A GAME OF MUMBLETY PEG

One of our early 50’s rites of fall involved returning to school in suitable new clothes which we shopped for in one place only: The brick two-story JC Penney store in downtown Reseda. The shopping was horrible in its complexity and complete lack of anything germane to a small boy’s life. Boys are utilitarian by nature. Have pants. Don’t need new ones. Have a shirt, don’t need new ones. OK. I’ll make an exception for new shoes, which contribute mightily to your kickball range. That seriously is the reason I wanted new shoes. And Red Ball Jets for sneakers. Television was still in its infancy, and the commercials were a joy to behold. A kid with new sneakers could FLY!! over fences and BOUND!! to his destination in a couple of hops if he had new Red Ball Jets. They were the Cadillac of top of the line sneakers, so I never got them. However, Keds were the Buick of sneakers and quite acceptable; they had some kind of wedge that made your footsteps as light as air. I usually got Keds.

As a reward or enticement for going on this tortuous exercise, every fall I got to pick out a new Boy Scout knife from the showcase cabinet upstairs near the Sporting Goods section. I think perhaps my parents felt that thus armed against the unknown I might be slightly safer. This seemed to be a common concern of parents; the unknown that could step forward from the shifting shadows and fog and wrap its bony fingers around your child’s throat, and drag the unfortunate waif into the shadow land between life and death, never to be heard from again.

Looking back I know it was clever marketing to position the Boy Scout’s Official Equipment showcase at the top of the stairs. It was right on the way to boy’s wear. Couldn’t miss it. There was any number of essential equipment items a young boy required to maintain order and be prepared for an atomic bomb aftermath, including Boy Scout Knives. Utilitarian, and an essential tool for every young boy in the 1950’s. They had dark imitation antler handles, with a little shield which if you looked close enough said “BSA”. No self-respecting boy would be caught outdoors in an atomic attack without his pocket knife. As such, it was a given during our neighborhood gatherings that we would engage in knife games. It was something we had seen the older guys doing on the lawn in front of the Doherty’s garage next door to my house. There were two basic games, “hit the target on the tree”, which may have had a name, but I don’t recall. The other was “Mumblety-peg” and we preferred this as it only took a knife and the spirit of competition.

What you did was draw a small circle about the diameter of a coffee cup upon the bare earth, and stand at a preagreed point, open your knife and throw it at the circle so the blade stuck in the ground. Closest to the center went first. To play, you stood with your feet together, and threw the knife to your left, then right, into the ground near your feet at a point no farther than you could then place your foot. You then moved your foot to that spot, and whoever finally lost their balance and fell lost. It was like twister in a way. The point was to have your feet spread the farthest apart without falling over. Generally it was done by twos, but sometimes I recall circles of three or more. Points were awarded each round, with closeness to the foot in a measure of three inches being the determining factor. Five, four, three, two, and one point, depending on who was making the call.

After several games of this, the interaction of the knife blade with the earth tended to dull it slightly, and this is why it was important to have a new knife yearly. As far as pocket knives, some boys had collections of them, assisted by their fathers I imagine. Some were beautiful, polished gleaming things made of exotic materials with German steel blades. Practically jewelry, they were not suitable for mumblety-peg but breathtaking to admire. I had gathered a collection of my own, gleaned mainly from the many boxes of stuff stashed in the shelves and cabinets of my father’s garage workshop and kitchen junk drawer. My dad often bought a new knife rather than root through all his junk for the old one.

Unlike many “workshops” which were early man caves consisting of a used sofa and some rusting tools hanging on a pegboard, my dad’s workshop was actually used for his work. A side source of income was creating little parts and cutting stones from exotic materials with lathes and drill presses, grinders and diamond tipped cutting blades. My father and grandfather, and my father’s brothers, had become involved in the nascent business of industrial diamonds, used for cutting and polishing very hard things like the space age metals that had been developed during the war. As such they had created a network of exclusive access to exotic cutting materials that were required in postwar America and were able to do small scale contract work that ran on the specially set up machines installed in dad’s garage workshop. A bonus in Dad’s workshop, it had an old cast iron potbellied stove for heat and the obligatory old sofa and chairs. It lent the place an air of an outdoor campsite. It was a good hang if you were a kid, although staying indoors back then made you antsy most of the time.

