Have you ever skipped a rock across the water? I learned how to skip rocks at an early age. There used to be a pond just below Granny and Pap’s house-I learned to swim there too.
Skipping rocks takes me back to being a kid. I feel like it’s a solitary thing to do-probably because of two things: 1-Granny forbid us to go to the pond unattended (even though it was barely over our heads and we could swim) so if I was skipping rocks-I was doing it very quietly and trying not to get caught by Granny. 2-If anyone was near by-I was afraid I might accidentally hit them with my skipping rock (the pond wasn’t that big).
Apparently if you’re left handed-learning to skip rocks is hard to accomplish even if you have an entire lake. Chitter did finally get one to skip-twice.
Do you believe you can buy rocks that are guaranteed to skip or you can get your money back? Maybe I should order some for Chitter. I totally understand if you don’t believe me-so go here to see the guaranteed skipping rocks. Makes you wonder in the world who came up with the idea doesn’t it?
Tipper
Appalachia Through My Eyes – A series of photographs from my life in Southern Appalachia.
Maybe she just needs some time alone on the shore, without all you righties hangin’ ’round! Then she’ll have lots of success to talk about!
I grew up near a river and loved skipping rocks.
I’m curious….how do you get your money back? Must you swim out there in the middle of the river/lake and find the rock that didn’t skip? LOL
Chitter and I are in the same Boat! But hey we are in our right minds.
Love the lake picture, and love skipping rocks, too! And the flat rocks for sale? Wow, and I thought it was totally over the top when I saw peanut butter sandwiches for sale, crust off for you, in pre-sealed bags at the grocery store…it’s all just laziness. 😉
I’m a lefty, too, and it did seem harder for me to learn, but I got the hang of it. First time? The shores of Lake Huron in Port Huron, Michigan.
Have a blessed week! ~Jen
I wonder if the “skipping rock” salesman is the same person who came up with the “pet rock” craze a few years back and had to come up with something to do with his left over inventory when everyone realized that “pet rocks” roam wild.
(…you can buy rocks that are guaranteed to skip or you can get your money back…)
There’s one born every minute, isn’t there.
ROFLOL
We were told the round flat ones skipped best.
God bless.
RB
<><
Man this brings back memories, wading the creek, catching crayfish,(we called them “crawdads”) and of coarse skipping rocks, could not end the day with out a game of who could make the rock skip the most.
Tipper,
I remember skippin’ rocks for hours when I was a kid. We found
entertainment from nature and that
was a lot of fun. You have to throw side-armed to make it skip
several times. Throwing overhanded
will just make it go ka-chug…Ken
ahh tipper i would love to be near that water.. and try to skp rocks.. and hey.. im left handed so if chitter wants.. we can order some and ill share.. lol
hope you have a wonderful week
sending big ladybug hugs
lynn
Every kid needs to learn to skip rocks…just like ridin’ a bicycle!I remember teachin’ both of mine (now 16 and 13) when they were just 5 or 6. It’s all in the angle of the wrist…sort of like the mechanics of throwing a frisbee, except not back-handed. My son, the eldest, likes to brag to little sister that he is better, but he is a baseball player, after all. We all skipped rocks just a few weeks ago into Lake Hiwassee at Hangin’ Dog Campground outside Murphy, NC. On a side note, any one know why there a two different spellings of Hiwassee (Hiawassee)in N. GA and W. NC?
I used to spend hours skipping stones. Don’t tell anyone but even now if I find a nice flat stone……..
If anyone had sold them to me they’d have made a fortune and I’d still be paying off the debt!
The trick is to find as flat a rock as you can. We were lucky in having shale near the pond and that stuff could be broken off in pieces like a miniature frisbie and you could get it to skip 6 or 8 times, sometimes even more. Never had much luck with rounder rocks, though.
makes me wonder who in the world would buy them…i guess it’s true, there’s a sucker born everyday! i learned to skip rocks as a kid too. we’d do a family vacation for a couple of weeks in the summer next to a river in utah. the whole family would rv there and camp, fun memories of fishing with my grandpa too 🙂
all my kids know how to skip rocks and they just find them laying on the river bank, no need to buy them lol
I had to learn to skip rocks in a creek. It is a bit harder to keep the rock between the banks…but I was pretty good at it! We didn’t have any ponds or lakes near by. If the creek was up my parents didn’t allow us to go alone either. Skipping rocks and catching crawdads in the creek was my favorite thing to do.
