Two weeks ago, I posted an article with writing ideas for getting started on new material and asked those who wanted to do so to send me accounts of the games they have played and enjoyed, especially in childhood.

My thanks to Nancy Levinson, author of Moments of Dawn: A Poetic Memoir of Love & Family from Conflux Press; Dorothy Ross, two-time Writing It Real contest winner; Suzy Beal,who is completing a memoir; and Carol Blatter, who has won honorable mention from New Millennium Writings for her two essays (“The Spaces We Fill” and “It’s a Small World Re-Visited”) ?and whose prose poem “Shalom Haverah” appears in the Women of Reform Judaism’s Covenant of the Generations.?Whether these writers have recalled playing games in adulthood or in childhood, the memories are vivid and have given rise to wonderful details and strong occasions for short essays: processing loss, comparing today and yesterday, and honoring continuance.

Words by Nancy Levinson

?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????R???E

?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????I????ART

?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????T???D

?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????E

Seven letters.?Seven postage stamp-sized tiles, each bearing one black letter of the alphabet, selected blindly from a little cloth bag and lined up on a six-inch plastic stand facing the players at the table, the game?s board designed with colored squares for the tiles? perfect fit.

Vowels count one point.?K is worth five. Z and Q ten. What do we do with these tiles??Create words.?New ones.?Add-ons. Reconfigures.?The board notes extra points toward the totals with spaces offering double or triple letter or word score.

Begin spelling a word with the first set of seven.?Next player adds letters up or down, left or right to form a new word.?S E A R C H. Place R and E in front. Voila!?End a word with Z and gain a triple word score!?Bonanza!

I?ve never had the patience to sit and play Canasta or Bridge.?But, oh, the fun and challenge of SCRABBLE!?I admit, though, since youth, I?ve been overly competitive?when the pastime ought to be, well . . . fun and games, and, yes, I still groan when opponents set up a little hourglass timer?to prod my move, while I labor figuring out a brainy or top notch word.

Throughout the years, I?ve played this game at home in Minnesota with my mother and sister?on winter nights while the wind howled amidst whirling snowstorms.?I?ve played when visiting a disabled friend in her California apartment and at the kitchen table with my husband, keeping him pleasantly occupied as Alzheimer?s disease was claiming his mind. (I played for both of us.)

Words.?Words.?Words.?Think of it!?All the words and sentences,?paragraphs and chapters, stories, poems, essays, reports, treatises . . .?everything in the English language written using only twenty-six letters!?Astounding!

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?Scrabbled Notes by Dorothy Ross

I?m consistent. At age 80 I still play Scrabble much as I taught my little boy to play it many years earlier. ?Play to the bonus squares,? I used to tell him. ?Double and triple word scores add up quickly.?

When Ed was quite young, I?d spot him 50 or even 100 points. I?d also let him consult the Scrabble dictionary searching for words. Once he could consistently defeat me, I removed those props and we played by the rules.

One night last summer Ed and I sat at my dining room table, playing on the big Scrabble board, a large lazy-Susan of squares waiting to be filled. Ed talked about his job and the new lady friend he wanted me to meet. He seemed surprised when I won that game.

?I was talking too much,? he said. ?Let?s play two out of three.?

?Okay. We?ll make it a match. Two out of three.?

When he turned off the mellow background music, I knew he was getting serious. I had the first move and was able to use all seven tiles?a great start. Ed?s opening rack was not so good. He traded in most of his tiles for a fresh supply, passing his turn.

Two rounds later I was able to place the Z on a triple letter square. My score was mounting rapidly.

Ed didn?t say anything but he took an awfully long time deciding on his next move. Patience is not one of my virtues. I pulled out the little hourglass egg timer as a hint that he should speed up his deliberations.

With a comfortable lead, I started playing obscure letter combinations that Ed couldn?t be certain were English words. He could challenge me, of course. Then we?d look it up in the dictionary. If there was no such word, I?d lose my turn. But if Webster proved me right, he?d suffer the penalty, losing his turn. He seldom challenged.

