[MR] Bowling / skittles--a question

[DRYW FREED]

While we're talking about variations on games with pins, when I was a child in Kentucky, there was a restaurant that had a game called "skittles", but it was a bit different.  The board was table-sized, with raised sides.  The skittles were about six inches high and placed on circles marked with scores.  There was a slot in the side of the board where you placed a spindle/top wrapped with string.  You pulled the string to spin the top, and as it bounced around the board, it knocked over a skittle here or there.   Your score was the total under the skittles you knocked over before the top stopped spinning.
 
The game was Appalachian--the place where some people still speak with vaguely Elizabethan accents--so I'm not sure if it's a particularly old game, derived from one, or just a modern invention.  Anyone know anything about it?  Anyone ever seen the game I'm talking about?  I have only ever seen it in that one restaurant, so for all I know it's something they invented there!  
 
Thanks for any info,
Dryw

Bill Mauldin <wmauldin at adelphia.net> wrote:
If memory serves, Rip Van Wrinkle mentions bowling in America. It was not
written period but much before 1900.

Geffrei


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