Bring your own Kool-Aid

Two things happened Sunday that somehow got connected in my head. First, I read an article in The New Yorker about how a Christmas stocking should be “all Cracker Jack surprises” but no food.
Later that afternoon I found a marble. I was walking through the old neighborhood and spotted a small, round, blue and white object embedded more than halfway in the ground on the right-of-way between the sidewalk and Hasel Street. I used to get them in my stocking.
Every time I find a marble, I pick it up, take it home, wash it off and put it in a sock. I've got quite a collection, even though this is the first one I've found in years.
I've been thinking about marbles a lot lately. When I pass 13 Chestnut on my strolls, I look toward the back right corner of the house and picture the bare dirt where the gang used to play.
Sometimes Aunt Alma would sweep the area, the flattest we could find in the neighborhood, and sometimes she'd hand one of us the broom to do it ourselves. Once it was cleared to our satisfaction, I'd take a stick and draw a large circle, then each player would put an agreed upon number of small marbles in the center. We thought cat's eyes were great.
Buckshot Bradley always used an old ball bearing as his shooter, and he was pretty good. My shooter was glass, like most of the regular marbles, just bigger.
We'd take turns shooting the big marbles off the knuckle of our thumbs, the object being to knock the smaller marbles out of the ring. Kind of like billiards, I guess. The winner was the player who had won the most marbles that way. Usually, we'd take back our marbles and start another game, but sometimes we'd play “keepsies.”
Now, you didn't play keepsies often with Buckshot, because you'd wind up with an empty sock, while his would overflow. He was that good. My cousin Harry could shoot a mean game of marbles, too. But you'd always be able to find plenty of stray marbles that fell through holes in pockets all around the neighborhood and in the old Elks Club playground on the corner of Salem Avenue and Broad Street.
Marbles is a simple game that takes skill and a lot of luck, plus some time to harden your knuckle. It also seems to help if you sort of bite your tongue as you stick the tip of it out of the corner of your mouth, get as close to the ground as you can, close one eye, concentrate and aim. The dirtier your knees, the better.
You never see kids playing marbles any more. I even tried to find a computer marbles game, but none of them resemble the real game we played on Chestnut Street.
When we've used up all the world's energy resources, and our computers and Nintendos don't work, I'm ready to resume those marble games. Buckshot's not around any longer, but I'm sure there are plenty of other baby boomers who'd be happy to participate in another never-ending marble tournament. The crack of marbles hitting marbles and of our knees popping as we get down on the dirt should be pretty compatible.
Maybe Rose Ford over the recreation department will get together a tournament. We don't even have to play for keepsies.
I'll sweep the ground.