It all
started with an e mail from my old Air Force buddy – Paul Crawford -- who lives
in Colorado. He is retired, just like
me. We sometimes have time on our hands
and began to dream up things to occupy our minds. Well, somehow the story of a little town in
the Colorado mountains got to be the subject of our electronic conversation. The town is called “Marble.” It has that name because in its heyday it
quarried marble stone slabs from its hills and made a nice profit. The Lincoln Memorial is made from Marble
quarried marble. But, it seems, the
marble business was not able to keep the little town going and it was headed
for ghosthood .
And so,
more recently, the town was revitalized with the purchase of the marble quarry.
So, there is now an influx of funds and
the modernization of the machinery and the resurgence of its industry – the
sale of marble. Marble even boasts
workshops in sculpting, nowadays. Things
are really moving in this little Colorado mountain town.
This
little factoid prompted all sorts of inquiries – the looking up of web sites –
the reading of articles -- all in the quest of more information about
marble. This often happens when -- in the face of boredom – one has an active
and intelligent mind and one has too much time in a given day on one’s hands.
Well –
one of us – I don’t remember just which one – happened to ask the obvious
question – “Are marbles made of marble?”
And that opened the flood gates.
We had to know more about marble and marbles.
We
concluded that marbles are a fraud. They
are not made of marble at all – but are probably glass – poured into a mold
with some colors added and – bingo – marbles that look like marble.
Now Paul
and I could not leave that factoid alone.
We needed to know more about those little critters. Back to the computer. Websites were sought – articles were read and
memories were dug into. As I recall from
my life in rural Indiana – growing up in a small town – at some age, all little
boys had in their possession, their bag of marbles, probably hooked to his belt
and guarded with his life. This
collection consisted of quite a number of small “playing” marbles. Some, I recall, were called “aggies” and were
more valuable. These were used to play the game – they were expendable. But also in the bag was at least one or more
“shooters.” These were prized
possessions and were sometimes traded with friends like gold coins. They were much larger and used to shoot at
the other guy’s marbles during the game. The play commenced after a circle was drawn in
the dirt with a stick and marbles were put in the circle. The shooter was flipped with the knuckles
down on the ground – the object being to knock the opponent’s marbles out of
the ring with one shot. Once that was done – the marbles were yours. The rules were mostly made up on the spot but
that is the gist.
I don’t
actually recall my age when this game was played – but certainly elementary
school. I don’t remember any girls
playing, so this was, doubtless, during
the “pre girl” stage in a young boy’s life.
Boys played marbles. Girls played “Jacks.”
Paul and
I learned, through our research, that a version of this game was played many
centuries ago in biblical times. Marbles
were made of clay, or alabaster and even fine jewels. The question is – do boys play marbles these
days? I doubt it. This is actually a gambling game. There are losers in this game and we can’t
have that can we? I don’t know what
happened to my marble bag. I guess I
just lost my marbles…
From the
heart of Olaf Hart ….
