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MEMORIES OF A MARBLE COLLECTOR IN THE 40'S
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Edging toward ninety posts since the inception of MIL'S PLACE, March 29, 2011, we (my editor and I) have attempted to write a wide variety of posts, weighted heavily toward things American; and historical posts about little kids growing up in the 30's, 40's, and 50's in our hometown of Clovis, N.M.
We have nostalgically remembered the WWII days. We have talked of eating watermelons,Coney Island hot dogs...of sitting on front lawns at night in the summertime, talking and viewing the star-filled heavens. We have talked about the old Saturday movie matinees at the Lyceum Theater, about working on the farm, driving wheat trucks, shocking feed; and about beloved teachers, shop class and Spanish class, being arrested after the school play...and on and on...
In the post "CLOVIS
Then I found it several days ago in my files---a story about MARBLES, written by "Country Boy Bob," December 19, 2008, long before I thought of writing posts. Bob, a dear friend (of seventy-two years and a childhood playmate), loves theU.S.A. , loves Clovis
I am proud to present his story here. Sit back and just marvel. (Used with his permission.)
BOB'S STORY: "Mil, I decided to give my son and grandson a pint of my marbles. Some of them were special and I thought you might enjoy reading what I wrote to my son. I am sure there are some mistakes in my explanation but it is the way I remember it."
To his son: Hope that you enjoy a few of the marbles from my childhood collection. The marbles in the bag came from a grade school "fair," which was some kind of a fund-raiser. Each room had a booth of some sort and my Mother, being a homeroom mother had to go early to work on my room's booth. Since we were there early and no one else was in the gym, I had the opportunity to look at the other booths as well as their prizes.
Well, one booth was simply prizes, each tied to strings and the strings were pulled over a
kind of tall board, and you would pay only ten cents to pull a string and you would get the prize on the other end! Well, voila! There were two bags of marbles I spied under the covered booth! After much thought, I quickly decided: If I would follow that string out over the board and tie an ever-so-small-knot on the end of that string, I could have those marbles! So I did! I asked Mother for two dimes to spend at the fair and after all... it was for a good cause!
Well, the marbles in your bag are some of the marbles from that grade school fair. They were big bags! This happened in '44 or '45, toward the end of the war.
There are two "Beningtons." When I was a boy we called them "crock" marbles. My Dad said that was the kind of marbles that he played with. They say that true Beningtons must have eyes or round spots on them, which was caused by lying on or against another marble when it was being fired. Most of them were made inBenington , Vermont
I put a couple of my shooters in---we called them "TAWS." You can tell which ones they were because they are broken or chipped---caused by hitting other marbles. In some games like "Chase,"which is what we called it, you would not use your good taws, because if your opponent hits your marble, he gets to keep it. You never want to lose your good taw!
There are also a couple of "steelies," ( bearing-balls from some auto or truck bearing) You always needed a steely for certain situations. As I remember it---if you were playing "Bull Ring" and you shot and your taw stuck in the ring---you had to leave it in the ring---unless you hollered out "changes." If you hollered first, you got to change your taw with another marble. and that is where your steely came in. No one could knock your steely out of the ring! I don't remember what ended the game under those circumstances...probably a FIGHT!
Another marble is my Agate! Agates were made from semi-precious stones. Looking at the agate you will notice either moons or half moons. This occurs every time you hit another marble.. As a boy, I learned that if you would soak the agate in lard or grease, those moons would go away! (What I would do is go into the kitchen when Mother wasn't looking and drop my marble right into her bacon grease container and push it to the bottom so she couldn't see it.) After it had sat in that bacon grease container overnight, I'd recover it, and polish it! What a beautiful marble! I imagine that bacon grease was a little tainted from my marble...but it didn't make us sick!
That big white marble is an Agate. Nanny had it made for me around 1985-90. She had the rock that came from her dad's farm at May,Texas
MEMORIES OF A MARBLE COLLECTOR IN THE 40'S
*******************************************************************
Edging toward ninety posts since the inception of MIL'S PLACE, March 29, 2011, we (my editor and I) have attempted to write a wide variety of posts, weighted heavily toward things American; and historical posts about little kids growing up in the 30's, 40's, and 50's in our hometown of Clovis, N.M.
