Karen Wils photo Dad pitching horseshoes in 1978, with my brother Mark in the neat boots and shorts beside him.

ESCANABA — Cling… cling… thud!

You could hear it long before you could see the action — a horseshoe game was underway.

It was after supper at camp. The sun was slanting just enough to cool it off under the trees. The women were doing dishes and gabbing. The kids were off in a dozen directions, and the guys were pitching horseshoes!

Dad and Al versus Bob and Joe, and believe me, they were keeping score!

There’s nothing like the sound of the hard-hitting steel against steel. The clink of a ringer would echo in the riverbend, followed by laughs and cheers.

A good bit of teasing and joking went with horseshoe games at camp. Sometimes we’d even pull up a chair and watch the game and kibitz and cheer. Horseshoes is almost as much fun to watch as it is to play.

Over the years, horseshoe competitions were often a part of our family’s 4th of July gatherings and Labor Day gatherings. It was sort of fun to see the grown men on their hands and knees playing in the dirt to decipher if a sand-covered shoe was close enough to be a point.

Everybody “ohhh’d” when a leaner was pitched. Everybody whooped when a ringer sounded.

Then somewhere in my teen years, I started to toss horseshoes too, at first at camp and later at a campground I stayed at with my aunt and family a few summers.

There’s something addicting about the simple game of tossing metal U’s at a stake in the ground.

Horseshoe pitching is not a new idea. The sport actually dates back to ancient times. It is said that Grecian armies that could not afford the discus took up throwing discarded horseshoes instead. In 1913, in Kansas City official rules for horseshoe throwing were formed, and the Grand League of the American Horseshoe Pitching association was formed.

The length between stakes has changed over the years (today, 40 feet is the distance) and the height of the stakes has varied (today, they must be 14 to 15 inches high).

Last Christmas, my son received a big, heavy box in the “white elephant” gift exchange. It was a lovely new set of horseshoes.

Younger people today are not too familiar with the sport of horseshoe pitching. It was sort of a grandpa’s game. The young guys and gals are playing cornhole, a lawn game with bean bags tossed on a wooden platform.

So, the summer of 2019 was the summer to reintroduce Northtown to horseshoes. I adjusted my bifocals, straightened my gimpy back and took my place out in the field.

Cling, cling — I even threw a few ringers!

My husband and I became known as the “old timers” — and yes, we beat the “whippersnappers” more times than not.

Have some old-fashioned fun this weekend.

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Karen (Rose) Wils is a lifelong north Escanaba resident. Her folksy columns appear weekly in Lifestyles.