Six student. Usually, older boys won the games against younger opponents, sometimes, because they set new rules as the game progressed.
On this occasion, the Grade Six boy rose to shoot his marble which lay four feet from his opponent’s marble. The Grade Six boy announced that he would shoot a shot which he called “Ping Standers”. The word, ping, was intended to describe the sound that was made when the marbles collided. The word, standers, was used to describe the fact that the shooter was standing as he shot, unlike the shooters in straight marbles who usually shot from one knee. The Ping Stander’s shot enabled the shooter to hold his shot marble directly over the target marble at the approximate height of the distance between the two marbles as they lay on the ground, four feet in this instance. The younger boy’s older brother, who happened to come along at just that moment, intervened and threatened to ‘knock the older boy’s block off’, if he took the younger boy’s marble.
The Grade Six boy ignored the threat. He held the marble above the competitor’s marble, carefully lining the shot up, the older brother now serving as self-appointed umpire and rules’ interpreter. The Grade Six boy held the marble aloft for what seemed like a long time before letting it drop. We all held our breath as the marble dropped. A great cheer erupted, the spontaneous kind, as the shooter landed about two inches away from the target marble.
The younger boy also cheered showing a look of relief as he took his shooter in his hand. As he prepared to make the short two-inch shot, one that was almost never missed, he noticed how his right hand shook, likely from nerves. He took the marble in his right hand, formed a fist around it, and then slid the marble out of the fist, so that it would land against his thumbnail at the apex it made with the first finger. He then set his hand down to the ground for the two-inch shot. He was surprised how cold his hand felt as he set it down to the ground. He forgot to carefully measure the shot as everyone continued to rejoice at his good fortune. The young boy shot the marble with his thumb and started to celebrate as the marble rolled from his hand, missing the target marble and settling again two inches away.
The Grade Six boy could have easily made the shot, hit the target marble and walked away. Instead, again, he announced Ping Standers, raised the marble two inches above his target, dropped it on the marble and reached to claim his prize. Before he could reach it, the older brother dove in, knocking him sideways.
“You can’t call ‘Ping Standers’ unless the shot is at least a foot high,” he declared.
No one had ever heard of this rule, but they agreed anyway. “Okay,” said the Grade Six boy, “I’ll take the shot over.”
For some reason, everyone agreed with that as he picked up his shooter, hit the target marble two inches away and pocketed it.
“See you in class,” he said as he walked away.
As I walked away from the incident, I noticed that I didn’t have any of my own marbles left in my pocket. I had started the day with 10 marbles—five cat-eyes and five shooters, including the pearl blue one I had won a few days earlier.
As I made my way into the Grade One class, Pete called out, “Hey, Joe, you got any marbles left?”
“No,” I answered.
“Me either,” he said simply.
It was the same story with the other guys, Scott, Charlie and Paul. Only Charlie had two marbles left.
The girls in class didn’t seem too concerned with our losses. They were generally talking about their skipping adventures. Several of them had skinned knees, which needed attention, but otherwise, they regaled in each other’s successes.
Jim hadn’t hung around with us much that day, as he usually would have. He was off by himself playing marbles against all comers, notably the students in Grades Five, Six, Seven and Eight. Jim had certainly mastered the art. Whereas most players would take careful aim at the target marble, gently trying to finesse their marble toward the target, Jim had mastered the art of throwing line drives at the target marble. He was deadly from ranges of five, even 10 feet away. The beauty of throwing line drives, with a sideways toss, is that, in the event his marble missed, it would bounce away with gusto and land a considerable distance from the target marble. His competitor seldom had a close shot at his marble. No one else at the school had mastered the art of long distance shooting, the way Jim had.
But, we all noticed Jim, as he walked into the classroom. I think it was Pete who shouted out first, “Hey, look at the bag of marbles Jim has.”
It was true. Jim had about 50 marbles in a cloth bag he carried in his left hand.
“Did you win all those?” Pete inquired.
“Yeah, I won most of them today at recess and noon hour,” he replied. Jim didn’t add that he had borrowed a marble at the start of play that day because he hadn’t brought any to school with him.
As we, each in our turn, revealed the miserable results of our day, we looked at the marbles Jim had laid out on his desk. We quickly recognized several that we had lost to older students. Jim had won them back.
“I’ll tell you what,” Jim said. “I’m going to give each of you three marbles to start out with again. Only, I don’t want you to lose them to big guys.” The older students were referred to as ‘big guys’. “Just play against Grade One’s and Two’s,” he cautioned.
At the next recess, the final one of the day, the big guys came over to prey on us again. All of us declined their invitations. Usually, they tried to talk us into playing them, or ‘sucker us in’ as it was called. This ended when we told them Jim had said not to play with them. To our surprise, the older guys seemed to agree with Jim’s advice.
“If Jim Mahon told us not to play them, then we shouldn’t play them,” they agreed. “Have fun,” the big guys said to us as they walked away.
II—SOFTBALL SURPRISE
We were in Grade Two now. We had been at the school long enough to have a sense of belonging. We knew our way around a little. Scott, Pete, Charlie, Jim and I were now usually preoccupied with building snow forts and playing hockey when it was cold and building dams to hold in the water during winter thaws, hoping to turn them into ice rinks when the temperature dropped again.
In spring, we turned to marbles, and then once the field dried a little, we would look to play softball. Alternatively, we would dig scoop ditches to drain any water off the field that we could find. The big guys would let us play as long as we were on the other team. They wanted us to be easy outs. Jim was the exception. They wanted him to play on their team, but he usually played with us anyway.
We would play ball on the diamond at the back end of the school yard. The backstop was placed at the extreme far end of it. Home plate was about 220 feet from the nearest point of the school. The big guys wore their ability to hit the softball that far, as a badge of honour. To hit the ball to the school made them a ‘somebody,’ a star for a day. No one in Grade Five or lower had hit a ball to the school. Rarely, a Grade Six student would hit one that far, and once in a while a Grade Seven or Grade Eight student would do it. So far this year, two balls had been hit to the school and none past it. The pitcher for the big guys that day was Ron. Ron had hit one of the long balls and was very good about it. He didn’t boast about his hit. He let the others do it for him.
Gerry was the first one up for us that day. Gerry was a big, strong farm kid, hardened by work, now playing a game.
“Where
