My Trails into the Past

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....