Ah...so That explains why we find marbles in privies! I simply thot, some fell out of someone's pocket...as they sat. ?? I really didn't think the kid was putting a live cartridge on the train track...to flatten. I would think they simply picked up spent shells...and used those. >-----Original Message----- >From: HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On >Behalf Of Ron May >Sent: Tuesday, August 07, 2007 10:56 PM >To: [log in to unmask] >Subject: Re: of railroad spikes and such > > >In a message dated 8/6/2007 11:38:38 A.M. Pacific Daylight >Time, [log in to unmask] writes: > > >Perhaps as punishment. Many years back, I had the fun of >working with toy marbles and delivered papers at various >conferences on hand made and machine made marbles. I received >lots of comments back from people who played marbles as kids, >as adults, in the military, and then got their kids and >grandchildren started. Several people reported their stern >mothers punished them by dropping their cherished marble bags >down the privy (where they were sure not going to dig to >recover them). The late Paul Schumacher loaned me a collection > he reported recovered from a privy in Half Moon Bay, >California. And, Gary Breschini and Trudy Haverstat loaned me >a collection to photograph they also found clustered together >in a privy. So, based on these known examples, I would suggest >that a parent could have punished the kid by dumping his >railroad spike and train-flattened bullet shell collection in >the dump. Heck, I could easily imagine a parent horrified to >learn the kid was out flattening bullet shells with trains >running past at high speed; fear of lost eyes or worse. > >Ron May >Legacy 106, Inc. > > > >************************************** Get a sneak peek of the >all-new AOL at http://discover.aol.com/memed/aolcom30tour >