Way Back Machine - throwing marbles

The way back machine takes us back to the 70’s this week to the time when marbles, specifically marble throwing, was the thing to do at Spring Mills Elementary school. There was no social media. Yay!!!! I don’t believe anyone partakes in the activity anymore and not sure who started it but it had its day in the sun for me in between slaughter ball/war and kick ball games. I’m going off my pea brain memory on how it all came down and even if we were playing the official rules but here is what I recall.

You had your basic, small size marble with some labeled “cat’s eyes” that were clear and had some form of object in them. The small marbles were more or less the peasants in the marble world, the pennies in a sea of coins. I can’t remember what we called the larger marbles but they were the envy of any marble collection. Lastly, there were ‘steelies’ which weren’t really marbles; they were ball bearings from someone’s dad who worked at a tool & die-type factory but in high demand within the marble throwing world.

I don’t know if everyone played this way but the premise of our version of marbles was one person threw their marble out there (can’t remember who had to throw first) and if the other person hit the other marble with theirs in the air, the marble that was hit was theirs. It was key to make sure your initial throw had some force behind it as if you missed, the other person got to shoot at your marble from wherever your attempt landed.  If it was a large marble versus a small marble, the small marble had to hit the large marble more than once (the large marble owner would place the count needed) for ownership of said large marble. One kid had a HUGE steelie (larger than a large marble) and would ask for something like 20 hits for ownership of it. The thing was so big that if you hit it a couple of times, your marble would shatter and the game was over for the little guy.

I recall being pretty good, not great, at the craft as I had my share of large marbles but no huge steelies. I think my collection is buried deep within a city dump somewhere today but a fun time it was.

Trail Head

More Idiocracy - Advertising Overkill

Referenced on here before, the 2006 movie Idiocracy, the story of how the world several years from now will be, is again proving true. This time in the form of advertising. One scene has a character in the movie watching the show, "Ow! My Balls" as the 150 inch television screen is surrounded by a ads.

Advertising was my major in college and thankfully not the profession my career evolved into as I have to use my Atari abilities from the 80's these days viewing anything online with so many ads thrown at me to shoot down with my joystick/mouse. I understand the rationale as the bills need to be paid but wish there was a better way. At least in newspapers (the paper kind), the ads weren't jumping out blaring a horribly bad jingle with nothing of importance to me. You read the articles within the paper and turned to the next page when a full page of car ads was presented. I enjoy reading the newspaper (the paper kind) at the local diner for breakfast but recently went to purchase one and the Detroit daily version (non-Sunday) cost $3.50. With that, sadly newspapers are becoming the dinosaurs of the millennium.

If newspapers/magazines (and the people working for them) could speak, I think their primary statement would be, "Ow, my balls!"

Trail Head

Breakwall Fishing and bathroom protests

Pictured in the attached are not tourists looking for that social media picture to share with their internet friends or protesters to the new beach bathroom being proposed (https://www.recordpatriot.com/news/article/northern-michigan-town-faces-beach-bathroom-18693930.php) but fisherman looking for the big one off of the big lake breakwall. A virgin to the process, I gave it a try yesterday without success but witnessed a few conquests by others and got a few tips observing. I hope to have some breakwall fish views to share in the future; along with what will probably still be bathroom protests.

Trail Head