When I won the game and the match, Ed confessed that he had a five-dollar bet with a friend at work that he would beat me at Scrabble that weekend. ?Never mind,? he laughed. I?ll be here again in a few weeks and I?ll win my fin back.?

Ed never got the chance to redeem himself in our ongoing mother/son Scrabble challenge. He died in a motorcycle accident two weeks later.

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Monopoly by Suzy Beal

This week when our granddaughter came for the day, so her Mom could go to work, we decided to make a new game. Our granddaughter, Nova, loves to play board games. I had a clean piece of poster board, which in my house is a miracle. I decided to mark off spaces similar to a Monopoly board. We made properties that were named after things here in our town. We had Starbucks in place of the railroads and we changed the rules so that if you landed on a Starbucks you had to draw a card from a pile of cards in the middle. We made up these cards to have all sorts of good and bad consequences. Nova loved coming up with the ?bad? consequences, such as having to go to highest price property and paying twice what was owed. It took us all morning to get the game ready to play. It was a great success especially because we changed the rules as we went along.

I remembered that long ago my first introduction to Monopoly was a similar story.

Thanksgiving at Our House

????? ?One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, hey, you guys, Mom made seven pies this time, two cherry, two apple and three pumpkin! She made cinnamon rolls and bread, too.? We had to wait to eat until Uncle Mac, Aunt Mim and the cousins arrived. ? The whole house was warm and damp with the odors wafting from the kitchen. Mom was cooking a 22-pound turkey with all the trimmings, which for us included smashed potatoes (as we called them) with gravy, peas, cranberry sauce, stuffing, homemade bread with real butter (not margarine,) and Waldorf salad and pies for dessert. There would be 14 of us for dinner, so did that mean we could each have half a pie?

?????? The cousins came from the Willamette Valley. They were city folks from Forest Grove. As we lived in the country, I always felt that they were more ?knowing? than we were. Jean was the oldest, just four years older than I, then Jack who was two years older and Doug, two years younger than I. They knew all the latest slang, shows on TV (since we didn?t even have a TV) and what clothes were the coolest. They must have enjoyed bringing us up to date.

?????? This year on Thanksgiving it was raining and cold outside, so all ten of us kids had to find things to do in the house. Jean and Jack got us all organized in the living room. ?We are going to make the latest board game, everyone in Forest Grove is playing,? announced Jean. She set us to work cutting out paper money. We cut ones, fives, tens, fifties, hundreds and five hundreds from butcher paper that Mom used to wrap meat for the freezer. Jean, Jack and Tom worked on a piece of cardboard, drawing squares of different colors and filling them in with lots of information that I didn?t understand. They also made cards to match the board squares and told us to just keep making more money. Every time I asked what the game was called they just ignored me and kept working. ?How many of each are we supposed to make?? No answer.

?????? It seemed like several hours passed before Jack announced we were ready to play. They had just written the name of the game in the middle of the board: ?MONOPOLY.? We had each found something to use as our playing piece. I had a red button. When the discussion of rules began, I felt lost and left out. I didn?t understand and I knew it would mean losing. I was second oldest in my family of seven and I didn?t want to appear stupid in front of my littler brothers and sister, so I just pretended to get it. When we started playing, several of the younger ones were so bored from cutting out play money that they headed upstairs in search of something else to do.

?????? When the game finally got underway there were only six of us playing. Knowing the name of the game didn?t help me understand the rules, as I didn?t understand the meaning of the word ?monopoly,? but my cousins did. They began buying up all the property while I hoarded my money. We used macaroni for houses and beans for hotels. Soon the board was filling up with these and I realized my money wouldn?t last long. Every time I passed GO I got more money, but it still wasn?t enough when I landed on Jean?s hotels. I watched all my money pass into her hands, but I stayed to see how the game would end. ????? Just Jean, Jack and my older brother Tom were left playing. They were making deals, but I could see that Tom was going to lose to our city-smart cousins, too.

