“Knuckle Down!”
Marble Bonanza!
Marbles used to be as familiar as jacks and Pic-up-Stix. The games were named after the items it required to compete. What else can be said about marbles but it was a ‘pure’ sport. It took no electricity, no computer and it involved getting together with friend and foe.
There’s a phrase referring to marbles I heard my father and his father’s generation use; ‘knuckle down’. Knuckle down was something marble players did dating back to 17th-century England.
“One rule in the game provides that a player must shoot directly from the spot where his marble lands, which requires that he put his knuckles on the ground, or “knuckle down.” Since marbles was a popular pastime with adults and children, knuckle down came to express earnest application to any job.” Henry Holt Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins
And then there’s the ‘cat’s eyes’, the ‘steelies’ and the ‘pee-wees’. Do you have any ‘marbles’ stories? Leave your comments!
We had some marbles as kids and I loved looking at them because they were so pretty, but we never actually played marbles. The only game we ever played with marbles was the board game Aggravation (and we loved it!).
My mom would try to teach us to play jacks but we never understood the rules, or even the point, of the game. But I think my mom had fun playing jacks anyway.
Jenn,
I played marbles but wasn’t as intense as my brother. He was a great representation of ‘knuckle down’ when he wanted to.
Jacks were hand eye coordination. The kids that play video games are fantastic at hand eye coordination. I wonder if they could do well at jacks?
My brother and I would play marbles, however we had no clue how to play! We made up our own games, mainly playing with the marbles being our “gems” like Indiana Jones!
Audra,
Where did you get the idea to play marbles? Did you watch other kids or did a parent or older child teach you?
We didn’t have marbles at our home unless my brother won them. I remember playing them at age nine. We’d moved from one state to another and ended up in a duplex. Being kids, we didn’t think about what we were doing…we just did it. We kept hitting the marbles against a wall at the front door. Unfortunately that wall was also used by our neighbor. I guess we drove him out of his mind as I remember him huffing about it at our front door. That was the end of indoor marbles.
My gems were unripe grapes which were green and could be polished.
I PLAYED MARBLES IN THE BACK LOT IN RICHLAND, WASH. WITH LENNY & SOME OTHER GIRL THAT I CAN’T RECALL. YOU FORGOT ABOUT STEELYS & PURE-ES… WE TOOK OUR MARBLES & COOKED THEM ON THE STOVE & THEN ADDED COLD WATER SO THEY WOULD CRACKEL & MAKE IT EVEN COOLER. I ALSO REMEMBER THE RED ANTS & BULL HORN’S ( STICKERS) IF YOU WEREN’T CAREFUL!! 😉
Those bull horn stickers almost killed me! I was riding my balloon tire bike, picked up a sticker and bam! It blew me off the bike and into the gutter on the road! As for the ants, I would take sugar outside and feed the black ants down their tunnels.
Steelies would knock anything out of the circle! They were deadly. I think we took the crackled marbles and tried to make jewelry with them.