Marbles

January 13, 2020

Greetings from the circle,

When I was a young boy, I learned there were certain required items one should keep in one’s pocket.  Little boys of this era typically had collections with them to occupy them while waiting for something less interesting to pass. Going to Kmart. Waiting at church, or at an aunt’s house, at the dentist, or any of the long list of places I was forced to go.

And so each morning I would make sure there was an adequate supply of equipment to get through the day.  Truth is, the only time the pockets of my little blue jeans were emptied were when my Mom did the laundry, so ordinarily I had quite an assortment.  Matchbox car.  Coin.  Washer.  A mysterious piece of coral.  Some string.  Something from Bazooka Joe.

And Marbles.  In my earliest years these were the equivalent of a smart phone for filling an idle moment. 

I enjoyed playing with my friends, and whoever else happened to be in the circle.  I was not particularly skilled, so I preferred not to play ‘keepsies’, which is how I lost most of my collection at one time or another.

It was a simple thing to initiate.  Draw a circle in the dirt.  Put your marbles in.  Use your ‘shooter’ to hit the marbles you want.  There are variations but this is the overarching theme.  Once the circle was drawn kids would appear to play.  Some, after they ran home to get their favorite ‘biggie’.

Girls didn’t play marbles; girls played jacks.  That was the universal rule. 

There were steelies, cat’s eyes, aggies, glassies.  I don’t think I knew the names of all of them then, but once in a while I would spot a beautifully whorled choice that made me risk gambling my marbles for a chance to win it.

Most of my marbles came from the Chinese Checkers game at home; small and ordinary.  This was a source of irritation to my parents who hoped for greater things from me than groveling in the gravel with other boys who couldn’t grasp strategy beyond ‘knuckling down’.

Some of my friends had bags they kept their marbles in.  Those with the largest collections would use the velvet Crown Royale bag their dad had given them.  Some used lunch bags or an errant sock.

I relied on the Gold Mine bubble gum company.  The gum, which appeared to be small chunks of gold, came in a small cloth bag cinched with a fragile string.  Almost perfect for my little collection.

Marbles were not welcome everywhere.  For example, if you left a few in the living room carpet for your Dad to step on in his stocking feet.  Or, if you dropped one during mass at St. Matt’s and it rolled under the kneeler and you had to crawl under the pew in front of you to get it, and your Mom said she was going to give you ‘what for’ later.

Playing marbles was an easy way to meet other kids, in a casual competition arena.  Although, I do remember a few games that devolved into wrestling, which only makes sense, what with being on the ground already.  It was a low risk game, unless you put marbles in your mouth.

I remember when I was a young man, I went into a craft store for some reason and there they had barrels of marbles.  You could get a hundred for a dollar.  The little boy in me was astounded.   What?  How could it be that only $1 separated me from all this treasure?

In time I graduated to other more sophisticated distractions.  Yo-yo.  Harmonica.  Mumbly peg. Comic books of course.  And, in time, girls.  But there is something visceral about the click of marbles, and that strange vibration of glass on glass, a little song that is only held in marbles.  If you haven’t heard it lately, I recommend it.

Hope this finds you with a bumboozer,

David

Copyright © 2019 David Smith