Tennessee Square Game

[sissydear]

These pics are in Malcom Strong's marble yard. It's in his barn so they can play year round. It's heated by wood in the winter.

I had a mishap with my camera. First I left my extra battery and charger at home. My son took me to buy another charger and battery. I plugged it in to charge the new battery and forgot that when my son took me to the airport. The battery in the camera gave out after these few pics. Thankfully, Jeff Kimmell downloaded his pics to my computer. I don't have them ready to post. These pics below are the few I took with the new Canon.

Jeff taking a pic of his daughter Reece who is sitting with Malcom Strong.

The marble yard is set up for the game "Tennessee Square".

Malcom taking a shot. The shooters are about 3/4 inch and the big marbles are 1 1/4 inch.

Paul Davis watching. He was playing Rolley Hole the next day so he didn't play Tennessee Square.

A player I don't know

[sissydear]

David shooting

Malcom waiting his turn.

Reece is begging Jeff for one of Malcom's kittens. You can barely see the kitten in her arms.

[Ric]

That's cool, Edna. It looks like a lot of fun. Thanks for showing the pics.

[Al Oregon]

Nice to see a different game and people enjoying marbles. Thanks!

[Steph]

It's awesome that they've made this a lifelong sport.

[triker]

Is there money involved? Just Wondering.

Bruce

[honeybern]

My Grams (great grandmother, honeybern) played when she was 9 but after a year and a half she wasn't allowed to travel far enough from home (30 or 40 blocks, in Brooklyn so that represented a lot of boys) to find anybody to play keepsies with who hadn't already been cleaned out by or heard about her (talking boys up to 14 years old, she says not many girls played). Great great grams, Mary (both of my great-great grams were named Mary and both of my great-great grandpas were named Samuel and no they weren't related!) said she threw out over 100 coffee cans full of marbles, maybe 200 (she said it was a lot) that grams had won when she left home for college in 1935 including the 5 cents worth of commies grams started with, most likely. Great great grams said she remembered buying the 5 cents worth of commies but that grams never asked for another cent for marbles and started asking the neighbors for empty coffee cans and that she never saw their rabbits propagate as fast as those cans full of marbles. Grams can shoot a marble out from between her thumb and first and middle fingers by squeezing and it goes like a bullet with little or no hop. And, yes so can most everyone else (though some have to wet their fingertips, first) but grams hits what shes aiming at. She can't do it now, so much, but she could with about 90% accuracy a few years ago, when she was only 90. I saw her run a 30" circle with about 30 marbles in it, knocking some out on every shot to empty the circle, twice, but not in a row. My two great uncles, gram's big brothers, went along as protection after grams got beat up by some boys she cleaned who didn't want to let her leave with all their marbles. Grams had the marbles but when the boys demanded she give them back she told them she'd won them fair and square told them they'd have to take them off her. lol So that meant that after that gram's didn't play as much as she would have liked since her brothers had their own interests and weren't always available and gram's couldn't go play in adjoining neighborhoods without them. All my great uncles and aunts say the same thing - she never lost.