IT'S JUST A GAME.

Blog number 140                                               Jan 02, 2008

I just received an e-mail from my oldest son - David, containing an excerpt he took from Craig's list concerning a guy's dueling with M&Ms.  He would take two, squeeze them together and the one that broke was the loser, which would immediately be eaten.

This reminded me of a corncob battle my older brother and I used to wage on my grandparent's farm back when I was seven and he was nine.

We used to feed the pigs whole ears of corn, so there were piles of corncobs in the pig pasture. 

By the way, we kept a pile of them out of the winter snow in the cellar.  We used these cobs for heating and cooking.  They burned with a nice heat.  Very economical fuel, you betcha.

Anyhow, the way we conducted our battles is that each of us would pick up a predetermined number, then my brother would hold one of mine in his left hand and hit it at a ninety degree angle with one of his.  One of them would break.  Then it was my turn and so forth.  The person who had cobs left after the other person's were all gone was the winner.

Afterwards we would debrief the battles and the war.

That was probably my favorite game.  I think it was my brother's favorite game too. I do know that I never had to beg him to play. 

One time he had a cob that broke fifty of mine and the next day he found it and again wiped me out.  That was some cob!

Years later, when we were both in our sixties, I asked him about that cob and he told me that he had hid it, ready for batttle the next day.

Sometimes we would line the cobs up like in trenches and throw rocks at them.  There were plenty of flints there and when they hit another rock they would give off a little spark and the smoke would smell exactly like burnt gunpowder.  That was nice.