Our mother played games with us often. Chutes and Ladders and Candy Land were popular board games and Old Maid and Go Fish were early card games. As we grew older, she’d introduce more games. We had Sorry, Chinese Checkers, and regular checkers. There was always a new board game under the Christmas Tree every year. One year we received Risk but had no idea how to play so made up our own version.
Card games became for sophisticated. We learned how to play
Rummy, Gin Rummy, Solitaire and Double Solitaire. Monopoly and Clue were other
fun games but had pieces that were prone to get lost. Dice games included Yahtzee
and Liar’s Dice.
My favorite game was Scrabble and Boggle—actually any game involving
words. I played with my mother and sometimes my sister. Once I was married, I
played with my mother-in-law, Thelma, and her daughter, Sylvia. Sylvia always
beat us, whether it was Scrabble or Boggle. She was quick and knew a lot of
words, I think from doing lots of crossword puzzles.
I looked forward to Sylvia’s visits to California at
Thanksgiving time. I often stayed overnight so we could get in a few good
games. Thelma had the Scrabble deluxe set and the Super Boggle. With Super
Boggle, we could get much longer words and thus higher scores.
I also had co-workers who loved to play Scrabble and if we
didn’t have a class, we would play Scrabble at lunch. Sometimes it took two
days to finish a game. Once, we didn’t put it away out of sight when we were
working nights and got chewed out by our boss. We explained we only played
during our lunch break, but she said it looked bad.
I really miss playing Scrabble. All of us have retired. My
mother-in-law has passed away. And Sylvia lives out of state. My husband doesn’t
play unless one of our daughters entice him to. Perhaps I should find a club
somewhere that plays Scrabble.
This is my fourth year 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 have enjoyed writing about my children’s ancestors in new and exciting ways.
Our family games where Monopoly and Uno. If you played with my dad and sister they always cheated.
ReplyDeleteI think when we were younger, my mother probably let us win. As we got older, though, we could beat her. I think we had Uno, too.
DeleteYour memories of playing card and board games with family and friends brought back my own, thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteGlad it brought fond memories. Thanks for stopping by.
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