I saw this on Sunday Morning! https://www.cbsnews.com/video/rolley-hole-the-super-bowl-of-marbles/
They said it's kind of a version of Croquet. Is that a rough clay surface? I like all those old games.
I remember finding marbles as a kid, always playing in the dirt! I read a long time ago about how they spun a roundish pebble in a dent in the rocks of a streambed to make a sphere.
They showed handmade ones made of slate!
I remember playing marbles as a kid. I had no idea it was popular with adults.
As a grade 4ish - 7ish student (?) we played marbles at school. http://www.mhs.mb.ca/docs/sites/makaroffschool.shtml ...Only in the spring and boys only, as I recall [...sexist pigs in training??]. Fwiw, I was closer to the bottom of the heap than the top.
On one of the northern reserves where we taught some of the guys played "washers." I didn't pay enough attention, but they probably used a divot in the dirt [as mentioned in this article https://elakaioutdoor.com/blogs/lifestyle/how-to-play-washer-toss-game ] rather than a box target, and I suspect the washers were whatever 3/4" ID X 2"OD ones the maintenance shop had on hand.
Edited by - Owen on 01/17/2023 08:28:11
I saw that and I think it is a neat game. We played marbles as a kid, but we would make a ring in the dirt and each player put so many marbles in the ring and you would shoot your marble (shooter) and try and knock the other marbles out of the ring.
Kentuckians also play croquet on dirt. A few years back some older Kentucky croquet players went to New York and won the National Championship, beating all of these snooty dudes from these exclusive croquet clubs in the northeast. That is a very interesting story on it a few years back in Garden and Gun magazine.
As kids we played marbles. And also Jack’s both games mostly at school. I also remember the game where we stood hands together fingertip to fingertip and the aim was to land a lightning-fast stinging slap to the back of your opponents hand. Lots of twitching and feinting involved.
At home shove ha’penny was the game of choice. I practiced for days on end so I could beat my dad. I still worry I may pay the price for that time spent, by succumbing in my old age to chalk dust-based pneumoconiosis.
Probably the most absurd and useless skill I’ve acquired in my lifetime.
Edited by - quartertoner on 01/17/2023 08:47:03
I lost my marbles a long time ago!!!
Slammer!!!
On the show Barnwood Builders they tear down cool old cabins & rebuild & repupose them & show a lot of the old ways of doing things in those days. They are always finding old marbles. They visited a guy that made marbles on the show.
We used to play Croquet but mostly on flat lawns. I partied at a limestone cottage on an island in cottage country & they had a built in course! Up & down hills & a bridge over a brook.
If I had an acreage I would love to set up a spot for Clock Golf. I have grown a few lawns & Terry used to be a groundskeeper at a local golf course.
On the subject of home entertainment am I an oddity in that I've never played a computer game? Ever.
Way back when I was 10 years old I went down with chicken pox, to cheer me up my dad brought a big orange console home to play ping-pong that we connected to the TV screen. That brief go on that out-of-the-ark 'technology' is the full extent of my electronic gaming.
I figure I must be a freak. Just wondering if there are other non-gaming freaks lurking here? 
Edited by - quartertoner on 01/18/2023 04:23:25
quote:
Originally posted by quartertonerOn the subject of home entertainment am I an oddity in that I've never played a computer game? Ever.
Way back when I was 10 years old I went down with chicken pox, to cheer me up my dad brought a big orange console home to play ping-pong that we connected to the TV screen. That brief go on that out-of-the-ark 'technology' is the full extent of my electronic gaming.
I figure I must be a freak. Just wondering if there are other non-gaming freaks lurking here?
Non gamer here..
But i did put a quarter in a game called ..space invaders..
N..i really did like pinball..
I also recall playing marbles with my friends - also playing "for keeps" I was always careful not to put my most prized marbles in the circle.
My grandmother was the bomb when it came to croquet. She would get a game at family gatherings and spank all of us. Being from WV I have no idea how she got so good at it cuz there was no flat ground where she was from.
I went through a video game phase back in my teens. There was an arcade at the local pool so we would go in there during the mandatory rest periods. I think they had Tron, Galaga, PacMan, Tempest and Frogger.
Among other things, I collect marbles ..... mostly handmade German and American made large marble ...... not the machine made ones that we played with as kids, although I do have a lot of them. Just the other day I was going through my drawer and found an old marble shooter. It is a thin metal cylinder about 2 1/2" long and a diameter just larger than a standard size marble. It has a spring in it and a little tab that you compress the spring with to allow you to shoot the marble. The games we played you only used your thumb. We had never seen these shooters, but guess they would have been deemed illegal in our games.
quote:
Originally posted by Mad HornetI also recall playing marbles with my friends - also playing "for keeps" I was always careful not to put my most prized marbles in the circle.
My grandmother was the bomb when it came to croquet. She would get a game at family gatherings and spank all of us. Being from WV I have no idea how she got so good at it cuz there was no flat ground where she was from.
I went through a video game phase back in my teens. There was an arcade at the local pool so we would go in there during the mandatory rest periods. I think they had Tron, Galaga, PacMan, Tempest and Frogger.
Anthony, not sure you are aware, but many of the machine made marbles that we played with as kids were made in West Virginia ...... many in the Clarksburg area.
