Petanque

The summer sun shines like a beacon, summoning the old and young alike to venture out and join on the field of battle for a few friendly games and maybe some serious competition. You heft your sack of silver balls across the dirt and find a spot that suits you, just far enough from the professional players so that you won't lose, but close enough so you can admire their skill and hear their mutually agreed upon taunts. Pétanque is a form of boules where the goal is, while standing inside a starting circle with both feet on the ground, to throw hollow metal balls as close as possible to a small wooden ball called a cochonnet (literally "piglet") or jack. It is also sometimes called a bouchon (literally "cork") or le petit ("the small one"). The game is normally played on hard dirt or gravel, but can also be played on grass, sand or other surfaces. Similar games are bocce and bowls. The current form of the game originated in 1907 in La Ciotat, in Provence, in southern France. The English and French name pétanque comes from la petanca in the Provençal dialect of the Occitan language, deriving from the expression pès tancats, meaning "feet together" or more exactly "feet anchored". The casual form of the game of pétanque is played by about 17 million people in France, mostly during their summer vacations. It is also widely played in neighboring Spain. There are about 375,000 players licensed with the Fédération Française de Pétanque et Jeu Provençal, some 3,000 in England, and 1,000 in Lafayette, Louisiana, United States. Another 20,000 or so play in Quebec, Canada.