I learned to skip rocks at an early age. There was a pond just below Pap and Granny’s house, I learned to swim there too.
I always thought of skipping rocks as a solitary thing. Granny forbid us kids to go to the pond without adult supervision so if I was down there skipping rocks I was doing it very quietly so as not to get caught by Granny. The pond was also very small so you had to be careful about hitting other people if you weren’t alone.
The pond is long gone, filled in for many years now, yet I can remember the excitement of when it was first built by my uncle. The side where the creek flowed into the pond was the best place for finding good skipping rocks. There was a slightly raised mound over the water entrance. I could sit there forever looking through the small flat circular rocks that had been churned out of the creek when the pond was first built.
Chitter is left handed and she had a terrible time trying to learn to skip rocks. The most skips she could ever get was about three. The Deer Hunter can make a rock skip clear out of sight.
Tipper
I haven’t skipped a stone since I was about 9…now you’ve got me wondering if I can still do it 🙂
Well I think I might just make me up a sign pointing to my garden that says;
“SKIPPING ROCKS $1.00 per BUCKET. YOU PICK ‘EM,
I’LL PAY YOU THE DOLLAR AS YOU LEAVE”
If I were President I’d require every parent to take the (time) to show their kid how to skip rocks, and if the Parents didn’t know how they’d have to find a Parent that did, notice the key word is “Time” most families time is spent on a ball field, no quality time is spent being kids and parents anymore, most parents don’t even know their kids or vise versa, it’s sad, they are being raised from a set of bleachers, I hate it when I hear a parent say, Well, my kids play sports to learn how to be a team and work well with others, all the things that God intended for the family to do as a “Family”, this hamster wheel that most families are on is a “detriment” to the Family God intended to be. If you don’t believe me just look at the families next door or down the road, bet ya most have single parents or remarried a half dozen times. Wow, how did I get off on that.
Tipper,
Louis Tiant was a famous Baseball Pitcher that threw side-armed, not under-armed. I bet he could skip rocks well, cause you have to lean sideways and keep sailing rocks flat to be able to skip them well. …Ken
Most any rock will skip if you get it as close to parallel with the water surface as possible and apply sufficient energy from the throw. It’s probably one of those physics lessons I slept through in college.
What is this world coming to if flatlanders will create a market for skipping rocks? I checked Amazon and found a set of 3 for dogs; however, you can buy skipping stones in wholesale bulk lots. One of several dealers in skipping stones advertises that his rocks have been sterilized to keep microorganisms from being transferred into ponds.
Obviously, skipping rocks represent an emerging market and a much more complicated industry than I would have imagined. I’m just not sure we have considered all the environmental and cultural implications. Wholesale removal of skipping rocks from one area and skipping them elsewhere might make the planet’s spin develop a wobble. And, what of exploiting third-world economies? One day the skipping rock corporations show up, pay high wages to the locals for a time and then leave when the skipping rocks are gone.
Lots of things to consider; however, one thing is certain. If folks around here found out I had bought and shipped such a thing to my house, they’d say I was ‘dumb as a sack of rocks.’
Tipper,
I’m right handed and I love throwing and skipping rocks on lakes and rivers. But as kids we used to get a piece of cane pole, about 2 1/2 feet long, cut a split in one end, find a smooth sailing rock, place it in the split and throw twice as far as you could with just your arm. The extra leverage sure helps. …Ken
I’m left handed and I too had trouble learning to skip rocks. Children learn by imitating what they see. Some things just seem unnatural when we try to do them like we see everybody else doing them. And we got laughed at because we looked awkward when we tried something. If we did something with our right hand we were awkward. If we did it lefty, the way it felt natural, it looked awkward to right handed people.
Some people even punished their left handed kids to make them do things right handed. I don’t think there can be anything more cruel. Thank God my parents and most of my teachers were understanding.
I bought a Skil saw the other day. I couldn’t really check it out at the store. When I got it home I discovered it had a safety switch that you operated with the thumb on your right hand. If I take it back to Lowes and ask if they have one made for the left hand I get looked like like I am crazy (which I am but for entirely different reasons). So now I have to take it apart and modify it so it will work for me, which voids the warranty. Maybe I should talk to a orthopaedic doctor about having my left thumb moved over to the left side of my left hand. That might work but it voids the warranty on me.
Some people say that left handed are more creative. I think that is true. We have to be to survive in a right handed world.
Hurrah for Chitter. Us leftys have to stick together.
Anywhere there is rocks and still water is the place to skip rocks. The only trick is to have a flat rock in a parallel with the water surface. On narrow water bodies one game is to try to get a rock completely across to the other bank.
Skipping rocks is one thing I never learned to do. I finally just gave up.
I have skipped rocks ever since I was a child.
Pam
scrap-n-sewgranny.blogspot.com
We called it dapping. The stones in the link look a little too heavy. I prefer those that are a little lighter and thinner.
Can’t imagine buying rocks when I can hardly plant a garden for all the rocks!
The reason the Pond is gone is that you may have filled it up with your Skipping Rocks. Yuh Think?
We would spend hours skipping rocks across the creek. It was a thrill to make one from bank to bank.
When I went off to college in the city, I learned that skipping rocks at the campus pond was a great way to meet girls. Never under estimate the power of mountain skills and a mullet (oh good lord!). Hey, it was the late 80s.
Sigh.
I have never been able to skip rocks, I’ve tried but just couldn’t make it happen. I can walk and chew chewing gum at the same time but I can’t skip rocks.