Down and Dirty

      More Letters From Paradise
          Down and Dirty
When I was a boy we played a game called "Marbles." We didn't invent the game, and I am sure that some sort of a game played by boys in the dirt with marbles, has been played for centuries,if not thousands of years.

All the equipment we needed was a stick, a smooth patch of dirt, and a bag of marbles. Using the stick a circle was drawn in the dirt, and each boy would put an equal number of marbles deep inside the circle. The object of the game was to hit the marbles out of the the circle and  became the property of the shooter. Each boy had a large size marble or boulder which was his shooter. The boy whose turn it was, kneeled in the dirt and took aim. The shooter was driven by the thumb of your hand and released by the index finger. Just like releasing a spring. It was a game that even poor boys could play.

I doubt that this game is played by boys today. Technology sometimes kills even simple fun. I record this game so that it will be remembered, and not lost to the dust of history.

     Aloha
     Grant