No Lost Marbles

March 2, 1931, Appleton Post-Crescent

Would a child today even know what to do with a bag of marbles?  Yes, they were a mainstay at every five and dime in America while I grew up in the 60s and 70s, yet I was hard pressed to find any kids my age who played marbles.  Aside from just collecting them and admiring their glass complexities, marbles in my world were more often an integral part of some other whole, like the marbles that were used as tokens to go around the Chinese Checkers board, or the "steelie" that provided the action in the game of "Mouse Trap."  Granted, this wasn't 1931 when childhood pastimes were smaller and less grander in number, a time when jacks and jump ropes also vied for child attention, though girls seemingly had a monopoly on those two and they were popular in any era I knew.