[onlycafe]

smelling them is more than half of the whole thing. they do taste good, but the block or two you have to follow the smell to get them is wonderful.

chestnut killers is best played by as many combatants as possible. first select a sturdy looking chestnut. with a hot icepick,or whatever you could get, drill a hole through the nut and string it on a shoelace or twine, tying the most secure knot you could. [i used a small leather thong].
some kids thought that soaking them in whatever secret they had[i tried neatsfoot oil and peanut butter myself, not together, two separate times.] , you could strengthen them.
to play, two guys would face off, one holding the chestnut adangle, and the other swinging his chestnut to strike the other as hard as possible, with a kill by busting your nut. if he connects, the resulting smash would whack you a good one, a miss however would result in the swinger getting himself bashed by his own missed swing. a kill would then make you or him a two chestnut killer or a fifteen killer if you were really good. kind of like wild west gunfighters with the rep someone with a fifteen killer would get. people coming looking for the top gun. if you could smash a fifteen killer you could add the number to yours.
keep in mind that we had no video games back then.