Marbles

 

After several days of deadline pressure, I returned to Ricochet this evening intending to write a post.  What did I discover?  That everything I wanted to say had already been said.  (Troy Senik:  Mitt Romney still strikes a lot of conservatives as “someone who sees this as a game to be won, rather than a cause to be advanced.”  If there were a Pulitzer Prize for individual sentences, Troy would just have clinched it.)

Instead of opining, then, may I simply offer a word on behalf of fatherhood?  My youngest daughter, who turned 10 just yesterday, dragged me away from my work just now to force me onto my knees for a game of marbles.  Just marbles.  Thirteen mibs inside a string circle, the blue shooter for her, the orange shooter for me.  When I missed an easy shot by about two feet, she erupted into such pure, unforced peals of laughter, collapsing onto her side and rolling on the carpet, that I decided right then that I had never experienced a more completely delightful moment.  Then, the game tied at six apiece, I missed again, leaving her to make a long, tricky shot–and knock the last mib out of the circle, winning.  Oh, the look on her face!  Surprise and joy–sheer joy.  For an instant, the very universe had to a ten-year old in pajamas.

“Dad,” she said, laughing once again after saying her prayers, “I still don’t see how you could have missed that one shot.”

Until tomorrow, Ricochet.

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  1. Profile Photo Inactive
    @MarkWilson
    EJHill

    Peter and his wife have five children. My wife and I have four. With that many children, it is not a drive to crazy, just a short putt.

    A gimme?

    • #1
  2. Profile Photo Inactive
    @user_211930

    You must have an aggie for a shooter. This is a marble, not a Texan.

    • #2
  3. Profile Photo Member
    @

    Good for you, Peter: Never too busy to smell the roses or shoot the marbles.

    • #3
  4. Profile Photo Inactive
    @DanielTurner

    Marbles, eh? That sounds like a completely appropriate post for a site called “Ricochet.” Cheap shot or right on the mark?

    I guess you’ll have to knuckle down for your next shot…and a subject for your next post! Looking forward to it!

    • #4
  5. Profile Photo Inactive
    @oleneo65

    Moments such as this from Peter are what separates Ricochet from all other political/opinion sites. Thanks, Peter.

    • #5
  6. Profile Photo Inactive
    @Pilli

    Childish innocence is a wonderful thing.

    • #6
  7. Profile Photo Member
    @JamesDelingpole
    (Troy Senik: Mitt Romney still strikes a lot of conservatives as “someone who sees this as a game to be won, rather than a cause to be advanced.” If there were a Pulitzer Prize for individual sentences, Troy would just have clinched it.)

    This exactly what we’ve got in Britain with our answer to Mitt, David Cameron. He’s a Conservative for whom conservatism is a moveable feast – to be picked from or completely jetisoned according to the perceived whims of the electorate.

    • #7
  8. Profile Photo Inactive
    @SeverelyLtd

    Wish we still had a ten-year-old. And a seven-year-old. And a four-year…well, I won’t go that far.

    Peter, suck it up like a sponge, it ends too soon.

    • #8
  9. Profile Photo Inactive
    @LeslieWatkins

    Conversation overheard when my little girl (Bug) was almost four and was walking back to the car with her bestest friend ever (Sara) just a few feet ahead of me:

    Sara: That was fun.

    Bug: Yeah.

    Sara: Leslah’s the silliest grownup ever.

    The most excellent compliment I’ve ever got.

    • #9
  10. Profile Photo Coolidge
    @iWe

    I find kids keep me young. And yes, even sane. We have 6, and we home school, so they are always around: learning, helping, working on projects or chores or assignments.

    I can now walk into a store, hand the list to a kid, and meet them at checkout. Like whirling dervishes they get it all done, and do it right.

    Kids give me unspeakable pleasure. I wallow in it, like some big hippo in a massive mud bath. When I want to feel sad, I imagine them all out of the house…

    • #10
  11. Profile Photo Member
    @PeterGothgen

    It’s always the simple toys that are the most fun. My three-year old daughter has a plethora of electronically-enhanced toys, mostly received as gifts. Her greatest joy, however, is breaking out either the TinkerToys, her magnet blocks, or Lincoln Logs and declaring that we have to build “The Biggest Thing Ever” (a result, at least partially, of much time spent watching the indispensable ‘Phineas & Ferb’).

    I have a hard time believing that anyone who cannot appreciate the sheer joy of children is, in any meaningful sense, a human being.

    • #11
  12. Profile Photo Member
    @Britanicus

    Thanks for sharing Peter. Reading about that beautiful moment set me on the right pace for the day.

    • #12
  13. Profile Photo Coolidge
    @iWe

    My wife has a category of story: TTTTS (The Things That They Say).

    One of my all-time favorites was a conversation between two 11 year-old boys.

    JOB POSSIBILITIES — T and his friend were in the car together, discussing the low level of gas in the car, and how we needed to get to a gas station soon.

    Friend: “I sure would not like to be one of those people at a gas station who give change when you don’t pay by credit card.”

    T: “Why?

    Friend: “Because I stink at math.”

    T: “Well, anyway, it is not that interesting a job. Sure, you get to occasionally see fireballs, but they are trying to cut down on those, so I think it must be usually quite boring.”

