Two for One?

By Jerry Mack Grubbs

A friend recently asked me a question. My answer to her question was, “Two for one.” When I said those words a memory of years ago came flooding across me and washed me up on the sands of my youth.

The Memory:

“I’ll trade you two cat-eyes for one of your steelies,” she said. “No, I wouldn’t trade you one of my steelies for a hundred cat-eyed marbles,” I said. “I don’t have a hundred cat-eyes,” she said with a look of forlorn disappointment. “I said I wouldn’t trade for a hundred cat-eyes so it doesn’t matter whether you have that many or not,” I said.

Playing marbles-for-keeps was the first form of gambling I was exposed to in my youth. It took place on the playground in the first grade at Gilmer Elementary. We played at recess, during lunch break and while waiting for the bus to take us home after school. I once got so engrossed in the game that I missed the bus and had to walk the seven miles home. I burst through the door of our home about the same time the family got worried enough to come looking for me. I was so excited. I had just won my second steelie.

I’ll explain the rules of the game for those of you who have never played marbles-for-keeps. First you draw a circle in the dirt. Each player tosses three marbles into the circle. Then the players take turns as they kneel down, curl the index finger around a marble called a “shooter” and position the thumb behind the marble in preparation of flipping the “shooter” marble toward its intended target. Any marble knocked out of the circle by the “shooter” marble becomes the property of the one who made the shot. If, by chance, the shooter marble fails to knock another marble out of the circle and it does not pass out of the circle either, then the shooter marble must remain in the circle and became free game for the other players to try to knock it out of the circle.

Playing marbles-for-keeps with someone who was using a steelie as his shooter was dangerous business. A steelie could easily knock other marbles out of the circle because of its additional weight. You could drop a steelie in the circle at the start of a game but you couldn’t use a steelie as your shooter marble unless you had previously won it fair-and-square in a marbles-for-keeps game.

When William (we called him Will) dropped a steelie into the circle I couldn’t believe my luck. It is almost impossible to knock a steelie out of the circle unless it was done by another steelie. Fortune was smiling on me that day. I had won my first steelie just two weeks earlier by sheer luck when other boys trying to win it had knocked it right next to the edge of the circle. I smacked it as hard as I could from across the ring drawn in the dirt. The steelie barely passed outside the circle. I immediately pocketed it and had no intention of gambling with it in the future. When Will dropped his steelie in the circle he had forgotten that I had a steelie buried deep in my pocket.

When the game was over I was the owner of two steelies. With two steelies I could afford to gamble a little more recklessly. Over the course of the next few weeks I had assembled a sack of fifty-four marbles. I had cat-eyes, swirls, blues, greens, whites, grays and even two crystal clear marbles. I never gambled my two crystal clear marbles. I considered them my good luck marbles. The two steelies and the two crystal clear marbles were not ever carried in my marble sack. I kept them in my pocket separate from everything else.

Once I forgot to take my special marbles out of my pant’s pocket. When mother was washing my clothes, as she fed the pants through the ringer to squeeze out the water and soap, the ringer rollers jerked, hesitated then bounced over something hard in the pant’s pocket. Fishing into the pocket mother found one of my steelies. When she told me she found one of my marbles I was gripped with fear. If she only found one then three others were missing because I kept them together. I ran to the old tub style washer and sloshed my hand through the dirty wash water. To my relief, I found the other three marbles and made a promise to myself to be more careful with them in the future.

My treasure sack of fifty-four marbles was due mainly to my tactic of placing one steelie in the circle where it would be hard to knock out and using the other steelie as my shooter. Now you know why I was unwilling to trade a steelie for two measly cat-eyes. Some things are too precious to trade away. “If you won’t trade for one of your steelies, will you trade one of your crystal clear marbles?” she asked. “Never,” I said without a moment’s hesitation. How could I trade one of them? They were my good luck.

Fast forward to 2003. I had those two crystal clear marbles with me when I was hiking with family and friends in the Black Box of the San Rafael Swell. As I sat in the shallow water at the take-out point of the hike I reached into my pocket and discovered that one of my marbles was missing. I hurriedly looked around the immediate area where I sat and cleaned the small pebbly gravel out of my tennis shoes but my crystal marble was not to be found. I was saddened by the loss of that marble but I had a group of family and friends who were relying on me to lead them back to the safety and comfort of our campsite.

Later I obtained another crystal clear marble to replace my lost one. When asked which one was the original marble I said, “I don’t know. It’s more about what the marble represents than whether it is an original.” Besides, I still had two steelies that were originals and they were safely tucked away with a few other boyhood artifacts. Their true value isn’t of a monetary nature but the value is in the memories that are wrapped around them. Too often we hold on too tightly to the marble instead of what it represents. No, I wouldn’t trade two for one, twenty for one or even a hundred for one. But I’m now speaking of the memories, not the marbles. Each and every memory is precious to me. Family and friends are wrapped up in the memories that make up the sum total of who I am. My memories are not for sale, nor for trade, but only for sharing. As I share them they are still retained. Only a few of you have seen my crystal clear and steelie marbles but many of you have been a part of my memories. For that I am most grateful. For that I am richly blessed.

I originally called this article, “Marbles & Memories” but later decided to just call it “Two for One?” As I move into the fall or winter of my life (depending on what you prefer to call it) my memories have become more precious than my marbles. However, I can still hold those marbles in my hand and when I do, the memories come flooding back. Today I would gladly trade two marbles to entice you to share just one of your precious memories with me. But don’t ask me to give up one of the steelies or crystal clear marbles of my youth for I will never travel that road again except in the memories of my mind.