July 26, 2008

  • Kissing Ballgame

    From my childhood, I remember my extended family playing four for-all-ages games in the backyard: barney ball (a sort of baseball made of socks hit with your fist), croquet, horse shoes, and bocce.

    My parents own a couple sweet bocce sets. Their particular sets have brightly colored plastic balls with weights in the center for ballast. The case can be carried anywhere, and the game can be played on any relatively flat lawn. Here we enjoyed a game in a newer park that offers bocce courts. We taught new friend Ben how to play, and he caught on a bit too fast. 

    The idea of the game is to throw out the “pauline” or as some call it, the “jack”: the little white ball. Then, everyone sees how close they can bowl their balls. In each round, only the closest person gets one point or two, depending on how many balls he has next to the pauline. The fun is bowling your ball accurately enough to knock someone else’s away from the pauline, while giving yourself better position. Such fun involves the balls “kissing,” which is where the name, as I understand it, comes from. The game is based on an ancient Roman game; bocce is from the Italian word for kiss.

    When the game is close, measuring is required. L is using the tape measure that my dad carries conveniently in his pocket everyday. Such a handy dad.


    I didn’t win.
    ||||||  lynard

Comments (3)

  • I like bocci! It’s a lot like horse shoes I think. It seemed to be popular in the Pittsburgh area. We played it a lot with B’s relatives.

  • i’ll have to check out that edison glass stuff.

    and all of the guys are professing christians, however the mainstream christian marketplace might have you believe otherwise simply b/c some of them aren’t on a christian label.

  • @v43_of_ii_dim - 

    I know what you mean about Christian labels. I’ve seen artists who were signed to Christian labels go off later and do some ungodly things. I’m also familiar with some bands on the Tooth and Nail and mainstream labels that are made up of some, but not all, Christians. Your list looked fairly solid.

    The other night when I went to a concert at a mainstream venue with a couple bands who are “known” to be Christians, one of the guys in the warm up band walked in with a case of beer and proceeded to get inebriated before our eyes. Two hours later, he was spewing profanity on the sidewalk outside the club in front of my kids. I was so disappointed because my kids really liked the band. I tell my kids not to go by labels but by fruit.

    |||||| (six guitar strings) lynard

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