882, but they separated in 1907.

The little house with the gingerbread trim at 409 East Fifth Street now houses the O. Henry Museum and contains artifacts and memorabilia from the 13 years Porter lived in Austin. He occupied the house from 1893 to 1895. At that time it stood at what is now 308 E. Fourth Street. It was moved in 1934 to preserve it.

At certain times the museum hosts special events and exhibits; February features a display of Victorian Valentine’s Day cards, for example. The best—or at least the funniest—time to visit is when the O. Henry Pun-Off is held, as it has been one day each May since 1977. Porter employed puns in his work, and this contest gleefully celebrates what is often berated as the lowest form of humor, bringing contestants onstage behind the house to tell shaggy dog stories and to create impromptu puns for head-to-head competition in categories such as “dogs” or “cities”—to prove who’s the top punslinger, so to speak. It was the one day each year that my humor was socially acceptable when I lived in Austin. And yes, I still display my trophies from the years when I won these, ah, Porter-house stakes.