[MR] Bowling / skittles--a question

[ladypyrate at charter.net]

> 
> Message: 3
> Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2005 08:51:04 -0700 (PDT)
> From: DRYW FREED <drywdryw at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: [MR] Bowling / skittles--a question
> To: atlantia at atlantia.sca.org
> Message-ID: <20050811155104.74704.qmail at web81407.mail.yahoo.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
> 
> 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
> 

I too have seen this game!  As a matter of fact Master Eldred had to throw me out of the building to get me to stop playing. <G>  In looking for sets on-line and on e-bay, I have seen it called "Bar Skittles" and it seems to be popular in England.  I unfortunately don't know much more than that, except the fact that it can be horribly addictive!

Meadhbh