Wicketball is kind of like golf, only instead of a hole, you have a large wicket, and instead of a golf ball, you use something very much like a soccer ball, and instead of a golf club, you use your foot. Otherwise, it's identical. Except there are only 8 holes, and you don't need any special golf course to play it in, and you can play it in the sand or in a park or in a desert, or, as illustrated, in the snow.

Inventor Bob Zoller explains:

"As I sat recovering from shoulder surgery in April of 2000, I stumbled upon some metal "wickets" that my father-in-law had buried (many years ago) up behind the barn.  They looked like large wickets to me, so I thought I'd stick one up in the yard for the kids to kick a ball through.  It was fun, and more challenging than I thought (this comes up a lot in the testimonials), so we set up some more around the yard and made a game of it... and just like that... Wicketball was born!

One of the things that makes this game so much fun is that it combines both hand-eye  (using the racquets) and foot-eye (kicking the box) coordination

Equipment:

• One (1) box for each player. Maybe 2. No larger than a banana box, probably. No smaller then, say, a basketball box. Big enough to hold 10 balls. Certainly no smaller than a shoebox (if you are only using small balls).
• A slidey surface - like a gym floor, wood or linoleum-covered hallway, outdoor baskebtall court, parking lot.
  
• Two different kinds of racquets for each player, of any type: badminton, tennis, racquetball, ping pong even.
• Many, many balls. Foamy, soft balls. Small, medium, even large. Tennis balls, maybe. Ping pong balls.

Here's

Glass 'bottle trees' originated in ninth century Kongo during a period when superstitious Central African people believed that a genii or imp could be captured in a bottle. Legend had it that empty glass bottles placed outside, but near, the home could capture roving (usually evil) spirits at night, and the spirit would be destroyed the next day in the sunshine. One could then cork the bottles and throw them into the river to wash away the evil spirits....Thomas Atwood, in History of the Island of Domi (1791), made particular note of the bottle tree as a protection of the home through an invocation of the dead. Atwood writes of the confidence of the natives "in the power of the dead, of the sun and the moon---nay, even of sticks, stones and earth from graves hung in bottles in their gardens."

Tony Hall, whose father was featured in our article on Extreme Recycling, recently sent me this link to a video of his father playing and discussing his art.

Worthy of a moment of awe.

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