Adicus wrote:
What is a "jack"
Adicus;
Although I haven't seen any Jacks for about 65 years now, I'll try to explain them from memory; It's a kids game, (mostly played by little girls if my memory serves me correctly ); the "jacks" are small little things made from "pot metal" (I'm guessing? ), and each jack has six "arms" or "points", radiating out from the center, with 4 of the arms being in the same plane, and the other two at right angles to the other 4; each jack is maybe 20mm from side to side; the little "arms" are rather rounded on the ends, with two of them opposite each other being "ball-shaped" on the ends. when the jack falls on the floor, it always comes to rest on three of the little arms; (for lack of a more descriptive word to describe them. )
I'm really guessing now, as I never "played jacks" when I was a little boy, as I was always more into going to a creek to catch water snakes, or to a field to catch field mice, (to feed to my king snakes ), but I did notice a few little girls playing jacks; as best that I can remember, it seems like they had maybe a dozen jacks in a small open can, and a small rubber ball; I think the object was to first bounce the ball, and while it was still in the air, quickly dump the jacks out on the floor, then very quickly attempting to grab them all up and put back in the can before the little ball landed back on the floor from it's first bounce.
Uh,Oh.......I just checked with my "chief consultant on everything"....my wife, and I had it close but I was a little off; it seems that there are only 8 jacks; the little ball is thrown up, and while it's still going "up", the "player" grabs one jack before the ball lands; after the ball bounces again, the player grabs the ball with the same hand that's holding the jack; the ball is then thrown up again, and the player must grab two jacks before the ball bounces; now the ball is thrown up again, (with the same hand that's now holding 3 jacks ), and this time the player has to grab three jacks with the hand that's already holding three jacks! On the next "throw up", (with the hand now holding six jacks), the player must grab up the last 2 jacks without dropping any of the 6 jacks, then catch the ball after the bounce while now holding all 8 jacks! My wife has informed me that her mother was a world champion jack player, and could actually do it with 12 jacks, all without dropping a single jack. (Frankly, I still think catching snakes was more fun. )
Thinking back now with an adult mind, I suppose jacks could have been considered to be a perfectly safe toy for the age kids that they were originally intended for, which I'm guessing again may have been age 5 or 6, to perhaps age 10 or 11; on the other hand, I'm also guessing that to small "toddlers" or infants who always tend to stick any small object into their mouth, that in today's world of "product liability" and over-zealous lawyers, the people who invented and sold jacks are probably now all mouldering away in some dungeon, after first being sued for 100 million $$$ by said lawyers. I'm also guessing that there have also probably been a few surgeons who have had to perform major surgery on infants or toddlers who swallowed one or more of these little "jacks".........and we have just now heard from one adult male as to how stepping on a "jack" with one's bare feet, "feels"! (Thank heavens the ends of at least 4 of the ends of these little things was at least "rounded" rather than "pointed"! )
Taking all of the above into consideration, I'm guessing one more time that all of these things mentioned are probably why one very seldom (if ever ), sees little girls playing with jacks these days.