52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks – Week 11: Lucky: How We Loved to Play Games

I am working on this year-long prompt, hosted by Amy Johnson Crow. I will write each week in one of my two blogs, either Mam-ma’s Southern Family or at My Trails Into the Past. I’m looking forward to writing about my children’s ancestors in new and exciting ways.

One pleasant memory I have of childhood was playing games. My mother loved to play games and loved playing them with us. A favorite location where we played was the kitchen table.

Board Games

When we were young, we played board games such as Chutes and Ladders, Candy Land, and Sorry. As we got older, we played other board games such as Scrabble, Monopoly, and Clue. I never got the feeling that my mother or father let us win. I was always pretty competitive. I liked to win but when I didn't, I just tried harder the next time.

Card Games

Card games started out with young children’s games of Go Fish, Old Maid, and Crazy Eights. We had a special deck of cards to play Old Maid, but when we didn’t, we used a regular deck and removed all the face cards except one queen. As we got older, we learned to play Rummy, War, Blackjack, and Solitaire. I especially loved playing double Solitaire with my mother.

Made up Games

One favorite made up game was a word game. Today you can buy this game called Scattergories. We took a piece of paper and drew a six by six grid. On one side we wrote down some categories such as girl’s name, animal, state or country. On the top we wrote out letters. These letters we got from closing our eyes and choosing letters from an article in a magazine. This way, the letters chosen were random. I  loved this game. It could be played anywhere as long as you had paper and pencil. I didn’t always get words in every square but it was fun to try. As we aged, our vocabulary grew and the game got easier.

Dice Games

Two dice games we played were Yahtzee and Liars Dice. My father loved playing Liars Dice and it was a completely different skill to learn.

Now

As an adult, my favorite games are Scrabble, Boggle, and playing cards on the computer, especially

Hearts. Once when my daughters accompanied us on a train trip in England, we played Hearts with real cards and it was great fun. My daughters also loved playing games and made sure we played all the same games I played as a child with my family. As they grew up, the games grew into Life, Monopoly, Trivia Pursuits, and Apples to Apples.

I have also played Boggle and Scrabble with my mother-in-law, Thelma and sister-in-law, Sylvia. I've played a Facebook Scrabble-like game with a former co-worker. And I've played Yam-slam and Farkle with a girlfriend. 

Playing games is a great past-time!  

Copyright © 2018 by Lisa Suzanne Gorrell, My Trails into the Past. All Rights Reserved.