GROWING UP IN THE 40'S - Part 5

Something that I should have mentioned was that before Daddy went in the Army we lived in Millegeville in a small coal heated house on a dirt street.  We didn't have an ice cream truck come by with music playing but we did have an ice man.  We had an ice box as many other folks did back in the early 40's.  The ice man was a nice older black man who would be very free when he chipped out the big blocks of ice to deliver to the houses and he always had a big piece that "accidentally" fell off to give to all of us kids.  In the hot summer time it was quite a treat and we would shift it from hand to hand when our hand got so cold that we couldn't move our fingers.

I mentioned before that we made our own games and that every boy had his own pocket knife.  The knives also went to school with us and we would play with them at recess.  No problems.  We played a game we called "Root the Peg", also known as "Mumblety-Peg.  If you don't believe it you can Google it and see.  It was played with our pocket knife in a sort of follow-the-leader fashion. we would churn up an area of dirt and then pack it down so that a knife was easier to stick up in the ground.  The first kid would choose a throw or

drop of the knife and try to stick it up.  If he missed the next kid would get a turn.  If the knife stuck then everyone else did the same maneuver. If the knife stuck the first kid picked another maneuver but if it didn't stick, the looser had to root the peg.  The winner would pick up a stick and drive it in the ground until the peg extended above the ground the thickness of the losers knife handle.  The loser would have to root the peg out of the ground with his teeth.  Some of the moves used were blade tip on one finger and flip the knife down with the other hand, tossing it up and let it turn in the air and stick, or the hardest was flipping it over your back.  The pocket knife most wanted was the Barlow knife.  It was probably not the best knife but kids would proudly say that their's was a Barlow.

CLICK HERE FOR THE HISTORY OF MUMBLETY PEG.

Every boy had a stash of marbles.  We would scratch a circle

in the dirt and scratch a straight line in the center of the circle.  We would each add the same number of our own marbles to the line.  If you were lucky you would have a "steely" for a "Taw".  What's a Taw you may ask?  the Taw was the marble that you used to shoot and knock the others out of the ring and everybody had a favorite to use.  When you knocked the marbles out they were yours to keep.  No crying allowed.  A steely was a steel ball the proper size to play marbles with and was used as a Taw.  If you hit a marble with a steely it had a better chance of moving out of the ring.  The steely was not allowed unless everyone had one.  We flipped a coin for first and that boy could shoot from anywhere outside the ring as long as he was knocking out marbles.  When he missed it was the next ones turn.  The next game someone else would be first.  It was a game of skill and not gambling but you could loose a pocketful of marbles fast.

If you think you can do a thing or think you can't do a thing, you're right.
Henry Ford