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I have lost my marbles......


Toitjie

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When I was a kid in the 80's...school was much like it is now in terms of the crazes kids go through. One kid brings a toy and soon everyone has them..until the next craze

One of the crazes I loved most was marbles. I had those with the 2 tone colours inside, white and something else, and a few that were pure blue and a few pure green. I treasured my marbles.

Recently when we moved to our rental, I discovered my marbles, remember this was more than 30 years ago, so naturally I feel protective of these marbles, they are ancient, Africana almost :)

But being the loving mom that I am, I gave them to my children, telling them how precious and old these marbles are. Soon the kids came home telling me all the kids have marbles and can we buy some at the toy store. Here I learned that "roosters" and "rivers" and "jungle" and "venus" and "galaxy" and "tiger" and "moonrocks" are the new names...the most beautiful marbles

I innocently asked what they call those I gave them...they are called "toothpaste" and the kids will not take them to school, they are not very popular ;)

I told my kids they are quite fortunate having all these beautiful marbles, as we obviously only had the "toothpaste" ones...my son said..shame...were you poor?

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I remember those days well. We were too poor to afford the toothpaste ones, you were lucky.

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Oh man, going down memory lane... I remember the holes and the smooth runways we made in the sand. Aiming carefully to make sure you don't loose your marbles in a match. And yes, they were indeed treasured back then with their varied colours and paterns. Do you also remember the chaps whose dads were mechanics and brought the heavy duty ball bearings to basically obliterate the glass marbles? Jeez, I have not opened this dusty box from the memory shelf in ages...

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You must have been rich to have marbles......we only had conkers............lol....only kidding, we had marbles......hold onto them Toitjie, there are some serious collectors out there.............do you even get conkers in RSA?

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HEOJ - I swopped things to get some marbles, then I won a lot of contests to get more, I was good at winning them :)

Andrea - what are conkers? Dont know those...

Its interesting that the topic came up...richness and poorness. I guess there are degrees of rich and poor. I never admitted it because I was ashamed, but on this forum I realised that I was not the only one, it seems that most of us grew up rather more on the poor side. Of course, having a house and food means richer than others, but in the bigger scheme of things we did not have much.

And I will say I think it made me a much better person, I had so very few toys that I treasured all of them and still, after 35 years, have some of them. I have a pink panther that I got from somebody for Christmas, the pink panther will be 33 this year. Our English neighbour gave me a set of oil pastels which I have to this day. They will be around 30 years old. Those were my absolute best gift in the whole world, and they moved with me over the years.

My kids on the other hand get spoiled by their grandparents, when having birthday parties they get toys from their friends so they dont look after their things as I did and it really frustrates me. By having too much they dont really appreciate things....its really difficult. I mean I cannot ask family and their friends not to give them toys.....our kids today have very different lives than what we had. I dont wish them to be poor, but it sure does form your character in a different way when you grow up with less than those around you.

Edited by Toitjie
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Why did the railways kids always seem to have large deep bottle green marbles?

They were not perfect, but had sunken trails over the surface ..... never found out what they were except "Pa het dit van die werk gebring".

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Conkers Toitjie http://resources.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/customs/conkers.html

Of course if you were a rubbish shot or had a particularly mean opponent, they would aim for your hands....our hands were always scabby and bleeding.

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I think being on the "poorer" side of life makes it easier for us to integrate and start our lives over after immigrating.

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You must have been rich to have marbles......we only had conkers............lol....only kidding, we had marbles......hold onto them Toitjie, there are some serious collectors out there.............do you even get conkers in RSA?

I still played conkers in the 90's at the prep school I went too, granted it was like old England with traditions; there was a 372-er that sold for R10, an absolute fortune! Marbles and spinning tops also had their seasons :)

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And dont forget those damned yo-yo's!

