Grant reads an email from a listener whose family used to play a game she calls “Apple Core, Baltimore.” This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Apple Core, Baltimore”
You’re listening to A Way with Words. I’m Martha Barnette.
And I’m Grant Barrett. Here’s a curious email from Nancy in San Diego.
Nancy writes about a game that her mother used to play with her. She writes, when she finished eating an apple and was down to the core, she would call out, apple core. And then Nancy would say, Baltimore. And then her mother would say, who’s your friend? And Nancy would say, Jim. And then her mother would throw the apple core at Jim, her brother.
And this apparently is a game that people play throwing apple cores and shouting Baltimore at each other. Hours of fun for everybody. Hours of fun.
And the interesting thing about this is, Martha, as you well know, these kinds of games exist for years and years, decades and decades, maybe centuries. And maybe you’ve never heard of them. I’d never heard of this one before.
No, not that one. But, you know, it does show up online in interesting places. For one thing, there’s a story from the 1930s written by William Saroyan, who uses it. And there’s a Facebook group of people who played this game as children.
No.
Yeah.
Are you serious?
No, it’s really interesting. Apple Corps Baltimore. I mean, the rules change and there’s a variety to them. But people all across the country seem to have heard of this game and I’d never heard of it.
Sometimes they throw in never more there, which I think is interesting given that there’s the poem by Edgar Allan Poe, who is a son of Baltimore. And then you might have anyway. Maybe it’s just the natural rhyme. There aren’t that many words that are going to rhyme with Baltimore, are there?
No.
In any case, I wanted to throw this out to our listeners and say, what do you know about this game? What do you know about the rules? There’s some stuff online, and I’ve seen it and read it, but I’m looking for the personal story. Maybe you’ve got some detail and tell me some things about when you played it and the rules that you had or maybe the variations that you used.
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