What....: and now, other games for shooters!

I never gave up spinning tops. Even after having my tops confisticated by dad, I went with my chums to other rendezvous in Malay Street or Victoria Street. But the toil to get there by foot in has put a toll on us. There has to be another more acceptable game closer to home, and I soon found it.... at age eleven.

Marbles!!.... yep, marbles.

Marble shooting is sometimes considered a harmless game... for sissies if you will. But once you get the wind of it, man you can surely get addicted.

We get to line up 10 to 20 marbles, 5 players with each putting out and equal share for a match. Then we go "one, two, som!" to decide who shoots first. Once settled, we take position and our turns 15 feet away and ...shoot! Each has a turn, but too bad if you're the last few shooters and those before you has already taken your marbles, and you're left with nothing to shoot...hehehe!

Each of us have what we called the "ling-gu" (a rolling buffalo). This is the King, the best roller with the best roundness, and it is the most most reliable shooter in your arsenal.

You never play marbles until you lose your "ling-gu" - that will be a total disgrace in the sport. We keep "ling-gus" separately and carefully, the other marbles are just the "infantry" for match shoot-outs.

You should see how we fine sandpaper a carefully "chosen one" (the "lingu" marble) to give it the concentricity, to give best feel and to perform the best twirl in a shoot-out.

Of course, the game normally ends with some arguments, or worst cases - a week-long infection of grumpiness, or even instant fights! ....yea, fights (yet again)! and who says this is a sissy's game? This marble shooting stuff is a prelude to big fights! This is more so, if you have sore or bad losers in the game. Never mind the born losers. They don't complain.

The perception of kids then is to own as many marbles as possible by shooting wins. The more you have, the more "steady" ("cool", in today's lingo) you are. Sometimes "show-offs" will walk "clink-clinking" around the neighbourhood with bulging pocketful of marbles. That activity makes them look awesome!

But we needed another activity that is not so cumbersome, ....so yet again we quickly found another sport that is very close to marble shooting. Sling-shots!...yea, sling-shots

...and those "infantry" marbles came in real handy! Our marbles became our slings' "bullets".

Sling-shooting is quite a game, and suddenly we're not looked upon as sissies any more. We have become more "macho", more "terror", more "mischievous", and of course now we look more like "phuay liu-wahs" - walking around like predators searching for their targets!

What target?... at first they were pigeons., and it was miserable watching 'em stunned or dead on the floor, and fellow pigeons mourn their passing.

Pigeons were easily found in Pitt Street and their owners always shooed us away. So, targets are not so many.

But crows.... crows don't have masters and they are scavengers. We were doing a public and the Penang City Council a big favour by shooting them down with our home-made sling-shots.

"There!.......there're six of them!"