I am on the road and am way behind on posts—I have a 3,500 word article on deriving Oughts from Is’s in the works—so in the spirit of summer, where I am assured temperatures will at last crack 70, maybe even this weekend, in Michigan (though I usually don’t give weight to such rumors), here is a classic post on marbles which originally ran
This brought back memories of my days in grade school growing up in the UP. every kid had a bag of marbles and "steelies" (ball bearings) were played at the players discretion. I and a couple other kids discovered an empty lot next to a repair shop where they discarded anything metal. That included ball bearings. We scrounged those and beat them, pounded them and pryed them until we released those "steelies". We became a sort of marble mafioso since the goal was to accumulate as large an amount of marbles possible ("all the marbles"). We didn't have to play them, we carefully hid our supply in a pocket and only produced one occasionally to trade it for as many marbles as we could. We amassed large collections but only rarely played. In our little isolated world cats eyes were highly prized. Most of the marble playing took place on the school grounds before and after school or during recess. I don't recall ever playing anywhere else.
I grew up in the aftermath of marbles. We all had them. Marbles were still sold in stores and given as gifts. We just never learned the game. It'd been lost to the culture. We'd seen it depicted in TV shows and the occasional old movie, but it was not the culture of our time.
A pity, that.
Thank you for explaining the game to me. I never knew the details. My father did; apparently, it never occurred to him to show us how to play.
My Third grade teacher gave me a bag of marbles one day, out of the blue. I shall never forget her kindness. I went to work the next recess expropriating all the other boys assets.
You have opened up a store of memories. When I was an army brat in Germany (1958-61), the boys would break out their marbles every Spring and go at it hammer and tongs. We played marbles with the circle but also a game where you shot the marbles through a course of shallow holes dug in the ground (I want to say we called it pots). Puries were valued highly (clear marbles), cat's eyes were the norm and "krauties" (German marbles made of clay) were scorned. The best players cleaned out their inferiors regularly. It was ever thus.
I still have a beautiful clear, colourless, fried marble I purchased at the Farmers' Market as a child. Yes, fried - carefully so that the glass fractures interiorly but doesn't crack apart. We did have steelies; don't know if they were bona fide as they were just sizeable ball bearings that we scarfed from my father's workbench.
As a child of the 70s and 80s, growing up in rural Virginia, marbles had just gone out of fashion. I inherited some from my uncle, but never found anyone to play against, and the rules were a mystery to me. Thanks for sharing these memories.
Great memories. To flick the marble we'd cradle it in the crook of the index finger and flick with the thumb. One version of the game was "Gutters" where you'd flick your marble along the u-shaped gutters at school to smack another marble over the edge. Steelies not allowed ever. The bigger marbles were called Tom-bowlers.
In my neighborhood, steelies we're king, but the most prized were the "bumble bees", those glorious black and yellow jems. Only the most daring would risk one!
Anyone remember Tough kid pants? They had some kind of knee armor built in. Of course I burned through those in about a month. Marbles and Army men kept Sears in the pant business.
Great memories of shooting marbles and throwing tops. Thanks for sharing.
Some enterprising young movie maker should make a movie about this part of our childhood in the 50’s and 60’s. It would be as great as “Sandlot”. I can envision it now. 😁😁
This brought back memories of my days in grade school growing up in the UP. every kid had a bag of marbles and "steelies" (ball bearings) were played at the players discretion. I and a couple other kids discovered an empty lot next to a repair shop where they discarded anything metal. That included ball bearings. We scrounged those and beat them, pounded them and pryed them until we released those "steelies". We became a sort of marble mafioso since the goal was to accumulate as large an amount of marbles possible ("all the marbles"). We didn't have to play them, we carefully hid our supply in a pocket and only produced one occasionally to trade it for as many marbles as we could. We amassed large collections but only rarely played. In our little isolated world cats eyes were highly prized. Most of the marble playing took place on the school grounds before and after school or during recess. I don't recall ever playing anywhere else.
Thanks for the memories, Briggs!
I grew up in the aftermath of marbles. We all had them. Marbles were still sold in stores and given as gifts. We just never learned the game. It'd been lost to the culture. We'd seen it depicted in TV shows and the occasional old movie, but it was not the culture of our time.
A pity, that.
Thank you for explaining the game to me. I never knew the details. My father did; apparently, it never occurred to him to show us how to play.
A splendid post.
Thank you.
My Third grade teacher gave me a bag of marbles one day, out of the blue. I shall never forget her kindness. I went to work the next recess expropriating all the other boys assets.
You have opened up a store of memories. When I was an army brat in Germany (1958-61), the boys would break out their marbles every Spring and go at it hammer and tongs. We played marbles with the circle but also a game where you shot the marbles through a course of shallow holes dug in the ground (I want to say we called it pots). Puries were valued highly (clear marbles), cat's eyes were the norm and "krauties" (German marbles made of clay) were scorned. The best players cleaned out their inferiors regularly. It was ever thus.
Loved marbles as a kid. Same with chestnuts. Fun piece of nostalgia.
I played marbles all the time in 1960's. I don't recall what happened to them.
I still have a beautiful clear, colourless, fried marble I purchased at the Farmers' Market as a child. Yes, fried - carefully so that the glass fractures interiorly but doesn't crack apart. We did have steelies; don't know if they were bona fide as they were just sizeable ball bearings that we scarfed from my father's workbench.
Your charming story of marbles reminded me of the gumball / immigration comparison.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPjzfGChGlE
As a child of the 70s and 80s, growing up in rural Virginia, marbles had just gone out of fashion. I inherited some from my uncle, but never found anyone to play against, and the rules were a mystery to me. Thanks for sharing these memories.
Great memories. To flick the marble we'd cradle it in the crook of the index finger and flick with the thumb. One version of the game was "Gutters" where you'd flick your marble along the u-shaped gutters at school to smack another marble over the edge. Steelies not allowed ever. The bigger marbles were called Tom-bowlers.
Best projectiles for a wrist rocket.
In my neighborhood, steelies we're king, but the most prized were the "bumble bees", those glorious black and yellow jems. Only the most daring would risk one!
Anyone remember Tough kid pants? They had some kind of knee armor built in. Of course I burned through those in about a month. Marbles and Army men kept Sears in the pant business.
Great memories of shooting marbles and throwing tops. Thanks for sharing.
Some enterprising young movie maker should make a movie about this part of our childhood in the 50’s and 60’s. It would be as great as “Sandlot”. I can envision it now. 😁😁