As I sit in my easy chair, often my mind wanders back to memories of my youth. With the warming of spring the frost is leaving the ground and the combination makes me remember the early recesses of my one room school. This time of year recesses were devoted to playing marbles.

My favorite marble game was potsy. To begin, you would spin on your heel and dig a shallow hole, then smooth the edges with the flat of your foot. Standing about eight to ten feet away with your companion players, each would toss a marble toward the hole; after all had tossed, the person whose marble was closest to the hole would shoot his marble using his index finger toward the hole. A hole in one allowed you to shoot someone else’s marble toward or into the hole.

If you were lucky and you shot all the marbles in the game you took the pot.

As marbles were cheap and where every store sold them, almost everybody had a bag containing them. Sometime someone would be real lucky and win over and over. When recess was over and you took your winnings and grimy fingers to your desk, some loser would cry and the teacher would make you give up your winnings. Oh well! It was fun and you had a dirty hand for the rest of the day. The only water in the school was in the 10-quart milk pail of drinking water.

Another recess gambling game was with baseball cards and Dixie cup or Hoods covers. The trick was to scale the cardboard piece towards the wall. The one who scaled it the closest was the winner and took the cards. Today, some of those sports cards or picture lids are worth lots of money to a collector.

I can remember having a collection of both the sports cards and ice cream lids with all my favorite stars’ pictures. A Dixie cup with a flat wooden spoon was only five cents and really was an enjoyable treat.

Oh well! Those were the days!