    • #13
  14. Profile Photo Member
    @MollieHemingway
    iWc:

    Kids give me unspeakable pleasure. I wallow in it, like some big hippo in a massive mud bath. When I want to feel sad, I imagine them all out of the house… · 23 minutes ago

    My parents delighted in their children, too. Things were strict, but we’re all incredibly close. My parents were so close with each other that it actually surprised me that they were a bit sad when we all left. But then we just began repaying them for their kindness through the gift of grandchildren.

    • #14
  15. Profile Photo Member
    @DaveL

    Peter,

    As I read your post feelings of nostalgia and melancholy welled over me. My baby, one of four children, will be twenty-one next month.

    Then a happy thought came to me.

    Grandchildren!

    • #15
  16. Profile Photo Member
    @DrewInWisconsin

    Lovely, Peter.

    My wife and I didn’t meet until I was halfway through my 30s. Now, as I start the back half of my 40s, I still have a six and eight-year-old in the house, while many of my friends are in the process of readying their kids for college.

    I look at these people, and I think “They look so old!” which I suspect is largely an illusion and a mirror that shows me only what I want to see. But I know that my kids keep me young.

    I’m certain I was on the path to becoming a bitter and cynical old man. My wife, and then later my children, saved my life.

    • #16
  17. Profile Photo Member
    @Illiniguy

    I’ll now speak a word on behalf of grandfatherhood. I was pressed into service to watch my 3 year old grandson yesterday. We had breakfast, gathered eggs from the chicken house, checked the beehives and took Nick the 3-Legged Dog for a walk. I had to delicately answer his question of where the steers (which we called “the Boys”) had gone and a million other questions only a 3 year old can think of. It will go down as probably one of the best days of 2012. The old saying is right, grandchildren are God’s gift for not having murdered your children.

    • #17
  18. Profile Photo Inactive
    @LeslieWatkins

    My mother had the following saying on our refrigerator: Avenge yourself: live long enough to be a problem to your children. She’s 93 and kickin’!

    Illiniguy: … The old saying is right, grandchildren are God’s gift for not having murdered your children. · 18 minutes ago

    Edited 16 minutes ago

    • #18
  19. Profile Photo Member
    @Misthiocracy

    I was never clear on the rules for playing marbles when I was a kid.

    The rules seemed to change at will on my school’s playground.

    The winner was the kid with the most influence to enforce his/her vision of the rules at any given time.

    (Insert comment about government here.)

    • #19
  20. Profile Photo Member
    @JoeEscalante

    nixon20and20checkers2019571.jpgMarbles were out of fashion in the 1970s but I played them rabidly anyway. Nixon was also out of fashion, but I made my mom vote for him anyway. Great story Peter.

    • #20
  21. Profile Photo Inactive
    @tabularasa

    When I grew up in a rural town in the fifties, playing marbles was huge. We played in the dirt, and I actually wore holes in the knees of a pair of jeans in less than a week.

    It was a great lesson in meritocracy. In my town, there was a freckled, red-headed kid named Johnny Jones (think of the freckled kid in Sandlot). To the best of my knowledge, Johnny had no other athletic skills, but he was a marble-playing phenom. At the end of a couple of hours, he would always win my marbles.

    He still lives in my home town. I’ve seriously considered raiding his garage, because I have a strong feeling it’s filled with coffee cans filled with my marbles.

    • #21
  22. Profile Photo Member
    @DrewInWisconsin

    Saw this comic yesterday. Knocked me over.

    1758.jpg

    • #22
  23. Profile Photo Inactive
    @TheKingPrawn

    Lovely story, Peter. Started my day off right.

    Here’s a story related only by the marbles.

    • #23
  24. Profile Photo Podcaster
    @EJHill

    HEADLINE: Noted Conservative Peter Robinson Loses His Marbles, Blames His Youngest Child

    One of them always gets you in the end, Brother Robinson….

    • #24
  25. Profile Photo Inactive
    @JamesGawron

    Thanks Pete,

    Maybe I can get some sleep now. The Rabbis say that an adult is to a young child as Gd is to the adult.

    The child can not understand the complexities of the adult but is secure in knowing that the adult loves them unconditionally.

    So Gd loves us unconditionally.

    • #25
  26. Profile Photo Member
    @
    EJHill: HEADLINE: Noted Conservative Peter Robinson Loses His Marbles, Blames His Youngest Child

    One of them always gets you in the end, Brother Robinson…. · 3 minutes ago

    Edited 2 minutes ago

    I object…you took this out of context. He obviously left them in Neverland.

    • #26
  27. Profile Photo Inactive
    @GusMarvinson

    What a lovely moment, Peter. Thanks for sharing it. Children are a blessing:

    Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.–Psalm 127:5

    • #27
  28. Profile Photo Member
    @Illiniguy
    Leslie Watkins: My mother had the following saying on our refrigerator: Avenge yourself: live long enough to be a problem to your children. She’s 93 and kickin’!

    2 hours ago

    May she continue to torment you for years to come.

    • #28
  29. Profile Photo Inactive
    @DocJay

    Just awesome, how could you miss that shot? My 9 year old just finished “Where the Red Fern Grows” 20 minutes ago and there was some consoling involved even though he knew it would end sadly.

    • #29
  30. Profile Photo Podcaster
    @EJHill
    Keith Preston I object…you took this out of context.

    Peter and his wife have five children. My wife and I have four. With that many children, it is not a drive to crazy, just a short putt.

    Like Peter, I would not trade any of it away for all the gold in Glenn Beck’s safe. Although when the tuition bills start rolling in next fall for the oldest’s freshman year the wife might consider selling me off.

    • #30
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