Bungs For Years to Come

Not too long ago, we received a gift of bungs from Granny and Papaw! Bungs are the plugs for wooden barrels. The round wooden pieces are fun to play with, as they are great for building towers and making castles. Another thing they are good for, is playing a game kind of like Jenga.

On Mom’s side of the family, they would play a game that they called bungs. Mom’s cousins worked at the bung factory and would bring the damaged bungs back for kindling. After a while, the wooden bungs began being played and used for making towers on the pool table where it could be better seen. You would build a circle shaped tower with the bungs, then you would try to remove one of the lower layered bungs from the tower and place it on the top of the tower. After a while, the tower would get weak at the bottom from the lack of support. If the castle fell on your turn, then you were out. Not too long after Mom’s family made up the game, a game came out called Jenga.

Bungs were originally made as plugs for wine barrels. The round shaped wooden bungs are made mostly out of poplar wood, which expand in the barrel’s hole making a watertight seal. The chipped or damaged bungs were sold or given away as kindling, as they were good for starting fires.

While the family was here for Christmas, I played a game of bungs with a few of my nieces and nephews! We had a little trouble trying to keep the tower from being knocked down by some of the younger members of the family, but finally managed to complete our structure. Then the game started, and although the rules weren’t followed to the letter, we still had lots of fun.

On Isaac’s birthday, we had a big game of bungs! We built our tower on the kitchen table so that everyone could easily get around to play. We carefully moved around the table, trying not to bump into it. Each time a bung was removed, the tower shifted. 

The birthday boy had the tower fall on his turn two times and Halayah had it fall on her once. As the third tower fell, I managed to catch it on slow motion video! It was amazing to see the whole tower fall very slowly. I love seeing the reaction on everyone’s faces. We had a lot of fun. The biggest official Jenga tower had a count of 1,840 Jenga pieces! Our bung towers are big, but not that big.

I love the game we play with bungs; I am glad Granny and Pawpaw gave them to us. I am sure that they will last a long time and that we will enjoy playing with them for many years to come.

- Samuel