So it was I had a varied collection of pocket knives to choose from. But nothing breathtaking or glamorous. Most of them ordinary, some with company logos. Pocket knives were a favored advertising medium then. Some of the guys, their dads collected knives. There were some pretty exotic things showing up. Not really pocket knives but filet knives and hunting knives for cleaning your catch. In the back of our minds, we knew these knives were in all likelihood forbidden fruit and if a parent caught one of the guys playing with a knife like this there would be trouble. This was mainly due to the size and expense associated with these things. Some of them were Bowie knives. Others were folding knives with huge 10-inch blades. To our knowledge as kids, none of these were street legal, so not getting caught with them extended beyond parental supervision to the authorities beyond the safety of your block.

These sporty knives had some pretty cool handles. Beautiful to me and the guys, they were composed of stylized layers of wood in different colors, some with a semi-precious stone inlay, some with various colors of celluloid or Bakelite. So, when the word spread via the kid messaging system on the block that there was going to be a knife competition, we each came armed like a pack of bandidos.

There were six or seven of us, not counting the older guys and brothers who operated on their own wave length. They were generally 14 and up. We took turns revealing our knife of choice. I loved my Boy Scout knife, and it carried with it a cachet of acceptance. Then, Steve Hermeke pulled out a knife that was clearly his dad’s. Its beauty was such that we all gasped in unison. It was a folding knife, but it was big, the size of a kitchen knife. The handle was a beautiful high polished black ebony with inlays of gold. There was a graceful arch to it, ending in one end being upswept like a streamline moderne implement from the 30’s. The blade when unfolded, was mirror finish Damascus steel. “Laguiole” was written in script at the base. “Twenty five dollars” said Steve. “My dad paid twenty five dollars for this.”

Twenty five bucks was a car payment back then.

I felt a burning envy that I have never felt before. Once the initial buzz subsided, we went about prequalifying, knife in the circle, etc. As we took our places, in the back of my mind alarm bells were going off. Steve was not the most coordinated kid by any stretch. He was afraid of the ball when we played baseball. He was always hurting himself in minor ways. In fact, contrary to all kid logic, he wasn’t wearing shoes for this game, but rubber flip flops. And now he was in possession of a weapon. I dunno, I just had a bad feeling about this. The game went on, rotating to each boy. I landed a great throw, but it proved too much for me to move my foot to the spot and remain standing, and on the fourth round I fell.

I was standing on the sidelines with the older boys, who seemed always amused by our antics. They provided catcalls and social pressure. Steve was still in the game. That knife was slick. It never bounced or partially stuck. It went through the grass lawn like butter. How I wished I could have that knife. The game got down to Todd Fletcher, a towheaded kid who was freckled like his face was blasted with a freckle gun, and Steve. The tension grew as any error now would mean losing the game. Todd landed a superb fling that was lined up perfectly with his feet. His legs were spread apart, but the alignment was perfect. He stayed upright. Now it was up to Steve, and the awesome knife. The thing about distance in knife throwing, you can make up for it with the strength of your throw.

Steve eyed a spot farther out than Todd’s last shot. A sudden quiet swept the murmuring crowd. Steve cocked his arm, drawing back the knife, and in the middle of his throw, slipped with his fingers, just as he was letting go. The knife flew straight and true.

It hit Steve’s exposed foot right in the arch and literally pinned his foot to the lawn like it was a butterfly in someone’s collection.

We collectively gasped, and Steve gazed wide eyed at his injury, which was remarkably short of blood flow. For a second, at least. It was a passage of two seconds at the most, but it seemed like it was an hour, because time slows down in the midst of an awful accident. Steve finally caught his breath. His foot was still stuck there. He let out a blood curdling scream the likes of which I had never heard from a kid. Instinctively in the ensuing second, knowing the huge trouble that awaited, we turned on our heels and ran, dust hanging in the air where we once had been.

Thank goodness one of the older boys remained behind; he was a Boy Scout and knew first aid. He consoled Steve while he sent Steve’s sister Christine to find her mother. He laid him down and gingerly pulled the foot off the lawn, knife still embedded. He had read somewhere that it’s best to leave a knife in the wound until a doctor could examine it. Steve was wailing in panic and began to quaver in shock.

Me, Mark, and Randy all ran as fast as we could down the block towards my house looking for my mom, but also distancing ourselves from the scene, which provided cover for the inevitable shitstorm about to befall us. We met Mom at the porch, she was already coming out in response to hearing the scream. In fact, every mother on the street was coming out in response to the kid in distress scream. We told mom breathlessly about Steve, knife, foot. That’s how it came out.

