Red Vines & Tea Weeds Delta life in the 50s Thanks to Raymond Reynolds for jarring my memory. There were two things I could never do at recess. Shoot marbles and play leap frog.. I swear all those Morris boys could run and jump. I think they ate bullfrogs for breakfast. It didnt make any difference which family they came from, if the name was Morris ,they could jump! J.C., Pat, Gilbert and Emmett are the ones I remember the best. Ill get around to my futility in leap frog later. This ones about marbles.. As soon as it started getting warmer in the spring ,recess meant marbles. We played two versions, little ring and big ring. Both could be played for fun or forkeeps. I was fair at little ring because a lot of luck was involved. I was awful at big ring and lost most of the time. Now that I think about it , most of the winners were those dad gun Morris boys!! We had another marble game that I did like . We called it Dropsy or Droppers or something like that. You took a can with the top cut out and cut a hole in the bottom just a little bigger than a marble.You placed your can on the ground with the hole up. Someone would drop a marble from belt high and try to hit the hole. If they were successful ,they won two marbles. If they missed, they lost the one they dropped. I had been shooting a rifle since I was eight so I had a good eye. I also knew how to fix the jagged edge on the hole of my can so it had to be perfect to go in. (I told yall I was bad). Mama had bought me a small bag of marbles at Sterlings for a dime and made me promise not to play for Keeps. Yesem Man, I took that small bag and my dead eye and in a short while I had A Clabber Girl baking powder can full of beauties. I had Cat eyes, clay marbles and even some Steelies I won over half of them from Jimmy Smith , a friend that lived up the river. I would let him look at his old marbles on the bus .Look, not touch. I kept them well hidden at home but my sister ,Virginia, found them. At once, I was sorry that I had told mama about her kissing her boyfriend at church. Mama wanted to know where I got so many marbles. The Sunday school lesson that day was on lying. Facing a sure butt Whupping , I still did what any church going boy would have done in 1950. I TOLD HER THEY WERE ALL JIMMYS ! I told her he had left them on the bus and I would give them to him Monday. She said Ive got to go get some sugar at the store and you can drop them off. I still remember that silly grin on his face when I gave him his marbles!
Posted on: Thu, 31 Jul 2014 01:51:58 +0000
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