| Our maternal grandmother, "Arlie" (how's that for a moniker), was very good on her sewing machine, as all "Depression Era" mothers were. She used to make us outfits, etc. When Tim and I grew up in the 1950's, marbles were very popular. We used to play at school at every recess. The penalty for losing a game was the other guy's marble and Tim got very good at winning a lot of other guy's marbles. As a result, he amassed a great number of marbles! We also had a few "steelies" which were very much sought after. "Steelies" were actually steel ball bearings and everyone wanted to play with a kid with a steelie in the game since having one or many instantly bestowed "coolness" on the owner. We also accasionally had "biggies", which were the larger size of marble and only rarely played marbles with "all biggies". However, to posses a "Steelie Biggie" was the ultimate in "coolness" since these were very rare and constantly sought after since they were the "Holy Grail" of marbles! The "store-bought" marble bags were usually too small for all of our huge marble collections so one day our grandmother Arlie surprised each of us with our very own super-size custom made marble bags with a draw string top and our names on them! They were custom made on her sewing machine! We would proudly strut around school showing off our custom-made marble bags! We took on all wanna-be marble players, thinking our custom marble bags somehow bestowed some kind of super power on us. A typical game would start out with someone "throwing out", followed by each one taking turns with the first one hitting the other marble being the winner of both the game and the marble! Since most "throw outs" could be around 30 feet or more, the games could last quite a awhile. Of course, if you had a "steelie", EVERYONE wanted to play you! Some of the other rules included if you were within a certain distance of the other marble (I forgot how far), you could call "Eye drops", which meant you could drop your marble at STANDING eye level directly over the opponent's marble. This rule was rarely used since if you didn't hit the opponet's marble, you risked having your marble very close to his, thus resulting in an easy hit and loss of your marble. Experienced players NEVER called "Eye drops" in sand, but only on hard concrete surfaces so if you missed, hopefully your marble would bounce and roll a good distance away. One day, while wielding our omnipresent custom made super sized marble bags, Tim and I boarded the school bus and took our usual coveted spot in the back seat. Since we were first on and last off the bus, we always sat there. As the bus was cruising down the road between pick ups, Tim had his bursting at the seams marble bag sitting on his lap and wide opened as he was checking over his marbles. Just then the bus driver slammed on the brakes (probably due to a dog trying to chase the bus and cutting in front of it). Due to the sudden inertia, the opened marble bag shot forward and all his marbles rapidly rolled and bounced on the floor to the very front of the bus! It took a long time to gather all of them up after we finally got to school. He never was sure that he recovered all of them since, no doubt, several marble-playing kids grabbed as many as they could. That was no big deal, EXCEPT he was missing some precious "STEELIES"! Alas... the insurmountable problems of childhood! |
