Marbles

When the snow began to melt away from the streets, and puddles appeared everywhere, particularly along our dirt sidewalks, the kid population turned out to drain it away. It was probably more from just wanting to see something moving after living in a petrified, white landscape that motivated us, as opposed to a desire to get rid of the snow. Much shoe rubber was worn away as we became hydrological engineers, dredging systems of canals, of which the Dutch would have been proud.
This time of year also brought out the first sport of spring: marbles. Bags of them would be brought out from wherever they had been stored since the previous spring, and playgrounds, vacant lots and unpaved walkways took on the appearance of a prairie dog village, for we did not play the game in which they were knocked out of a ring. We had no good pavement for that, and so we pitched them into holes.
The great game of marbles had its own set of rules varying from playground to playground, street to street, and had its own economy and language.
There was, for starters, the tools of the trade. They were works of art, multicolored swirls of various colored glass beads, more commonly called “alleys or aggies.” The older folk also referred to them as “glassies,” to distinguish them from the semi-round clay pellets of our parents’ days. Some of us even had a few of them hidden in our bounty. “Cats-eyes” came along later, clear glass with a colored plastic center, which did indeed look like the namesake. Then there were “croakers,” much larger and heavier. Many of the kids, whose fathers worked in the shipyard used ball bearings that were liberated from The Yard as a substitute.
All of these would be carried in a sack or an old sock. My mother had made me a corduroy bag with little felt marbles appliquéd on it. One enterprising soul carried a khaki bag, which turned out to be a personal effects bag from his father’s WWII service. Its purpose had been to carry the most personal items of a wounded man, such as wallet and toothbrush, around his neck during his evacuation.
In the language of the game, the terms all ended with the suffix “ies.” For example, you could play for “funsies” or “keepsies,” the latter being our introduction to playing for loss, gain, or being hustled. Playing “funsies” was for the very small and wimps, or if your current supply was way down.
At the beginning of each game, when the hole had been bored out with someone’s heel, and a shooting line had been scraped in the mud, the economy of the game kicked in with a determination as to the scale of the game. One could play for “onesies” or “twosies” in which case each player would pitch one or two marbles. A croaker could be pitched at a value of, say, one equating to three alleys. You see, we were learning the rudiments of currency exchange. High stakes games might include “tensies” or “twelvesies.”
The next formality to be decided was whether to play “nothingsies” or “everythingsies.” With the former, only the crooked index finger could be used to shoot a marble. Under the latter, there were various moves that could be used to move a marble: “Shovesies” was for anything less than three foot lengths from the hole and the only move allowed in “nothingsies.” A “picksie” was for a marble three foot lengths, but less than five from the hole. That required picking the marble slightly off the ground and arcing it towards the hole. Beyond five foot lengths, a “bootsie” was allowed. That allowed the player to place the side of his foot against the marble and swing his other foot against it, propelling it toward the hole.
The first shooter was chosen by the scientific method of “eeny, meeny, miney, moe.” He or she pitched the marbles towards the hole with the intent of sinking them all. After each had shot, the person with the most marbles in the hole attempted to sink the rest by the above methods. He shot until he missed, and then the second person, the one who had placed second after the initial shots had his chance. The last person to sink the final marble, won the pot.
Little fingers resembled raw beef as the games progressed in the cold mud. Mothers must have dreaded laundry day as well.
At Longfellow School, this blatant form of gambling, hustling and extortion was tolerated so long as the marbles weren’t brought out during class. Marble bags had to be kept in your desk or closet, or be subject to confiscation. Some of those teachers had to have marble collections that would need a vault like Scrooge McDuck’s. There was a fantasy of Miss Ridley or Mrs. Stevens rolling around in a swimming pool of them. (Wait, we were little and innocent: they were clothed.) We often wondered what happened to all those marbles. Did the teachers have a secret tournament after we left?
The odd thing is, after the ground dried, became warmer and more conducive to actually playing the game, the marble bags all disappeared until the next season.
Marbles were fun. Sadly, I can’t imagine a school allowing it today. How will today’s kids learn about international finance without them?