ToddinWestwood
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Thousands of horse chestnuts fell off our two trees today. Thinking of starting a league for Conkers.
A friend of mine grew up in England. When he saw we had chestnut trees, he told me there would never be a single one left on the ground or anywhere in the tree within "broom handle distance".
See here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conkers
I have often wondered why the children here don't play conkers. They do love to collect the ones in Hiawatha, but I've never seen them playing the game.
When I was a child in England, conkers was an important activity every autumn in the schoolyard, where we had lovely horse chestnut trees (and grass! What a concept!) It was only played by the boys, though; the boys didn't allow the girls to participate, except to gather conkers. (The girls, on the other hand, were the only ones to make "fish skeletons" of the horse chestnut leaves. The boys, I think, just regarded it as a foolish, feminine activity.)
Don't they play conkers anymore??? We played it when I was growing up (30-40's). It was as popular as marblss, though seasonal. Some of the best conkers came from Hiawatha. As I recall it was a boy's game, though some of the girls collected horse chessnuts too. A lot of kids liked to take the husk off and polish them for their collections. I don't remember making "fish skeletons" from the leaves.
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