From: Stan Browning Things didn’t have to be fancy for us to enjoy life. We played many games just for the fun of playing; we liked winning, but it was secondary. We played “catch” hours on end with a baseball or softball. We pitched horseshoes with shoes from a real horse; never mind that we didn’t always have a matched set or pair. We had our own “barnyard” rules for playing horseshoes. As a young teenager, before I became an expert on most all subjects, I enjoyed playing marbles. My friends and I played marbles at school and marbles as we walked home from school. We played marble games called, tracks, rollie hole and keeps. It was our first introduction to gambling because the objective of most marble games was to take marbles from your opponent. Tracks was a good game to play while walking home from school. Two or more players took turns shooting their marbles always up the road toward home. Each player tried to hit the marble of one of the players who had shot before him. If he managed to do so, the player whose marble was struck had to surrender a marble to the striker. We had rules as to how the shots were to be made; you couldn’t wind up and throw your marble for a mile, for instance. Rollie hole was not a gambling game; nevertheless, it was very interesting and fun. It was played by shooting a marble into a succession of small holes dug into the ground at intervals along a course of forty feet or so. Three holes were positioned in a straight line and the fourth one was set off at an angle. The leadoff player and shooting order were determined by lagging at a line. Play began from a line drawn about 4 feet behind the first hole, and a player was not officially in the game until he made the first hole. That meant he could not be killed by an opponent, but it also meant he could not advance and have any chance of winning the game. After the first hole was made, a player shot for the second, and the third, and so on until he made all the holes; at which time, he was to retrace his path making all the holes in reverse order. All along the way, he had to avoid being shot by the other players and being returned to the starting line. Once he had made all the holes, he was designated a “stinger” and he could kill any of the other players and eliminate them from the game. A stinger was pretty much invincible, if he was shot by anyone other than another stinger, his assailant was the one who was killed. A player could continue shooting so long as he continued making holes or shooting and striking another players marble. At any time after a player was in the game, he could choose to try to shoot his marble into the next hole in his lineup or at an opposing player’s marble. If a player was struck by anyone other than a stinger, he had to return to the first hole and start over. The winner was the one who made all the holes, became a stinger and killed all the other players. “Keeps” was of the devil! At least, that was what adults thought. Each player anteed up an agreed-upon number of marbles and they were all placed in the center of a large circle scratched on the ground. An order of shooting was decided and players shot at the marbles with a taw from the outside edge of the ring. A player got to keep any marbles that he knocked from the ring. If he knocked one or more marbles from the ring and managed to “stick” inside the ring, he could continue shooting. Once he missed, the following shooter could shoot at any marble still remaining within the ring. The game ended when all marbles were gone from the ring. Most marble shooters in our neighborhood owned a few “aggies,” a favorite taw and a “steelie.” Players could be recognized by the ground in dirt on their knuckles that would remain there through many repeated washings on into winter.