Steve’s mom didn’t drive. This was unbelievable to us, but she was from the East Coast. Fortunately, one of the older guys, Nicky, who was like 22, took them to the emergency room in his ’56 Caddy. Nicky’s Cadillac deserves a story all its own, that’s how awesome it was. It was only a couple years old, but Nicky made good money in construction and lived at home so he could afford this questionable extravagance.

We were herded into the family room and silently watched TV, anticipating the worst. I finally broke the silence.

“That was weird.”

“I always wondered what would happen if you threw wrong” said Mark.

“Me too” replied Randy. We all shook our heads slowly in unison.

Steve came back right around the time everyone’s dads got home. We all wanted to go see him, but we had to wait for a talk. I always think about our poor dads, beat from a long day, just wanting to flop down in their chairs with a beer. Instead. They were met at the door by our respective moms who reported the random idiot thing that was going to get us in trouble.

True to form, we could hear Mom’s agitated voice in the kitchen informing Dad of our most recent transgression. I asked my friends to stay as a gauge of the perceived seriousness of the infraction. If Dad sent them home, shit was coming down. Dad showed up in the doorway to the family room. He looked at me.

“Turn off the TV, Mike.”

Randy and Mark got up to leave. Dad held up his hand.

“Hold up, boys. I want you all to hear this.” We sat cross legged on a brown and light brown braided oval rug.

Dad thought a moment. He didn’t seem mad. This piqued my curiosity as to where this was headed.

“Boys, when you all got your knives, each one of you was pretty excited. Remember when we all gathered in Mark’s house for a safety lecture?”

Oh, yeah. That little gathering was forgotten immediately, because we all knew all about knife handling already. After all, we were in the first grade. We pretty much knew everything. Every boy on the block was there. We pretty much all had a new Boy Scout knife. At that meeting, we discussed safely handling knives, storage, maintenance, all that. But one more critical issue.

“Boys, remember we told you some things mothers don’t understand, and the less said about your knife around mom, the better? This is why, right here. As dads, we know we can’t watch you 24 hours a day to keep you safe. We just hope you will conduct yourselves thoughtfully. Safety uppermost in your mind when you’re playing with knives. Men have been playing mumblety-peg for hundreds of years. You’re no different. But if you disregard common sense like you did, you’ll upset your mothers, and you’ll disappoint your dads. I’m disappointed. But I hope we all learned a lesson here. Stevie should be fine. Just sore for a few weeks. He got twelve stitches (Whoa!) and has to stay indoors for a while. Put the knives away for now. And don’t look for trouble or do anything stupid to upset your mothers. They love you and want you to always stay safe. But they want to keep you in your room 24 hours a day. Is that what you want?”

We all shook our heads “no” in unison.

“OK. I’m going to relax now. Go outside while it’s still light.”

We quietly filed out the front door. Now what? I didn’t want to go anywhere near Steve’s house. There was still fresh blood on the lawn.

With my Dad, it was often the words unsaid between the lines that were most important. I thought about how there were things that your mother couldn’t handle and would be better left unsaid. Our moms were fragile in many ways, strong as steel in others. But Dad made it pretty clear that you didn’t always have to tell mom everything, in fact life was often smoother if you maintained a certain picture to her of your goings on and withheld some of the gory details.

A few months later, the Christmas of 1957, there was the usual cascade of presents in keeping with the affluence of our lives. But one smaller box stood out under the tree. About as large square as a tie box with red paper, it sat with a tag that had a “Western Auto” logo on it. Western Auto was an auto parts store, but they maintained a huge section of sporting goods, especially hunting gear. I opened the box. Time stopped as I looked at the contents. A hunting knife. A long hunting knife with a leather holster. It had belt loops so you could wear it on your jeans. It was the most beautiful knife I had ever seen, including Steve’s killer knife. It’s handle was turned aluminum or some alloy, brush finish, with applique painted shiny black lacquer stripes. It fit so smoothly in my hand, I felt like it was fitted to me. The blade was an inch and a half wide. I could kill a BEAR with this! My dad looked at me, smiling.

I ran to him and as I hugged my father in gratitude, he said “Put this away. Take it out for camping. Don’t let mom see it again”. Later that night, I drew the knife from its sheath letting the lamp create sparks of possibility as I held the new knife in my hand.

I was ready, ready for anything.