A recent column about jump rope, jacks and the jingles we sang while playing these games brought in a couple of notes worth sharing. Here goes:

"When I was a kid growing up in Rockland in the 1940s, every girl in my neighborhood would play 'Donkey' up against the Madden kids' house," recalled Marilyn Shearer of Attleboro. "You bounced a big ball on the house while going through the alphabet, like 'A, my name is Alice and I live in Alabama and I sell apples.' Onward to 'B, my name is Betty. I live in Baltimore and I sell buttons.' You go through the alphabet, all the time bouncing the ball and putting your leg over the ball before you finish the letter you're working on.

"Also, Double Dutch was a big attraction; if you did it right, you could just alternate your feet being up, and go on until you trip. We used to hitch the rope around a pole if we didn't have enough kids to turn both ends of the rope.

"Of course we also rollerskated when we weren't eating or sleeping or playing 'Donkey' and my skate key was my most cherished possession and I wore it on a string around my neck. When I grew older (teenaged) I used to go to the Rockland Skating Rinks. I babysat every Saturday to have enough money to go skating. Life was good!"

And Doris Oster tells me, "I had almost forgotten about all those wonderful games we played as children? Being female, I played most of those games you mentioned, as all of my siblings were girls. We jumped rope, played jacks, bounced balls etc. in our daily playtime. When we left for school each day, a jump rope and small bouncing balls were always enclosed in our book bags to be used at recess. We got plenty of exercise in those days, believe me. "I do not remember a lot of the jingles, but as I read your column one just jumped into my mind. It was a ball bouncing jingle and I laughed as it popped into my head:

"One, two, three, a-lar-ee

My first name is Mary.

Wouldn't I look cute.

In my father's bathing suit."

Meanwhile, Jackie Gow has offered to let me take a look through a book of jump rope rhymes, published in 1948, that she has. It may take a while for me to get to it, but I'll bet some of the rhymes are keepers. We'll see.

Keeping good company?

When Sun Chronicle advertising representative Wayne Chapman stopped in for his Sunday morning breakfast at the Black Bear Cafe several weeks ago, part of his routine when he goes to his summer house in Naples, Maine, the counterman told him: "You left 10 minutes too early yesterday." How's that? Chapman was wondering.

It seems that just after he had finished his coffee the day before, a familiar figure from late night television dropped in at the Black Bear: Ted Koppel. It was an unannounced visit, to the chagrin of the cafe's staff. No one had a camera on hand. "But we're ready for him today."

Chapman wasn't, and had to leave again before Koppel made an expected return visit, where it would seem a flashbulb greeting was awaiting him. There's something to love about these celebrity sightings, and the near-misses, that usually occur around the area in the summer months. The years when then-President Clinton was vacationing on Martha's Vineyard were particularly productive of elbow-brushing with the rich and famous for residents of Sun Chronicle country.

If your travels have yielded any celebrity sightings, please drop us a note.

Of course, I wouldn't be much of a father or an uncle if I neglected to brag about celebrity contacts made by a couple of family members.

My daughter Accacia Flanagan, who makes and sells handmade bicycle racing hats under the Ace Caps brand name, and her associate Hally McGehan, who sells laminated objets, had a couple of Hollywood heavies drop by at a craft fair they were working in Boston's South End. You might say John Malkovich took the cake when he came to browse (he also took one of Hally's business cards; we're still waiting to hear if he calls with an order that will make her rich and famous); Mary Steenburgen iced it when she checked out their goods later in the day.

And niece Heather Flanagan of Warwick, R.I., got even closer to heartthrob Robert Redford - close enough, anyway, to serve him a glass of wine. Redford had picked up an honorary degree at Brown University and Heather was on the catering crew that worked the reception held that day at Brown President Ruth Simmons' house.

MARK FLANAGAN (mflanagan@thesunchronicle.com) is Opinion Page editor of The Sun Chronicle. He can be reached at 508-236-0335. The items in this column previously appeared in his blog, which can be found at thesunchronicle.com.