While The Pony might not have fond memories of the SuperBall, after my embarrassing faux pas in Little Caesar's... I DO have a warm place in my cold, cold heart for this toy. I don't know when they were invented, but I know that during my childhood it was so much fun to play with.
I can't remember where I got my first SuperBall. Sometimes you could get them as a prize out of a machine like a gumball machine. Or you could buy a little bag of them at the dimestore. We had a big concrete slab patio that ran alongside our trailer, which was a fantastic place to bounce a SuperBall. Oh, I tried it along the sidewalk, kind of like dribbling a basketball. But there was always the chance that it would land in the grass and get lost. Or worse yet, into the DITCH along the public sidewalk.
Sometimes I cheated playing jacks, and used a SuperBall. I could have been a jacks champion with that little switcheroo! Or if I had more than one, I'd drop them from the same height, and watch until they quit bouncing, to see if one was "better" than the other. They were usually the same. The only drawback was when you got a SuperBall with a raised seam. You know, like where the two halves were put together. Then it bounced wildly. It never occurred to me to ask my dad to trim off that seam with his pocketknife.
During my junior year of high school, I took Advanced Chemistry. There were only a few of us in that class. It was offered as independent study, with a teacher supervising our studies, providing labs and grading papers. She was in a regular chemistry classroom next door, while we were in a glorified windowless storage room. It was long, with an old wooden table down the middle. It was maybe 8 feet from wall to wall, with equipment stored in the back half.
Anyhoo... we were the smart kids, and had our semester's worth of assignments done in the first couple weeks. Of course we rationed them to turn in. We essentially had 50 minutes of free time every day, to do other assignments, or just goof around. Let the record show that the Future Mrs. Hillbilly Mom was doing other assignments, while the guys were goofing around!
Goofing around meant slamming a SuperBall against the opposite wall with maximum force, to see who could get the most bounces between the walls until if fell to the floor or table. You had to do your other assignments with one eye on top of your head, and the other on the back of your head, lest you be knocked in the noggin by a speeding SuperBall!
After Farmer H and I were married, and moved into my $17,000 house in town, we had weekend visits from HOS (Hick's Oldest Son) and The (little future) Veteran. One time HOS came out of the bathroom saying the sink was clogged. How unusual. Usually it would be a toilet clogging that you might expect, not a sink. Farmer H went in to check it out. Indeed, the sink was clogged. Nothing going down. Farmer H got a flashlight, and soon returned with a SuperBall stabbed on the end of his pocket knife. Funny how nobody knew how that SuperBall got into the sink drain! My Advanced Chemistry experience gave me a pretty good idea...
Yes, the SuperBall was a super toy. Almost as much fun as Silly Putty.
4 comments:
I agree. Simpler times. Simple and cheap fun. Probably explains why I was a cheap date and still am not one for wanting unnecessary things. Most of our "games" growing up were somewhat educational and it was darn hard to find someone to play with. IE Scrabble, Monopoly, a Math game that I can't remember the name, Clue etc. My favorite was Scrabble, but because most people couldn't spell more than 3 or 4 letter words, they wouldn't play with me. Concentration was a fun card game too. You have plunged me back into my childhood. Hope you have a great weekend. Ranee
Rae,
I loved Scrabble! But it was not challenging enough to play with my mom and dad and little sister the future ex-mayor's wife! They liked YAHTZEE, but I didn't. So we had to play Monopoly the most. With my cousins, I played PIT, which was like a stock-trading game with cards. It was quite dangerous to the knuckles. At least with my competitors!
I didn't have a superball as a child, they came along when my kids were little. We played scrabble in our house when my kids were primary school ages, we'd open up three boards and play across the table without scoring, it was a great way to teach spelling and reading. They weren't much interested in Monopoly.
River,
I forgot, I also played a game called UPWORDS later on, and with my kids. It's like SCRABBLE, but you can also stack letters on top of other letters to change words.
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