?????? While we weren?t up to their skills when it came to these kinds of games, we did have country smarts. The rain was letting up and we suggested a hike into the woods. The forest behind our house was dense with huckleberry, ferns, salmon berry, and lots of wet moss. We led the way going as fast as we could along our well-made paths. Everyone was getting soaked from the wet brush. We were cold. The tall spruce, hemlock and fir trees made it dark even in daylight. Soon we could hear our cousins asking, ?Do you know where you?re going? Are we lost? Let?s go back!?

?????? We headed for the huge spruce that grew deep in the woods behind our house. When we got there we told our cousins to make a circle around it holding hands. It took all six of us to completely enclose the tree trunk. As we looked up into its branches, I glanced over at my cousins and saw their looks of awe and wonder.

?????? Monopoly was OK, but our spruce tree was the coolest.

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Doll House and Dolls by Carol Blatter

1. The kindergarten dollhouse

Like so many little girls of my age, playing big sister or mother or both, of pretend doll-children, seemed so natural. Right from the start of school, playing in the kindergarten?s huge walk-in dollhouse. It was my house during school time. Never mind that other children played there, too. I believed it was my house. It wasn?t surprising that my teacher, Mrs. Grossman, told mom I loved the dollhouse and spent a lot of time there. What else was discussed in that parent-teacher conference, I have no idea. That?s the only thing mom told me they talked about.

The dolls were part of my five-year-old fantasy play. I hugged them, I rocked them in the real small wooden rocking chair, I pretended to change their diapers and clothes. There was a mini-refrigerator, a mini-stove, and a mini-sink. Plastic silverware and dishes were in the pantry. The table was pre-set for a pretend tea party. There were tiny, mini-cups and saucers and plates with real Toll House chocolate-chip cookies, my favorite.

Friday morning, October 10, 1947. A short, dark haired man with black bushy eyebrows came to my school and delivered an ice cream birthday cake to our kindergarten class. To my amazement, it was my dad dressed in his work uniform, a white heavily starched shirt and matching white pants. This was the sanitary look of a luncheonette and ice cream parlor owner, also a cook and server.

Before we could even have our ice cream cake, I pulled my dad over to the dollhouse. He could stay just a few minutes and we didn?t want the ice cream cake to melt. So quickly I showed him my favorite doll, the one with a big pink smile, her pink lips looked like she applied faux pink lipstick. She had rosy cheeks, shiny brunette hair, olive skin, and hazel eyes. She was dressed in one of a few possible mini-outfits. (Sometimes I got to change them). She wore a rosy-colored, short sleeveless gold edged dress, and tiny delicate rose and white colored ankle socks which fit perfectly into her mini-Mary Jane black patent shoes.

I felt so special and proud when my dad came to my classroom. And I was sad when he left. But I cheered up very soon when all the children and my teacher gathered in a big circle and everyone sang happy birthday to me. The ice cream cake was so-o-o-o good.

2. The Scottish doll

When I was eight years old my aunt and uncle bought me a Scottish doll. She had long blonde hair; she wore a Scottish blue hat, a plaid blouse of reds, whites, and blues, and a blue skirt. She was so different from the tiny baby dolls I had played with earlier. She was much larger and more life-like. I pretended to feed her. I changed her real mini-doll-sized clothes, got her ready for bedtime by putting on her little mini-real jammies, and I read her one of my favorite stories, ?Goldilocks and the Three Bears.? In upset, irritated voices, I imitated the three bears:

?Who has been eating my porridge? Who has been sitting in my chair? Who has been sleeping in my bed?

3. The musical dolls

About two years later my paternal grandfather bought an upscale candy and gift shop in Valley Stream, NY. Several times I went to the store with my parents. And in the window, where my

eyes were already peeled, were musical dolls. These weren?t ordinary dolls. They were very special grown-up dolls. They wore glittery, sparkling, fancy, frilly dresses, some short, some long, some dresses in colorful magentas, reds, light and dark, and some wore dresses in golds and silvers. They stood on, what I later learned, were gold metal music boxes.

