Some time back, when going through a closet, I found an old Chinese Checker game board made of plastic. It was in pretty sad shape and since Emily sometimes likes to play Chinese Checkers, I made a new board out of wood. I built a drawer into the board to keep the marbles. In case anyone doesn’t know, Chinese Checkers is played with marbles. Each player needs 10 marbles of the same color.
We had some marbles from an old game and we bought some at a local general store.
This got me to thinking about marbles. When I was growing up, any self-respecting boy had a marble collection. In grade school, during any recess, the playground was full of kids (mostly boys, if I remember) playing various marble games.
I would never have thought of going to school without some marbles in my pocket. I suppose it would be considered gambling these days, but we usually played for “keeps.” That basically meant that if you knocked (“shot”) someone else’s marble out of the ring, you got to keep it.
I can’t remember the last time I saw kids playing marbles… a lot of games we used to play, such as marbles are considered old fashioned by many people these days. Many schools don’t allow children to bring their toys from home anymore, so that would include marbles. I guess the fear is that some younger children might swallow a marble and choke…. so — they’re no longer allowed at school. It also seems that recess is more supervised that it was when I was little, so marbles probably aren’t one of the “approved” activities. But time moves on and some things, like marbles, are just left behind due to progress.
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