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 I hesitated to write this article after remembering what happened to a simple pencil-and-paper game called Battleships with which wiled away many a boring lecture hour at U.B.C. First came elaborate boards and finally electronic monsters. I would hate to see some opportunistic entrepreneur revive Peggy with plastic pegs, pre-fabricated holes, specialized uniforms, helmets, pads, shoes and other accoutrements all scientifically designed to complicate the business of having fun. KHOBBIES By Voiigl(U C. (jilcutt Re.-pAAnte.d iv^h poAmts^^on ln.om the. Bank ol B.C. June.-Juty 1986 "Whatever Happened to Peggy" by J. Innes MacDougall in the April/May issue of Pioneer News was to this reader a delightful example of notalgia - (a wistful yearning for to return to or of some past periord or irrecoverable condition - Webster). On reflection, itiJ's a^good thing I didriit:Khow times were tough during the depression or I wouldn't have enjoyed all the fun I had nearly naif as much. If my family was poor (and we were, I discovered later) so were all the families of the kids I grew up with went to school with, played with. As a consequence, we made our own fun and none of our games involved the purchase of any equipment. Much later came organized Little League, soccer, ice hockey and the like, with their expensive apparel, footwear and playing equipment. But to paraphrase Mr. MacDougall, I could ask "Whatever happened to Run Sheep Run, to Duck on the Rock, to Kick the Can?" Do kids still play Go Go Stop, Chestnuts (conkers)? I suspect not, but there is one game I am sure they don't still play, and like the others, required no purchased equipment, the name was called Nobbies (or probably more correctly Knobbies but the spelling was of no consequence). And the reason I know it isn't played any more (at least in West Vancouver, and I suspect elsewhere) is that the tell-tale evidence is no longer evident, of which more later. though I doubt if I knew that at the time. Probably the Indian boys from the Reservation who sometimes played on one or other of our "pick-up" teams knew it, since several of their fathers were "big" on the inter-city lacrosse league teams. The equipment was minimal. We resorted to the woods for one of the two equipment items required - the throwing/passing/shooting stick - a branch or shoot from the abundant willows, alders or maples which grew everywhere throughout the municipality. The sticks were preferably about four feet long and about 3/4 inches in diameter, and ideally with a shallow curved or hooked top end. The stick, to my recollection, was never graced with any high falutin' name, it was just a Knobbies stick. I can still remember going home from a nearby friend's house and saying to myself, "Boy, what a great stick for Knobbies that branch would make, taking out my pocket knife and decapitating the branch on the spot. The other essential piece of equipment was the Knobbies themselves. This invol-a manufactured item, but still "no cost". To make Knobbies you scrounged around the tool shed, garage, or whatever until you found a discarded length of garden hose (nothing was ever thrown away in those days). From this you cut off two pieces each about one inch in length. Next came a piece of stout cord which you looped around each piece of hose pipe leaving about four to six inches of cord in between. Cord or string (O.K. to use doubled or tripled) was no problem either-scotch tape and/or staples, I don't think had been invented - I can't remember -or if they were they cost too much and none of the merchants could indulge in such luxuries, so string and cord were the universal wrapping devices, and all families saved everything for possible use.