My parents have told me that when I was very young I was enamored of balls. They even have photographic evidence of this strange fact. I can\u2019t say that I really recall ever having such an attachment to spheres, but I have no reason to disbelieve them. They tell me I had a fondness for peas because they were, according to me, balls\u2014and I would roll them around on my plate and play with them. I don\u2019t think I much cared for eating them, but rolling them didn\u2019t bother my tongue.<\/p>\n
\tSince then, I\u2019ve grown to enjoy eating peas\u2014especially if they are split and in a soup\u2014and have little interest in their ability to roll about on my plate.<\/p>\n
\tNevertheless, as I sit here in front of my computer, I can\u2019t help but notice that I have three balls sitting on my desk: of the sort that used to be called super balls. I recall when super balls first appeared. Back when I was in third grade, a classmate arrived with an odd dark gray ball: it was hard and did not at all feel like any ball I\u2019d ever seen or touched to that point. And when he threw it on the ground, it bounced unlike any ball I\u2019d ever seen, flying up above the school roof.<\/p>\n
\tLater, I noticed television advertisements for them. They were manufactured by the same company that made Frisbees: Wham-O. The rubber compound of which the super ball is made was invented by a chemist named Norman Stingley in 1964. He first offered his rubbery concoction to his employer, the Bettis Rubber company, but they turned him down because his compound was, as yet, not very durable. But the Wham-O toy company recognized its potential and quickly improved its durability. By the end of 1965 the Wham-O company had sold more than six million super balls. As time went by, the balls began appearing in other sizes and colors and the price dropped. Eventually other manufacturers began making similar bouncers. <\/p>\n
The first super ball I ever owned was about the size of a large marble. I had quite a bit of fun with it, despite the fact that it was really quite useless for playing jacks. Something that I and my classmates, regardless of gender, had developed quite a fondness for by that time. To play jacks, we used a small ball that was red and rather soft; it didn\u2019t bounce unusually high nor twitch about in the rather uncontrollable fashion of the super ball.<\/p>\n
\tAs I recall, I got very good at playing jacks. I was able to scoop them up, first one at a time, then two, and so on until in one scoop, I could snag the whole pile on the last bounce. I managed to get competent at it whether we played with the normal, small metal jacks or with the larger, plastic kind. <\/p>\n
\tAnother form of ball that I remember from my childhood was the marble. My father introduced them to me and taught me how to shoot them. He gave me a bunch of that he\u2019d had as a boy and taught me about aggies and steelies and cats eyes. I frequented the five and dime and acquired bags full. I even snagged some from peanut butter. For awhile, jars of Jiff peanut butter came with a clear plastic attachment on the lid filled with cats eye marbles.<\/p>\n
\tLater balls in my life include the baseball or softball that my father and I would throw back and forth in the back yard. My dad was an exceptional fast pitch softball player and pitcher; he played on the Air Force team of whatever base he happened to be stationed at and he earned many, many trophies.<\/p>\n
\tMeanwhile, I went on to play baseball in elementary school on school teams. I also remember multiple games of kickball with those large reddish balls that seemed to be ubiquitous in school. We also used them sometimes to play dodge ball. <\/p>\n
Once I hit junior high, my only experience playing ball came in gym classes, and then it was always softball; they were afraid we\u2019d hurt ourselves if we played with real baseballs. Of course, that didn\u2019t keep them from letting us play dodge ball\u2014and even wrestling and boxing. But of course neither of those latter two sports involved using balls at all.<\/p>\n
My experience with basketball consists entirely of games of horse and I think I played tennis once in high school. Outside of school, especially when we traveled back to Ohio to visit my grandparents and other assorted relatives often meant games of croquet. I don\u2019t remember much about croquet beyond what it was like to place one\u2019s foot on one ball that was touching another ball, and then swinging my mallet to make that second ball scoot away like a scared rabbit.<\/p>\n
\tToday, I\u2019m left with only the three super balls on top of my desk. The only other balls I see are those being tossed around on professional ball fields. My middle daughter now works in the stadium kitchen of our local minor league baseball team\u2014and she gets eight free tickets a month. That makes me pretty happy even if I don\u2019t get to play with any of the balls myself.<\/p>\n
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