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I loved those yoyo's. I saved for months to be able to buy all the ABI branded ones. I had the whole collection. Both the see through and standard colours. Fanta Orange, Coke, Sprite and Mellow Yellow. They were awesome. :ilikeit:

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I loved those yoyo's. I saved for months to be able to buy all the ABI branded ones. I had the whole collection. Both the see through and standard colours. Fanta Orange, Coke, Sprite and Mellow Yellow. They were awesome. :ilikeit:

Oh how I hated them :) The yo-you would go up and down once, nicely, all peachy, and then it would start twisting and turning and curling up. I never got the hang of it. But I do remember some awesome tricks people could do with them..and each trick had a real neat name. Those were the days *sigh*

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It was more affordable to have kids back then ;) If only my kids would get the same enjoyment out of simple toys we did... But yes, the peer pressure of today to have the best brands and the latest tech is making us rather consumerist. Kids must have cell phones, tablets, and the craze with branded fashion ware... What happened to the good old bicycle or the marbles? Perhaps because we are locking our kids away in safe-houses and they do not have the freedom we had 30+ years ago. Are we compensating?

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Never mind, the tricks like "walking the dog" and so on, you've beaten them with a trick of your own, called "falling off a horse" ;)

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Never mind, the tricks like "walking the dog" and so on, you've beaten them with a trick of your own, called "falling off a horse" ;)

hmmm...I would take my chances rather with that yo-you then...the whole horse thing...I measured myself last night since the dr said 2 vertebrae were fractured..sort of squashed together, so I thought I'd just check..and Im a whole centimetre shorter!

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hmmm...I would take my chances rather with that yo-you then...the whole horse thing...I measured myself last night since the dr said 2 vertebrae were fractured..sort of squashed together, so I thought I'd just check..and Im a whole centimetre shorter!

Entering little old lady territory here ..... :P

All the best and just think of the Victorian women in their corsets.

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Don't stress Toitjie

Apparently our spine compresses through the weight of our body each day and we can be 2 cm shorter at night....as you sleep it decompresses, so measure yourself in the morning....................and just ignore Mr positivity above.

BTW the kids get a lot of shows at school here and the yo-yo people came and did all the cool tricks I remember as a kid not so long ago at my sons school.

Next week it is life van, where they get age appropriate education i.e. nutrition, safety, why smelyl 12 year old's should wear deodorant, internet safety etc.

A note gets sent home and you have to give permission for your child to attend and usually a couple of dollars.

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My daughter signed up for all the sex classes - real chip off the old block, she is.

Sent her discuss with mother - I will help her with her maths homework, I will not help her with bodily secretions.

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Hhhhmmmm, after my hubby said he will teach my 8 year old boy everything he knows...........I thought, I'll handle the sex education in this family...........Better than his brother, whose solution was to take hos 18 year old son to the brothel in Mackay..............because apparently you get a free pie................or so our jokey story goes, he never actually took him.............but it's true, you get a free pie.........Aussies love their pies.

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All my child wants now is an iPad. I hate those things simply because they are mac. Could she have not rather wanted a Galaxy or even a Microsoft one?

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Andrea - for a few moments there you had me ecstatic! But alas, I quickly measured again, still 169 cm...I was 170cm.. and it seems I really lost height! Oh dear...guess I will have to start wearing corsets now too....but the robocop thingy I have to wear is almost like a corset... :)

HEOJ - I thought apple is the in-thing? I also heard that the kids work on ipads in schools..guess I will have to start budgeting for expensive toys!

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HEOJ - I thought apple is the in-thing? I also heard that the kids work on ipads in schools..guess I will have to start budgeting for expensive toys!

Apple is the in thing, the school was where she had her first iPad experience and now that's all she wants for Christmas. :boxing:

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Ahem............I despise the hold Apple has once it gets you in its grip..........we have 2 ipod touch, 1 nano and 1 shuffle, 2 ipads and 1 ipad mini, 1 iphone 5..........suckers...........no macs as I refuse to let Apple own my entire soul...........it just seems easier to get things here.......do a lay bye for Xmas at Target or something HEOJ.

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I won't be corrupted. :P

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I won't be corrupted. :P

You will....." Ag Daddie...all the other children have ipads....do you want me to be the only one without"......flutters big beautiful eyes and puts on sad face and daddy melts.........let me know when you get it....lol

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