We have nostalgically remembered the WWII days. We have talked of eating watermelons,
In the post "
Then I found it several days ago in my files---a story about MARBLES, written by "Country Boy Bob," December 19, 2008, long before I thought of writing posts. Bob, a dear friend (of seventy-two years and a childhood playmate), loves the
I am proud to present his story here. Sit back and just marvel. (Used with his permission.)
BOB'S STORY: "Mil, I decided to give my son and grandson a pint of my marbles. Some of them were special and I thought you might enjoy reading what I wrote to my son. I am sure there are some mistakes in my explanation but it is the way I remember it."
To his son: Hope that you enjoy a few of the marbles from my childhood collection. The marbles in the bag came from a grade school "fair," which was some kind of a fund-raiser. Each room had a booth of some sort and my Mother, being a homeroom mother had to go early to work on my room's booth. Since we were there early and no one else was in the gym, I had the opportunity to look at the other booths as well as their prizes.
Well, one booth was simply prizes, each tied to strings and the strings were pulled over a
kind of tall board, and you would pay only ten cents to pull a string and you would get the prize on the other end! Well, voila! There were two bags of marbles I spied under the covered booth! After much thought, I quickly decided: If I would follow that string out over the board and tie an ever-so-small-knot on the end of that string, I could have those marbles! So I did! I asked Mother for two dimes to spend at the fair and after all... it was for a good cause!
Well, the marbles in your bag are some of the marbles from that grade school fair. They were big bags! This happened in '44 or '45, toward the end of the war.
There are two "Beningtons." When I was a boy we called them "crock" marbles. My Dad said that was the kind of marbles that he played with. They say that true Beningtons must have eyes or round spots on them, which was caused by lying on or against another marble when it was being fired. Most of them were made in
I put a couple of my shooters in---we called them "TAWS." You can tell which ones they were because they are broken or chipped---caused by hitting other marbles. In some games like "Chase,"which is what we called it, you would not use your good taws, because if your opponent hits your marble, he gets to keep it. You never want to lose your good taw!
There are also a couple of "steelies," ( bearing-balls from some auto or truck bearing) You always needed a steely for certain situations. As I remember it---if you were playing "Bull Ring" and you shot and your taw stuck in the ring---you had to leave it in the ring---unless you hollered out "changes." If you hollered first, you got to change your taw with another marble. and that is where your steely came in. No one could knock your steely out of the ring! I don't remember what ended the game under those circumstances...probably a FIGHT!
Another marble is my Agate! Agates were made from semi-precious stones. Looking at the agate you will notice either moons or half moons. This occurs every time you hit another marble.. As a boy, I learned that if you would soak the agate in lard or grease, those moons would go away! (What I would do is go into the kitchen when Mother wasn't looking and drop my marble right into her bacon grease container and push it to the bottom so she couldn't see it.) After it had sat in that bacon grease container overnight, I'd recover it, and polish it! What a beautiful marble! I imagine that bacon grease was a little tainted from my marble...but it didn't make us sick!
That big white marble is an Agate. Nanny had it made for me around 1985-90. She had the rock that came from her dad's farm at May,
The next item is a brass "steelie" (I guess that is what you would call it). It was a bottom check from Pappy's ranch's windmill. He told us that they made them out of brass because brass wouldn't rust from being constantly immersed in water. They used them in he bottom of the cylinder and on the upstroke of the windmill the ball would come up, allowing water in the cylinder, and on the downstroke the ball would settle to the seat and not allow water back into the ground. Extra precaution was taken to cover the top of the casing around the sucker rod to prevent birds from dropping twigs into the casing. If something got under the bottom check---you had to pull 300 feet of sicker rod and even possibly the whole casing (pipe).
There are three clay marbles. I am not sure where they came from, but I believe they were produced before 1900.
The rest of the marbles were just old marbles that I accumulated when I was a boy. I should say that 98% of my marble collection came from the 1940's! And I am sure that the whole mess is worth about $20.00, but it demonstrates the dreams of a small boy who was raised in the midst of a World War, and in a family of meager means, who knew how to work hard and love and trust God.
I ended up with around 2,200 marbles. Many I purchased when I was a boy, and many I won by playing "KEEPS!"
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By Mil,
By Mil,
& Bob Snipes
7/17/12
(Note, in the photo below, Mil is the tallest and Bob is on the viewer's right.)
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