Mumbly Peg
There was a game i used to play when I was just a young kid.
When we were bored looking for some fun like we often did.
It was an old game that didn’t take anything but a pocket knife,
Requiring not too much skill to put a little fun in our young lives.
.
.
.
Mumbly Peg
When I was a young boy living on 3rd Street in Phillips town,
There was not much to do so we played these games on the ground
We played outside with other boys in the neighborhood on the run.
My dad taught me a game he played as a boy that was very fun.
.
.
.
.
He called it “Mumbly Peg”, a game for two boys with some grit.
You needed a large sized pocket knife with two blades on it,
And a small wooden peg carved from a 1/8th inch limb on a tree,
Cut to about 3 inches long with a sharp point on one end by me.
.
.
.
.
..
.
The first thing you do is drive the small peg right into the ground,
Leaving only 1/4th inch sticking up so it can easily be found.
You find a patch in your yard with no grass, just flat level dirt.
Then sit down together with your pocket knives ready to start.
.
.
.
.
You open the short blade all the way and the long one only halfway,
And stick the long blade in the dirt, then the index finger lay,
Under the butt end of the handle ready to give the knife a flip.
Then you give the knife a flip, traveling at least a foot on its trip.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
If the knife lands on its back, you get one point for your score,
If the knife sticks back like it started, then you get two, a bit more.
If the knife sticks on the short point, you get three points then.
In any other position, you get no points at all towards the win.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Both players take turns flipping their knives until one hits twenty.
The loser must pull the peg with his teeth usually with dirt aplenty,
Saying “I’ll do better next time” the whole time he pulls it out.
Which comes out in a Mumbly sort of way as the loser does pout.
.
Sorry Ricky, that’s 20 for me, the pegs ready for you to pull.
.
.
..
.
There are probably hundreds of versions of this game out there,
My Dad taught me this one because it’s the safest one anywhere.
I can’t recall ever getting a single cut when we played this version,
I guess my Dad was a good father and a very street smart person.
.
.
.
.
I had forgotten about this fun knife game we often used to play.
Until I saw a picture of a pocket knife open in that certain game way,
In a flash I remembered the game, the rules, and how to score.
I guess all our brains have a lot down deep in there still stored.
.
.
.
.
It’s funny how the memories stored in there come to the surface,
When something we hear or see strikes a nerve giving lt purpose.
I guess it’s like losing something in a computer’s memory banks,
That has been forgotten about a long time by all the user ranks.
.
.
.
.
By Bill
.
.
Thanks for reading Mumbly Peg,
Bill