Sparklette #2

I've moved - I don't know, 35-36 times?  And these moves started when I was less than one year old.  It makes sense to look at this and see the roots of my passion for purging, as I learned the art of getting rid of things in order to avoid having to haul it from one house to the next at a very young age.

Still, I can't help but wonder how I managed to keep my third grade stamp collection intact, and why I have no idea what happened to my ice skates from eighth grade.  I also don't know where along the path of address changes I lost my marbles.  In the fourth and fifth grade, marbles were all the rage at my school, and recess always showed a landscape of kids hunched over circles drawn in the dirt, mastering various flicks and tosses in order to knock each other's marbles out of the circles and add them to their own collection.  Steelys - heavy metal marbles - were the most highly prized, as were Biggies (although I'm not sure they were even called Biggies - I am making that up to make it clear these marbles were like any other marble, only bigger).  My mom made a green and yellow striped drawstring bag for my marbles, and at one point it weighed ten pounds.  I was that good.

But somewhere, somehow, that bag of marbles disappeared, and it is one of the few relics from my childhood I wish I still had, although I don't know why I still long for them.  But I hope they found their way to a new owner rather than a garbage dump, and maybe that new owner still has them, and maybe she sometimes wonders who they belonged to before they made their way to her.

Comments

[Thea]

Oh darling I too hope they found an appreciative owner. Trey and I just started playing marbles. We are still trying to figure out how to shoot them properly without hurting our fingers.

[charis]

I loved my marbles! I seem to recall playing with them on drain covers. I don't have mine anymore either :(

[donna]

Tom Bowlers, milkies, shiners, steelies... hmm, now the memories are flooding back for me too. we'd put our heel into the dirt and spin around and 'round until there was a deep enough hole, then clear out an even wider circular area around the hole to have the 'arena' set for action!

[pixie]

This is so true.

;)

[Bronwyn]

Ohhhh I lost my marbles too. I LOVED playing marbles in 4th grade. I had an amazing collection, with some rare types and sizes. There WAS something special and magical about them. I like how Lisa says "something goddessy about them .." I know what she means.

nice Sparklette!

[Ludid]

i grew up playing with marbles. this post reminded of those fun times with my siblings. awesome post!

[Lisa Hunter]

Thanks for this story and image, Christine. You know, I never actually played with marbles as a kid, but I remember them being around. There's something magical about them. I hadn't thought about that until reading your post. I think of a bag of marbles or a jar of marbles and it wakes my creativity and imagination. Plus, there's something goddessy about them too, I don't know why. Especially with the drawstring pouch. Although it might have been a very different experience as a kid on a playground :0)

Thanks for sparking this!