Playing marbles

When I was attending Cloverdale Elementary in the late 1960's playing marbles during recess and lunch during the warm months was a big thing. Kids would set up a little space, maybe setting up a little pyramid of marbles, and invite other kids to shoot a marble. Hit the pyramid and take all the marbles. Miss and the kid who'd set up the pyramid kept your marble.

Marbles came in normal size, peewees were a bit smaller, cobs were a bit bigger and king cobs, the largest size of all. Those are the sizes I remember, could be I've missed a couple of sizes. Marbles came in a variety of colors. Cats eye was the most common, kind of looking a bit like a small billiards ball. One solid color with a different color around the middle, like an eye. Steelies were much coveted, being solid steel. My uncle worked at Western Canada Steel and often supplied me with steelies while I was in school. I guess those were ball bearings that dropped off the production line somewhere. Steelies could get a little rough with the glass marbles, often nicking them. The clearsies marbles held the same value as a steelie if I remember correctly.

Kids played against each other and traded, with each marble size or type having a different value against it. There were many different types of games. Some were friendlies where we practiced playing marbles but nobody won or lost any marbles, we were just playing. And then there was keepsies where we played to win the other kid's marbles.

My father bought me a bag called 101 Marbles when I was about seven or eight years old. It was a red pouch with a drawstring across the top. He taught me how to shoot marbles and I always did well around the school playground. The first day I came home I had so many marbles in my red bag that I couldn't completely pull the drawstring closed. Each spring when kids started playing marbles I pulled my bag out and made the rounds. Some kids refused to let me play marbles with them because I was too good.

After I'd been playing marbles for a couple of years my father bought my younger brother the same 101 Marbles red bag when he was about seven or eight years old. He went to school and returned home that night with an empty bag. I think he bought marbles sometimes at the five and dime and of course our uncle seemed to have the never ending steelies. And I suspect he was stealing marbles out of my bag.

After playing marbles for several years at elementary school I moved on up to Cloverdale Junior High and nobody played marbles there anymore. My overfilling 101 Marbles bag, which held way more than that number of marbles, sat unused on the bookshelf. One day I noticed it was gone and looked around for it.

You guessed it. My younger brother stole it, took it to school, and lost all my marbles that I'd accumulated over the years.