Reminiscing about childhood from Chuck Yeager: I was pretty good as a kid at playing marbles and when I went off to war, I had amassed, by winning, about 2000, (cleaned out the town) which I gave to my kid brother, Hal, Jr.
Hal enjoyed the reminiscing and remembers it a little differently: “Well, I don’t know about cleaning out the town, as we all were pretty fair marble shooters..both “ring & box or square”. (Definitions for marble neophytes are below). But remember this was 72 years ago.”
Of course, Hal was 8 when I left for war.
Hal continued: “Mom used to get on us for wearing out the knee’s of our pants…and our knuckles were always rough or splitting from being on the ground so much, some of the boys used a little patch of sheepskin to put their knuckles on – (sissies)
“Later on I added what I had to the canvas bag…and used some of them as ammo for my slingshot, shooting birds (especially cat-birds) squirrels or anything else that flew or moved in the woods. Another use was at night taking a hand full of ‘em and throwing them up in the air and letting them come down on the tin roofs of a few houses in Hamlin…it did make a racket…
“Everyone had a favorite taul they used to shoot with….I still have mine after all these years kind of pitted from using it so much, they were just a little bigger than the standard marble. There was also a bigger marble we called a “breadroller” that was used as a taul. We also used “steelies”.
Another thing would happen is when someone would hollar (West Virginian for “holler”) squabbles…the big boys always won on this one.
“Box” was about a foot square that was drawn on the ground that you put your marbles in to start the game.. You would do something, (like roll a marble toward a line)…who ever got the closes shot first…the object of the game was to knock the marbles out of the box w/o leaving your taul in the box. if you “stuck” as it was called you lost your turn and the next guy shot.
You kept the marbles you knocked out of the box, hopefully more than you put in to start the game.
“Ring”, you drew a ring on the ground about 3 foot across, put in you marbles, they were placed in a plus shape, the object of this game was to stay in the circle while knocking the other marbles out…it was called making your taul (stick) where it hit the other marble in the circle, knocking it out.. a small steelie was very good for this taul.
“Squabbles” Someone would yell “squabbles”, and everyone would try and grab any marbles in the BOX or RING, regardless who they belong to, this was normally done by the older (bigger) boys. See Below also
“Breadroller” As noted below, the breadroller was just the nickname for a larger marble, about 3/4 to 1″ that was used as a taul…(bigger taul easier to hit smaller regular size marbles) and not stick in the box or ring.
There was also a term called ….crowhop… this was when a guy would move his hand forward as he shot…making the distance shorter….a NO NO !!! Hope this helps more than confuses…….”
I also remembered:
“Steelie” – was a steel taul
Purgatory – hole side of hill, tried to shoot your marble in it.
We had a lot of fun as kids without any money. And it sure helped in life – being able to aim, hit the target, learning strategy…
Wonder if anyone still plays?
c. GCYI