Grandpa left the musical dolls in the window and went into the back of the store where his additional merchandise was stored. Out he came with three individual boxes of dolls. Each one had been carefully placed in a large decorated white box with faux gold leaf decoration and a cellophane front, so it was pretty easy to see each one. I let Grandpa think I was totally spooked when the music suddenly played, a different song from every doll. I showed him by my wide hazel eyes and my huge smile how delighted I was with the musical dolls. And I was! Then Grandpa and I hugged. Off we went home with three dolls in three boxes in tow and a box of bittersweet chocolates, my very favorite kind.

4. The Cabbage Patch doll

Our daughter, now age forty-four, had to have a Cabbage Patch doll when she was around age nine. And we paid to adopt Ms. Cabbage Patch doll and obtain her birth certificate. She was a soft sculptured doll, cuddly, but definitely not pretty. But nonetheless, it was the-e-e doll to have.

She and all of her friends were thrilled with their respective dolls. They schlepped them everywhere. At night our daughter slept with her. When she went to school, her doll went too.

When she went for ballet lessons at Butler University, the doll went too. When she started taking piano lessons, the doll went too. When she started taking animation art lessons, the doll went too.

Whatever happened to this doll? Whereas her Raggedy Ann doll appeared into her boxes stored from childhood, Ms. Cabbage Patch just disappeared.

5. The boy doll

My father-in-law of blessed memory brought our daughter a boy doll. Here I was a mother in my thirties, never having seen, to the best of my recollection, a boy doll.

My daughter could open and close Joey?s Velcro-ed jacket. And she took it off and put on his red, yellow, and blue-striped polo shirt, something like what Bert and Ernie would wear, same for his blue sport pants, and she practiced tying his laces on his very big, bulky sneakers.

6. The American Girl doll

And what is the rage in dolls now for our granddaughter? The upscale American Girl dolls. The collection of dolls for younger girls are called Wellies, smaller and much easier to carry than the regular line of larger dolls.

Grandma and grandpa bought the doll of her choice as a birthday present celebrating # 4. Emerson is our granddaughter?s doll?s name. She is absolutely beautiful and very expensive. Who cares? We grandparents are happy to indulge our granddaughter. Zoe takes Emerson everywhere. And like a little mother, she feeds her, changes her, dresses her, and puts her to bed. We smile — the joy in her!

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Monopoly: Luck, Chance, and Ingenuity by Carol Blatter

Over 250 million sets of Monopoly? have been sold since its invention and the game has been played by over half a billion people making it possibly the most popular board game in the world.

As a child I sat on the floor either with my legs bent to one side or cross-legged, playing my favorite board game. Mom?s rule, play clothes, not school clothes, were ok for playing on the floor. A polo shirt and corduroy or cotton pants were play clothes. Socks without shoes were ok for play on the floor in the kitchen or living room with my friends. Mom was always fussy about the living room so I had to promise not to mess up anything when we played there.

As an adult, my husband and I play Monopoly on the bridge table that belonged to my mother (of blessed memory) who died in 1986. I think the table is ageless. And each time I open the table, I see underneath my mother?s name in her handwriting,

This is the property of: Bertha Levy Wechsler.

?Monopoly. ???? Here are things from childhood which continue to serve me well in adult life:

1) Learning? saving and spending money wisely. Paper play money is still money.

2) Learning? breaking the law doesn?t pay. Make good choices. Avoid trouble. Avoid earning a go to jail card.

3) Learning? being a good sport. There?s always a winner and a loser. That?s life, get over it!

4) Learning? losing in a game happens. It is not the same as being a loser in life.

5) Learning?treating others well. Getting along with others is a life-long, necessary skill.

6) Learning? playing by the rules. Playing fairly, honestly, being trustworthy, all build good character.

7) Learning? playing is expression. It allows the fun-loving child within us to speak.

8) Learning?letting go. Controlling outcomes are sometimes impossible.

9) Learning?living life means changing. The game doesn?t change, we do.