Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1926-08-27

Rolling lost its SAVIOR in a day or
so. Even proponents Of the sport had
to admit it. There was nothing to
do but roll. AS far as our recollection
goes, no child genius invented any
hoop game. OF course, there was some
mild form of competition, but moth
ing to put life into the party.
If only the man who invented bas-
ket ball for girls) had put his mind
to work on hoops! Perhaps the
diameter and width might have been
standardized. There would have been
hoop-rolling contests in all the cities
by this time, perhaps even inter-
national championships.
Bobbie Jones might have been roll
ing hoops today, instead of knocking
golf balls.
The huge possibilities of this child
ish sport, however, were overlooked,
with the result that today even a pic
ture of a child rolling hoop is an
anomaly. 1t simply isn't done. The
children of today have shooters. and
the ever-standard velocipede, and toy
automobiles and a multitude of other
instruments of play. They "go in"
for sports of all kinds, even the ones
formerly held sacred to their elders.
1t is a physical day and age, properly
enough, for the first duty of man is
to be good animal, as Herbert Spen-
GER said.
In all this sports enthusiasm the
simple oldtime hoop has no place.
The modern boy wants his hoops
four of them-at the bottom of We
hicle. He will let the engine do the
rolling, if you please.
X X X K
The idyllic place for hooprolling
was, many years ago. at a certain sea-
shore resort, which boosted a board
walk of rather uneven boards but
none the less sturdy.
The several miles which this walk
stretched afforded the finest place in
the world to roll hoops. since there
| were very few persons walking up
and down it during the afternoon.
These were the hours when the chill
dren could and did disport themselves
in hoop-rolling.
The great sport came when wind
was blowing directly up or down the
beach.
Then there was no necessity for ap-
plying the stick to the hoop except
to guide it. The wind did the rolling.
Even the thinnest steel hoop, with
a diameter of scarcely quarter of an
inch, was given such speed by the
brisk sea breeze that it was necessary
to retard the rolling circlet with the
stick.
Generally this was easily accom-
plished, the stick acting as a sort of
perpetual half-applied brake to hold
back the bounding hoop.
Every afternoon, as long as the
wind held it's position, dozens of chill
dren could be seen on the boardwalk,
running after what appeared to be
self-rolled hoops.
Occasionally, however, a hoop would
gather speed, until the small legs &C
companying it could not keep up.
Then, with wild burst, the wind
would catch the hoop and roll it out
of the outstretched hands.
Away it would go, running wild,
straight down the boardwalk by itself.
Sometimes such a hoop would roll for
several blocks before it would be de-
flected by bad board.
Then it would twist to one side,
plunge off the walk and fall into the
yellow sand, to be rescued by its pant
ing owner.
The one drawback to this wind roll
ing sport was that the wind blew only
one way at a time. When the hoop
was rolled north by the wind, the child
had to walk back to the other end of
the boardwalk, since it was impossible
to roll a thin hoop against such a
breeze.