Stoop in DARE

[Wilson Gray]

The tennis ball was always grey,without fuzz, and didn't wear out.
They eventually just disappeared, rolling into sewer openings, getting
hit (we also used them in a local game called "corkball," not related
to stickball, as per an earlier discussion; an actual corkball was the
cork center of a regulation baseball covered in leather, so that it
looked like an ordinary baseball, but was only the size of a golf
ball; it was made by Rawlings, not Spalding, and you couldn't play
stoop ball with one, any more than you could with a regulation
baseball) into the wrong neighbor's backyard, or simply just getting
lost. I can't remember when it was that I first saw a tennis ball
fresh out of the can (do new ones still come canned in sets of four?),
but I was certainly surprised to see that it was not only bright
white, but also all fuzzy! I don't know where our used tennis balls
came from. It was just that someone simply always had one or two. I
never gave it a second thought.

-Wilson

On 9/26/07, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      Re: Stoop in DARE
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 9/25/2007 08:55 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:
> >I'm pretty sure that a "small, pink, rubber ball" called a "spaldeen"
> >/ "Spalding" or by any other name was unknown in Saint Louis.
>
> Are there any other regional reports?
>
> And Wilson, when you wore out the fuzz on your stoop tennis-ball,
> what did it turn into?
>
> Joel
>
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