I find the whole idea of buying rocks strange, and a guaranteed rock….LOL
A couple of years ago I wanted a few rocks to go around my yard. Not huge rocks but bigger than skipping rocks. I’m talking about rocks not so big that I can’t pick them up.
I had to buy those darn rocks….and pay for them by the pound!
I used to live in Canton, we had the Pigeon River coming down through the mountains and through town.
We didn’t buy rocks, we went to the river and picked up what we wanted.
If you go to Canton Today you will see many river rock homes and walls. Nobody bought those rocks!
So, now kids buy these guaranteed rocks and take them to man made lakes and skip them. Wonder if the rocks for sale are real rocks or some man make rock like the ones they are putting on houses these days.
I could really get on a soap box here. We got fake food, fake rocks, fake lakes, fake wood, and I’m sorry but there’s a lot of fake people out there!
I’m sorry Tipper, I could go on ranting, but I’ll stop here. Hope you all had a nice time at the lake.
My granddaddy used to have an old grist mill where he would still grind corn for people to have cornmeal. The wheel was not a overshot one, it was down underneath the mill and you could look down through these little holes in the floor inside and see the big stone wheel turning as you would have fun dropping corn cobs down the hold. The creek it was on was called the Euharlee Creek, but it was more like a small river, that was where I first taught to skip rocks. Your goal was to get it all the way across the creek. And I supposed it was Papa (my granddaddy) that taught me how.
Is that near where we went for our picnic? It looks like the place where I learned to skip rocks when I was a kid. Erin and I did some of that on our trip to Kentucky. We were on a creek, so it was harder, but she did okay.
Couldn’t begin to count how many rocks I skipped as a kid. I am a lefty, and took to it right away. It would make a good excuse, though, if you were having trouble learning.
I’ve never learnt to skip a rock – this surely requires special skills! But I did dive into the deep blue sea from the top of a tall rock 6 years ago. Not sure if I can be just as fearless nowadays!
i tried and tried as a child to skip a rock and never did do it, daddy and my brother could but not me. so maybe i should visit that site and see if i can skip it in our pool..
Tipper–A place to buy skipping rocks? I obviously have now missed my opportunity to make a fortune not once but twice. The first time came with the pet rock craze, and now I learn about selling skippng stones.
There’s a lifetime supply for all of Swain County along the banks of the Tuckasegee River, although I did my darndest as a boy to use up a passel of ’em.
Jim Casada
http://www.jimcasadaoutdoors.com
I was always amused at how that worked. Never did get the hang of it but like to watch the grandsons make them skip.
Tipper,
I asked my husband this morning, “Do you remember where and when you learned to skip a rock?” That question sure opened a can of worms!..They were campin’and fishin’ on Guntersville Lake near the dam in Alabama…He said the game they played was to see how far the stone would go between the first and second skip and that his Granpa and Daddy taught him to skip rocks..
My interview failed when I asked him, “Hom many times can you skip a rock?” He said, “Law, I don’t know that’s been 66 years ago! Now git to bed!” Yep, I got up real early this morning and was questioning him on this as he was passing me going in for a “pit stop”, if you know what I mean!….ha….
You know what, I bet I can skip one futher than he can, but I didn’t say nothin’ about it!…Can’t wait until our next trip down to the lake! It’s only 4:50 AM…I might just go back to bed for a short snooze and dream of skipping a rock or two…
Thanks Tipper,
Tipper,
I can remember exactly where I learned to skip stones…It was also the fist time I remember going fishing…I was visiting my Auhnt and Uncle in Canton, NC..They decided to entertain me a bit and took me to Lake Junealuska…I was fishin’, my Uncle was skippin’ rocks…I soon wanted to learn to skip rocks instead of fishin’…Now, he could skip a rock..They would fairly fly over the water, dropping everso and tapping the surface of the water across several times before succuming to the depths…The game was to see how many times he could get the rock to skip…I know it was many…I finally got one to skip twice…after unloading the lake bank of its many smooth flat rocks…Now you might think that odd for a girl to learn how to skip rocks but this Uncle had grown daughters and they could skip rocks with the best of them..so I wanted to learn too..
Thanks so much for the memories…