Games We Play

LUCY BURDETTE: We had our grandkids visiting for plus minus a week in July. Most of the time they are way too busy to sit at a table and play a game. (They are nine, seven, and three, and love swimming, boating, jungle gyms, anything active.) But one morning Miss Thea and I needed something to do, so I rustled through the stack of the games we kept from when our kids were small. I wanted to play Parcheesi, but when I opened the box, the board was there, but not a single playing piece. 

So we grabbed the next one down, Life. We had pieces and money and the board, but no instructions. I was able to Google it and get a loose idea of how to play. It was quite interesting to explain to Thea about the different jobs and how much you might earn and how much you could then afford for buying a house. She traded away the opportunity to be an artist for police officer. (Ha! I don’t think they make enough money to buy the mansion that she is yearning for.) She also really wanted this log cabin and desperately wanted to get rid of the split level.

I remember playing multiplayer games of Pounce when we would have beach weeks with our relatives. (That’s solitaire with the lead cards put out in the middle so that everybody could play onto them hence the name pounce.) Lots of slapping of cards and yelling. It’s a very good memory!

Do you still have games from your childhood or your children’s childhood? What are your memories of the favorite games you used to play?