Cornhole, or adventures in regionalism

[pinksonia]

Last night I went out with some of the crew to play a game called cornhole.  I had never heard of it before, but I am told that it is a regional game from Ohio.  You have two boards each with a hole say 4 inches in diameter on one end.  The boards are placed 20 ft or so from each other and you toss bean bags (which are supposed to be filled with corn instead of beans, hence the name cornhole) from one board to the other.  You get one point for each bag that lands on the board and three points if it goes through the hole.  Generally, you play in teams with one team member standing on each end.  We only had three people so we always had one person who was on both teams and we rotated who that person was.  I'm really, really terrible at the game, usually missing the board by a mile, but every once in a while (three times durring the entire night) I managed to get the bean bag through the hole with out hitting the board at all, which is apparently unheard of. 

So now I have a couple of questions. 

1. Are there any other regional games?  I like the idea of there being strange picnic type games out there that I have yet to learn.  
2. Do you think there is a market for hustling people at cornhole?  I have this strange desire to hustle people at something, but I don't have any kind of consistant access to a pool table -- plus I'm horrible at pool.  For a while, my friend an I tried to get good enough at mini-golf, but really who bets on the outcome of a mini-golf game?
3. I don't really have another question, but a list with only two items on it always looks sad to me. 

In other randomness, the "Barbie Girl" song appears to be stalking me.  I hadn't thought of it for years but in the last three days it was in an episode of Being Human I was watching, a friend randomly brought it up, and it came on my iPod.  Why do these things always happen in batches?

Comments

[ewokmonster.livejournal.com]

Eh, they play that game in Iowa too. Except I forget what it's called there.

My Dad spends a lot of time at a state park in Iowa. A lot of people there play this game where you throw a tennis ball that's on a rope, and you have to get it on one of three bars. The contraption kinds looks like a laundry holder, and you're supposed to throw the ball and get the rope wrapped around one of the bars for various points. But I forget what they call it. That's the only place I've seen it, but I'm sure it's not unique to them.

[pinksonia.livejournal.com]

I figured the game had to be played elsewhere, most likely under a different name. Also, I will look out for people throwing balls on a rope at laundry holders because that sounds like a very interesting game. I'm not sure when I'll ever be in Iowa though.