A Hop, Skip, and a Jump

When I was out walking yesterday I passed a chalk hopscotch grid drawn on the sidewalk in a nearby neighborhood. It made me happy to see kids are still doing that and I wondered if anyone still plays marbles. Actually, kids didn’t play marbles very much any more back when I was a kid either and I personally never understood the technicalities of the game but I loved the smooth feel of those little glass balls and collected them until I got a big container full. One of our sons now has custody of those aggies and steelies and he lets me run my hands through them when I’m at his house. (Side note: I think I read somewhere a long time ago that pretty much all marbles are made someplace in West Virginia.) On another street I saw some kid’s sidewalk display in front of a house. It had blueberries written on one side of a board and blackberries on the other, with a line drawn down the middle. It was an informal survey and there was a box of small rocks next to it. People could vote by putting a rock on the side of their favorite. Last time I saw, blackberries were the hands-down winner but I haven’t been on that street lately. Did I jump the hopscotch pattern? I sure did.

Photo of sidewalk hopscotch courtesy of me, Mary Kunkel.