Games People Play

It’s been a long time since I purposely lost a game to my kids. I quit doing that when they started to figure out I was letting them win. My reasoned rationale for throwing the game was I didn’t want them to get too discouraged early on. There would be plenty of time for disappointment later in life, but of course there was the other side of the dice. They needed to learn that life is not fair.

Of course I knew from experience that I was messing with their sense of reality, but they were used to that from me. Before I was old enough to play Scrabble with Grandma I had watched her and my older sister Colleen play. They were both very good and very competitive. A large dictionary was always at hand to settle differences of opinion. I still have the original Scrabble box with their high scores recorded in their own handwriting. CLASSIC (11 points, plus a 50 point bonus for using all seven tiles).

When I finally got my turn to play with Grandma I was impressed with how well I was doing. With my crafty use of three- and four- letter words, I ran away with the game. Occasionally she and I would consult over an especially tricky strategy, but when the score was tallied, I had bested my grandmother. WON (6 points).

This pattern of winning went on for some time until I finally put the pieces together: She was letting me win. I don’t remember blaming Grandma for this ruse, but it did make me more suspicious whenever she and I would sit down to play again.

About that time the cloak of mystery started to unravel in other areas of my life: Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and “All-Star Wrestling” were not what they seemed. But even after all that I still like staying home and playing a game, the kind where everyone knows the rules – not the Joe South kind.

My family has a lot of games. We have letters, words, checkers, kings, queens, dice, cards, timers, clay, pencils, paper, play money, chips, houses, hotels, markers of every color, cars, thimbles, cannons, armies, ships, trains, tracks, and boards.

We also have video game systems. These plug into your TV and are operated with hand-held controllers. I like playing with these as well – I am an equal opportunity entertainer. If my grandmother was still alive I think I could beat her, but I am not as skilled in this area as my kids, however.

This last weekend I played video games well into the evening with three guys in their 20s. My son Nathan was home from school and he had invited his friend Kevin from New Jersey to spend the Easter holiday with us. Adam, my future son-in-law, was over at our house as well (as is his wont).

I am no longer in the habit of staying up past midnight. I get tired and go to bed – usually about 11 o’clock. This last Friday night (which became Saturday morning) it was past 3 a.m. before I climbed the stairs to bed. These guys are more accustomed to these early morning hours. It was a bit of stretch for me and I did pay for it the next day, but I’d do it again 100 times over. These times don’t come around that often and I want to participate when they do. But I did find out no matter how late I stay up, no matter how discouraged I get, my kids won’t let me win. They didn’t learn that from me.