Column: The lawn game of summer, in all its glory

When summer finally comes to these northern climes, a middle-aged woman’s mind turns to — croquet.

Croquet?

Yes. The sound of wood hitting wood, the cheerful clunk when I knock an opponent’s ball across the court thrills me. Croquet is a game even the lazy and non-athletic can excel at. I can play it without getting sweaty, without panting, without even risking tearing my meniscus. 

I wish I had more chances to play croquet. And badminton and horseshoes. I grew up playing lawn games. My father came from a family of four children, and this is how they spent their summers. When I was growing up in the 1960s, he still had the old set, probably manufactured in the 1930s. We didn’t use it, though, as it was rather fragile; or should I say, splintery. My family had a newer set that was obtained through my mother’s judicious saving of Green Stamps.

Though my grandparents and uncles had moved away, my aunt and her family lived across town. So we carried on the tradition of cookouts and clam boils, and the games, by alternating at each other’s house.

Croquet, according to Wikipedia, originated in England in the middle of the 19th century. The online encyclopedia notes, “Croquet is popularly believed to be viciously competitive,” since it is so much fun to whack your opponents’ balls about. I can still visualize my father, chortling, hitting my ball with his. Then he’d put his cigarette in his mouth, put his ball against mine, and strike his, sending my ball out of bounds. Grrr.

That said, it really is a most genteel game. It can be easily set up in a backyard, and just as easily dismantled. The wire hoops are easy to trip over and can destroy a lawn mower. I suspect Dad believed teaching my sister and me how to set up a croquet court—nine wickets in a diamond pattern between two posts—was as important as instructing us in the mysteries of keeping a baseball scorecard.

The game also had a deeper association for me. I loved Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland as a child, and reread it many times. Naturally, the croquet scene was my favorite. A hedgehog as a ball! (I wasn’t sure what a hedgehog was, but the thought delighted me.) Flamingos as mallets! It was just too darn funny.

“The chief difficulty Alice found at first was in managing her flamingo: she succeeded in getting its body tucked away, comfortably enough, under her arm, with its legs hanging down, but generally, just as she had got its neck nicely straightened out, and was going to give the hedgehog a blow with its head, it WOULD twist itself round and look up in her face, with such a puzzled expression that she could not help bursting out laughing….”

It made our backyard games look tame by comparison.

Later, I became a fan of the artist Edward Gorey. His pen-and-ink illustrations of vaguely Edwardian characters involved in tragicomic situations appealed to my feelings of teenage angst. Gorey is widely known by the drawings he did for the opening credits of the PBS “Mystery” series, but he also created many books. Naturally, some of his characters play croquet. “The Epileptic Bicycle” begins, “Embley and Yewbert were hitting each other with croquet mallets.” Of course they were.

It wasn’t until I read the Wikipedia article, however, that I learned that many other artists were also inspired by the game. Norman Rockwell’s “Croquet,” features a turn-of-the-century couple playing. The feminine, beribboned woman has her foot on her ball and is preparing to send his ball to the moon.

Winslow Homer’s homage features ladies in wide, sweeping skirts (and a couple of gents) in a lush park-like setting. Edouard Manet, the early Impressionist, set his game in a garden (a watering can is in the background). Do you know it has become a motif for an iPhone case? Now, that’s depressing.

The fact is, croquet is a picturesque game. My sister and I, in our gingham shorts and Keds, did not present as pretty a picture as Homer’s genteel Victorians, but I bet Rockwell would have found something deeply American about it, should he have magically swooped in on the scene.

Croquet is an iconic game, and will probably always be so, thanks to “Alice.” I can see children wondering for years to come, “What is that game?”

My husband, Paul, and I bought a croquet set early in our marriage. We don’t have much room in our backyard to play, and as the years go on, our perennials and shrubs keep spreading, further shrinking the available space.

I keep vowing to set up a game in a park, and maybe this will be the year to do it. Another good thing about croquet is that it can be played well into one’s old age. I’d like to think I have a couple of decades left to play!

As for the antique set belonging to my father’s family—I still have the wooden frame that contained the mallets, wickets and balls between games. Paul painted it bright yellow, and it makes a dandy end table to set between lawn chairs.

It is also a reminder of that most wonderful game and the wonderful memories I have of playing it. Long live croquet!