hnh, we played spin-the-bottle at camp.
We spent the greater part of summer swimming in the irrigation canals.
Irrigation canals? How big are they?
The ones in and around Fresno were quite big. At one intersection there was a fall and I was swept over it one time.
At times the canals were drained and some big fish were left to perish at the bottom.
We spent the greater part of summer at the pool, the hub of pre-teen life. I was there from 8 am (swim practice) til 4 pm. Learned to do a half-gainer and a jack-knife, a can opener(splash dive) and a cannon ball. Played Marco Polo for hours, walked around the bottom with a bucket over my head (somebody standing on it) and dreamed of being a merman. Had crushes on Christy Marks and Debbie Toole.
FRESNO BEE - newspaper article
A small boy darts through a hole in a fence, throws his hands skyward and runs laughing toward a canal.
A slightly older girl quickly follows. She grabs the boy's wrist as he teeters near the water, pointing at a sofa cushion swiftly floating by.
She scolds the youngster as they stand a few feet from the concrete cliff that drops at a steep angle into the cold irrigation water.
The two disappear back through the hole in the wooden fence that separates apartment buildings from the canal running between Palm and Fruit avenues, just north of Dakota Avenue.
A disaster is narrowly avoided. But scenes such as this one, which unfolded last week, don't always end so pleasantly.
Between 1970 and 1998, there were 295 canal drownings reported in Fresno County, according to numbers provided by the Fresno Irrigation District.
Nearly 800 miles of canals run through the district, which stretches roughly from the San ...
FRESNO BEE
Ok littlek...spin the bottle...were you scared the first time?
And were you afraid that, when you spun that bottle, it would end up pointing at the dorkiest guy you had ever seen: home-made haircut, braces on his teeth, thick eyeglasses, zits.
What do you suppose ever happened to that guy?
I know what happened, he founded a computer company and is a billionaire.
One of my passions when a boy was marbles. My pockets bulged with marbles wherever I went. Me and "the boys" played for keeps, too.
You know Edgar, the marbles era had just ended when I took it up so I don't know much about it. Care to explain it?
Our two major games were follow-the-leader, and one involving a pot of marbles placed in a ring on the ground. There was another game in which one spiked the other's best shooter and claimed it as the spoils, but I don't recall any rules.
!. Follow-the-leader. No boundaries were involved in this one. Shoot your marble and second to go shoots at yours. In the event the marbles make contact, the shooter claims the other's marble.
2. In the second game, the pot is buched together, as in pool. The first shooter breaks the pot. If any marbles leave the ring, he takes them and continues to shoot until he misses. They trade off until the pot is empty.
These games are simple and straight-forward, and I have never seen a boy needing to challenge a play. Even the bullies played fair.
Edgar - I've seen canals like that in LA, but there wasn't really enough water to swim in.
As for spin-the-bottle.... The only camp I've been to was during a 'graduation from 6th grade' long weekend trip to Cape Cod Sea Camp. I happened upon the game in-progress and spun once. It landed on a Steve. Steve was cute! He had dark hair, green eyes and freckles. And I liked him as a friend too! I saw stars and had to split immediately. I didn't play again until I was an adult.
On the last day of junior high, we had a field trip, to see a movie at a theatre now closed. My friend and I sat at the back, because we had hatched a plan to escape early and get ice cream. Just as the credits were rolling, we high-tailed it outta there and got our ice cream. Man, fun times. We actually saw the teacher and the students-in-tow looking for us, and ran away, and laughed. After a fun day, I returned home to catch my folks on the phone with the teacher, as I had officially gone missing. Crap, they were mad. However, they weren't nearly as mad as the Vice Principal of our school, who took his day off (it was also the last day of school when this event happened) to bring us both in and yell at us for a few hours. Good times. I think he ended up having a nervous breakdown.
1) I never ever ever got to play spin the bottle. Sigh. Made up for it some time later.
2) Canals in LA, where did edgar say that? that's my neighborhood, Venice, about six blocks from my house.. sigh.
3) marbles. I once had a packet of them, but no clue what to do with them. I thought they were slightly before my time too, panzade, but I am exactly edgar's age...
As to your #2, osso, he mentioned canals in fresno.
