Nuts
I thought I've seen it all in the U.S., from Scrabble matches, spelling Bees and Hot Dog Eating competitions shown on the Sports channel, through crazy people standing in line at midnight to buy Harry Potter. But yesterday evening as I was reading the newspaper during dinner (it's a family tradition and one I don't care to stop), I saw yet more proof that these Americans are crazy!
The U.S. Marbles Championship!
For those of you who don't care for signing on yet another news website, I'll sum it up for you. A little over twenty marble players (oh, you didn't really believe this was a popular sport, didja?) gather for this Championship. The goal is to be the first to knock 50 marbles outside the border of a concrete circle that is 10 feet in diameter. Only 13 marbles are placed at each round, or "rack" (these funny Americans have a word for everything, don't they?).
As I read this article in complete amazement I showed it to my husband and exclaimed, "This is absolutely ridiculous!" My husband, in defense of his countrymen, said that he's not surprised, then he asks me, "didn't you play with marbles when you were in school?"
Well, no, I didn't! Marbles were too expensive and only rich kids had them. Back in Israel we'd play with gogo'im, or if you grew up in Jerusalem you'd call it Aju'im (Hebrew plural 'im' attached to an Arabic word **, 'cause Jerusalemites are strange) or some would call it Aju'kim (jukim also means cockroaches in Hebrew, and thus endeth your Hebrew lesson for this week). Gogo'im are the pits inside our very popular apricots.
Now, because Hebrew is a rather simplistic biblical language, you must all understand that we use one Hebrew word where Americans use ten. I honestly never understood the reasoning behind this overuse of words, so my husband has had to learn how to reinterpret what I mean every so often. Why am I telling you all this - because in Hebrew it's the same word for seed, nut and pit. It's inside a fruit - it's a nut. [In future posts I'll give you more examples of English vs. Hebrew].
So in this game gogo'im, we'd pitch the apricot nuts against a wall, and whoever threw the closest nut to the wall would win everyone else's nuts that were thrown during this round. Some kids would have huge baskets of these apricot nuts. This was a very popular game during our 10am break at school. Some kids would bring a bag of apricots and eat them through break, so they'd have something to play with. It was a cool game, where the goal was to grab as many nuts as possible. For those who think I've just invented a poor people's game, feel free to read this website.
So I explained to my husband, "We didn't play with 'spensive marbles, we ate healthy and encouraged others to eat apricots and recycled the trash!" As I walked away from the dinner table, I saw my husband snicker behind his newspaper. I walked upstairs, when I heard him shout after me, "You're just an Israeli nut grabber!"
** The word Aju in Arabic means "seed."
The U.S. Marbles Championship!
For those of you who don't care for signing on yet another news website, I'll sum it up for you. A little over twenty marble players (oh, you didn't really believe this was a popular sport, didja?) gather for this Championship. The goal is to be the first to knock 50 marbles outside the border of a concrete circle that is 10 feet in diameter. Only 13 marbles are placed at each round, or "rack" (these funny Americans have a word for everything, don't they?).
As I read this article in complete amazement I showed it to my husband and exclaimed, "This is absolutely ridiculous!" My husband, in defense of his countrymen, said that he's not surprised, then he asks me, "didn't you play with marbles when you were in school?"
Well, no, I didn't! Marbles were too expensive and only rich kids had them. Back in Israel we'd play with gogo'im, or if you grew up in Jerusalem you'd call it Aju'im (Hebrew plural 'im' attached to an Arabic word **, 'cause Jerusalemites are strange) or some would call it Aju'kim (jukim also means cockroaches in Hebrew, and thus endeth your Hebrew lesson for this week). Gogo'im are the pits inside our very popular apricots.
Now, because Hebrew is a rather simplistic biblical language, you must all understand that we use one Hebrew word where Americans use ten. I honestly never understood the reasoning behind this overuse of words, so my husband has had to learn how to reinterpret what I mean every so often. Why am I telling you all this - because in Hebrew it's the same word for seed, nut and pit. It's inside a fruit - it's a nut. [In future posts I'll give you more examples of English vs. Hebrew].
So in this game gogo'im, we'd pitch the apricot nuts against a wall, and whoever threw the closest nut to the wall would win everyone else's nuts that were thrown during this round. Some kids would have huge baskets of these apricot nuts. This was a very popular game during our 10am break at school. Some kids would bring a bag of apricots and eat them through break, so they'd have something to play with. It was a cool game, where the goal was to grab as many nuts as possible. For those who think I've just invented a poor people's game, feel free to read this website.
