I was never all that fond of board games. Loathed Monopoly, hated Battleship.
We played Sorry!, chinese checkers, checkers, War, Uno, lots of Connect Four, and Trivial Pursuit. Strangely enough, I don't love Scrabble, but I adore Balderdash, Scattergories and Pictionary.
When I was about ten and lived with my mom and sister in an apartment complex, while my mom and dad were divorced, an elderly neighbor, Mrs. Mooney, started paying me .25 to take her trash to the dumpster, and ended up being an excellent friend to my little sister and I.
Her sister, who she lived with, had recently died, and soon, we started talking to her, and she would feed us port wine cheese and crackers, and then sundaes with whipped cream and nuts, and we would play hours of rummmy, and play with her cat, and she would tell us stories of being a career girl in Kansas City in the 30's. We would go through her jewelry box, and she would let us try on her stuff, and tell us the stories. She was wonderful.
I just remember playing cards with her for hours in the summertime, while she sipped "a little Maneschevitz" and eating Bugles. She taught my sister to play pinocle, but I never liked complex card games.
Audrey Mooney, RIP. You were a fine lady.
Aw, Mrs. Mooney. I had some similar times with my grandmother and her sister, but they would have been much more fun (I'm sure) had it not been my own actual grandmother.
The rail game sounds like everyday conversation in NYC. "Hey. How did you get here? Oh yeah? How long did it take? I would never go that way..."
Your childhood with Mrs. Mooney sounds like something out of a Judy Blume novel, Erin. Everyone should have a Mrs. Mooney for a while.
There is only Scrabble. I grew up with Candyland, Life, Monopoly and assorted card games, but Scrabble is the only game I love. One problem with games based on chance is that my sister is much luckier than I am. The problem with Life was that I had to be a little pink pin, which I hated. (My hated of pink began very early.) The problem with Monopoly, which rather foreshadowed my later career, was that I usually bought all the utilities and went bankrupt.
A toast to Audrey Mooney; Mrs. Badenoch, who always had soft peppermints with green centers in a pressed glass candy dish and treated children as honored guests; Miss Lucy, who ran a small candy store just to be around children, and all the other grandparents by chance.
It was sweet. Her nephew lived in SF, and when he visited, he brought us tons of cheap stuff from Chinatown that we adored -- little silk coin purses, fans, dolls, paper garlands.
Her cat was this huge pampered white calico, very soft and fluffy and haughty. Her name was Sweetie.
I kinda want to get chutes and ladders for mac. the pictures would be a good visual for him of actions....consequences. I am so very glad that we have the old versions of many board games, like clue and milles bornes (which yes, we called mills borns) and mastermind. We will be starting a game night once a week in Texas with the grandparents. I am VERY excited.
We just cleared out a bunch of games. I know we still have Backgammon, Mancala, chess, checkers...
I was wondering if there is any way possible that Helen Thomas was just being old and crotchety
"I introduced Agnew to the ways of love, dammit! I can say what I want!"
