Marbles

Going home with all of the marbles sounds good.  Losing your marbles is a fate to be avoided.  If, however, you only lose your Pee Wees and keep your Shooters or Boulders, you still have something in the bag.

On summer days in Fisher, my brother, a couple of second cousins, two neighbor boys and I would draw a circle in the dirt big enough for six young boys to have room to shoot.  We each had to contribute some Pee Wees or Targets to the center of the ring before the game could start.

Each of us carried a drawstring pouch usually made of light canvas or burlap.  Ours were home-made by Aunt Jessie on her treadle Singer while we impatiently watched the process of threading, stitching, filling the bobbin, and clipping the last stitch.  Gerry’s and mine were made from different colors of material left over from some prior project.  Aunt J always took care to make sure the material was manly - not frilly remnants from a lady’s dress or kitchen curtains.  The drawstring was a doubled up piece of string threaded through the hem at the top with a knot tied at each end.  A marble pouch!

When a boy decided which possessions would need the most secure protection, the marble pouch was right up there with pennies flattened on the railroad tracks by a roaring locomotive.  Just as in the Middle Ages, this pouch held currency - it amounted to a fair representation of economic net worth among the community.  These communities were made up of kids who spent summers in small towns or cities anywhere across the country and glad to be out of school.  

Let the game begin.  Everyone had a favorite Shooter.  It was the one that was sure to run straight and true when a boy knuckled-down and let it roll.  A Shooter was the most highly valued marble in a boy’s pouch and everyone else’s Shooter was the highest prize they sought to capture in each spirited game.  Turns were taken and marbles were knocked out of the circle.  They were quickly stashed in the winner’s pouch.  When a Shooter got stranded in the circle, it drew attention from each boy in turn until the prize was captured or its owner’s turn came around again which brought back his grin.

Game after game would be played - often until every boy was summoned to dinner or to do the chores he had skipped earlier in the day.  By the end some pouches had more marbles than when the day started and one or two of us had to start sorting through our stash to pick a new shooter.  Cat-eye boulders or Agates were the shooters of choice because they were bigger and could knock those targets further.  But choosing a shooter was like a pitcher feeling the seams of a new baseball, a shooter had to fit your hand and your style in order for it to become number one.

The highest high was going home with all the marbles.  The lowest low was to have lost your Shooter or your pouch was nearing empty.

Without the game of marbles and all of its made-up rules invented by its youthful players, our language would be greatly weakened.  We'd have missed an important way to describe the elation of success or the despair of loss.  We wouldn’t have "knuckling down" to teach that being focused will lead to a better result than luck.  The visceral metaphor - of a pouch that was nearly empty and the only remaining Shooter was chipped and worn, and yet, every eight year old knew he was still in the game - would never have entered our lexicon.  

When nearly every parent tells a child that “life’s not fair,” he could also say that the rules you make tell what you think of fairness - whether "fair" means to gain an advantage or to level the field for everyone.  The outcome in marbles does not depend on better equipment nor a home field advantage.  Innate ability and practice do influence the outcome - things every player must consider.  There will always be other players who are more and less gifted but the amount of practice is a choice.

When I watch kids play Wii games or Xbox or Nintendo DS, I wonder what words will slip into common use and will help them, as parents, vividly describe important lessons learned.  Their games, and other experiences, will provide context for their adult lives and give them the poignant reminders when they stray from timeless truths.  I hope they will learn what marbles taught that bunch of boys in Fisher.

Now, I no longer aspire to take all the marbles home but I would like to stave off losing all my marbles for a little bit longer.  I know I'm still in the game because I kept my favorite Shooter!

--td