So I explained to my husband, "We didn't play with 'spensive marbles, we ate healthy and encouraged others to eat apricots and recycled the trash!" As I walked away from the dinner table, I saw my husband snicker behind his newspaper. I walked upstairs, when I heard him shout after me, "You're just an Israeli nut grabber!"
** The word Aju in Arabic means "seed."
posted at
8/09/2005 07:10:00 AM
8 Comments:
Having been the marbles champion of Public School 163 in Flushing, NY, in 1940, I object to your criticism. Marbles are noble, and the many games we played were lots of fun and bitter rivalries. Some of us had expensive marbles, some the leavings, and some had "steelies" or ball bearings, but we played hard and fairly.
Apricot pits were another matter completely. Pits were trash to be thrown away. Also the kernel or nut inside the pit was poisonous and we were frequently warned about them. At any rate, we too had a game where we pitched things at a wall, but we pitched pennies. I never got the knack of it, and lost quite a few pennies before I quit.
MM
By
Anonymous, at 11:39 AM, August 09, 2005
If I were you, I wouldn't be admitting in public your odd claim to fame.
And what the heck is "leavings" or "steelies"? Secret society of geeks?
We had no pennies in Israel.
You were warned about the nuts because a nut eating a nut would give grounds for prosecuting you under the no-canibalism law in the U.S.
By
Mybrid, at 12:24 PM, August 09, 2005
** The word Aju in Arabic means "seed."
What Arabic is that?
By
aNON, at 2:59 PM, August 09, 2005
The one used in Jerusalem of course!
By
Mybrid, at 3:53 PM, August 09, 2005
Would someone already explain to me what is "leavings", "steelies" and now "PURLIES"???
The Apricot Pit game is not entirely gambling. Keep in mind that apricot season is typically towards the end of the school year. So what happens is that the 6th grade (the oldest age group to play this in elementary school), would throw the gogo'im up in the air for all the young kids to catch and play with. So this not only taught us recycling but SHARING.
Of course, what can you expect from a country that has Kibbutzes?!
By
Mybrid, at 5:44 PM, August 09, 2005
(sigh) Marbles. I thought even you weirdo foreigners could understand such simple things. They are glass with some color swirled in to make pretty patterns. They came in two sizes, the regular marbles you are familiar with, nicknamed in some areas 'immies', and the larger ones, about the size of a walnut. These were very desirable because of their weight, which made them difficult to move when hit by an opposing marble, and hard for regular marbles to resist when hit by them.
'Steelies' were marble sized ball bearings and very much in demand for the same reasons as above. Most marbles could be purchased in bags in a five and dime (I know, I know, another term you need explained)and when you got the bag home you would search through for the best ones. Those of one color throughout, with only tiny bubbles of air, were called 'puries' from 'pure' and were very pretty. There may have been a couple of the big ones called 'shooters' which were singled out.
The games were played in the dirt on your hands and knees, and there were many variations. I won't go into them, but I'm sure Southern Girl would recognize them, as would anyone else who shot serious marbles.
mtrain
By
Anonymous, at 8:05 PM, August 09, 2005
Seems that I come from a third world country, because as I recall I WAS a rich kid, but I couldn't buy marbles because they were rather expensive.
Mtrain, thanks for explaining the different terminology. It's not that I'm not familiar with marbles. I'm VERY familiar with them, and have a colourful stash somewhere hidden because I treasure it dearly (brings back fond memories of something expensive I could never have). It's just that I didn't know all these names in English.
TFL, so what did rich kids play with?
Southerngirl, Polo? You're talking horses and shit? We have camels. They're not very friendly at Polo.
By
Mybrid, at 6:39 AM, August 10, 2005
I had marbles. Lots of them. We used to make up our own games with them. Never learned how to play marbles the real way though.
As for Americans being whacked, that's why I like Americans so much. Whacked people are more interesting. Sanity is so boring. Note that the great classical composers were all crazy.
Case in point, giant statues of nothing. In the little rice town where I live, there's a 20 foot paper mache catfish right outside of town. The nearest gas station to my house has a giant cow on top of it. And the nearest Texaco station has a fake biplane crash into it. How cool is that?
Even better, you drive down highway 99 and there's a 40 foot statue of Paul Bunyan in the miniature golf course. Nothing like a bunch of giant statues of meaningless junk.
By
The Zombieslayer, at 7:31 PM, August 10, 2005
Post a Comment
<< Home