Back to a time when we were kids and it didn't take much to get us excited. Some chalk for the sidewalk, and we had hopscotch, a few dimes could get you a whole bag of marbles, and for about the same price you got yourself a set of Jacks. Now go change into your play clothes and let's get going!
Hopscotch began in ancient Britain during the early Roman Empire. The original hopscotch courts were over 100 feet long and used for military training exercises. Roman foot-soldiers ran the course in full armor and field packs to improve their footwork, much the same way modern football players run through rows of truck tires today.
Roman children drew their own smaller courts in imitation of the soldiers, added a scoring system and "Hopscotch" spread throughout Europe. The English term "Hopscotch" comes from "hop" meaning "to jump" and "escocher", an Old French word meaning "to cut". The latter word is also where we get the term "scratch", as well as "scotch a rumor" (or scratch it out) and "butterscotch", a hard candy that's made in large sheets and then "scotched" or cut into small pieces. I never knew that!
Now if my Dad were alive he might not like me telling how all three of us children in my family had a bag of marbles and what kind of bag that was. It was a Crown Royal Whiskey bag, they made great marble bags. But he might not like me telling that we all three had one of those Crown Royal bags, might make him look like a drinker. Which he wasn't but my folks did entertain quite a bit.
Do you remember sitting in a circle on the smoothest part of the school yard, awaiting your turn to play jacks? Did you sprawl in the dust under a big shade tree so as to best line up your agate shooter with a coveted tiger eye marble?
Marble games have been played in all parts of the world with all manner of playing pieces for more than 2000 years. Children in colonial America played with marbles made of stone or clay, while glass marbles were highly prized among children’s playthings in the 19th century. Enclosure games, hole games, and conquering games are all traditional marble games that are still familiar today.
Jacks was a big hit back in my day, I'm not even sure if kids today play it anymore. But it wasn't so long ago, maybe 10 years ago that I bought some for Corey and his friends, they were plastic and neon colors. Not really the same as hearing that metal scrape as you picked up the onesies, twosies, and so forth.
I remember he wasn't much interested in the ones I bought, but I figured it was more of a girl thing anyway and I think I secretly bought them for myself anyway. Girls were always better at Jacks if you ask me, boys only seemed to want to play just because they didn't want to be left out of what we were up to.
The game we know as jacks was played in the ancient world over 2000 years ago with small animal bones or pebbles. In early America the game was commonly known as five-stones or jack-stones. As time went on, one of the stones (the Jack) was replaced by a wooden ball, then a rubber ball; the other stones were replaced by small pointed metal pieces reminiscent of the original animal knucklebones.
True classics never die, and this childhood game doesn't require much to keep it thriving: a little bouncy ball, at least 10 jacks, and a hard, level playing surface.
The funny thing is it didn't take much money to buy any of these games, and in some ways I think we had more fun than these kids today that are turning into couch potatoes playing their $50 video games on $400 systems. All of a sudden we have a nation of overweight teenagers and we wonder how that happened so we blame it on the fast food companies, well folks, we need to blame ourselves.
