I have fond memories of playing it at my Uncle's place. They had a corner store in Aalten, Holland, and once every few months we would visit, and quite often the "sjoelbak would come out. It was usually on a Sunday that we were there, church would be over, it would be coffee time, the men were smoking the women serving coffee and baked goodies from the store shelves. We were used to home baked cakes, squares etc. but when you ran a corner grocery store one didn't have time for baking. My Aunt and Uncle were run of their feet with their store from early in the morning till late, so when it came to Sunday visits and one of them wasn't engaged in a conversation for a minute or two they promptly feel asleep.
Sunday mornings was pretty good though, they'd had a little nap in church during the sermon and were fueled by coffee and the adreneline of getting the high score in sjoelen. So in a cloud of cigar and cigarette smoke the game is on the table and everybody takes their best shot with the score recorded on a pad of paper. No one was excluded, if you were too short to see over the table they stood you on a chair. The pucks are about 1 5/8" in diameter........perfect for a 2 year old to fling down the board and Oma............if she could still hold a cup of coffee could still make those pucks slide. When it was my Aunt's turn, they would holler for her to get out from the kitchen and shoot pucks. Usually her shots were furiously fast without much thought given to aiming and scoring because she had meat browning in the pan or something on the boil.
My uncle and the rest of us would really get into it though........shirt sleeves would be rolled up, the coffee when it came would sometimes be uncerimoniously "slurped up" because the game was on! When the pucks started piling up at the end, my uncle's last few shots looked like they came out of a cannon sending the pucks flying and creating "bokjes" . A "bok" is when one puck ends up resting on top of another or stands up on it's side and gets to be reshot. In the real world a "bok" is a male goat or a "buck" in English and, hence when one puck rides up over another they call it a "buck". Pretty plain and simple in those days...............if you still don't get it.............ask your dad.
The game winds down when the smells of lunch are too strong to resist anymore and the scores are added up to find out who's the champion. My uncle slips through into the grocerystore and comes back with a variety of cartons of yoghurt and pudding out of the cooler and the winner is allowed to chose one as a prize, is very ceremoniously presented with it and told to take it with them to the dining table. There it sits like a trophy during the meal letting everyone know who the champion was, while the other containers humbly wait on the kitchen counter for "desert time". After lunch, the pucks are counted to make sure one didn't roll of into a corner they're tucked in a little cigar box and sjoelbak is slid under the bed in the guest room ..........till next time.
Fast forward 50 years, we have a sjoel bak............of course! and it comes out when company and family is over. The younger ones get a chair to stand on and Oma can still get the pucks down there. The game is played with one person shooting pucks and one or two people tending the end, sending back "bokjes" and giving advice about where to shoot and keeping score.
Like I said at the beginning, it's a great mixer of people, doesn't require batteries or a computer or a screen to play it on. You get one model and it can last a few generations. nothing like the games of today which are expensive need constant renewing and updating and only show you how to kill the enemy or crash your car...............don't get me going..............
Anyone interested in trying it out can come and have a go on it at my place. If two or three people would like one I'll set up and build a few again.
Till next time, Henk.
No comments:
Post a Comment