Family Games

Games were not a really big part of my life growing up. Coming into the family when I did, neither of my parents enjoyed games very much. I can still “hear” my mother’s voice say, “I can’t sit still for games.” Also, by the time I got old enough to be interested in games, it was just Mother, Dad and me…not really enough for too much wild gaming! So, it was a real treat when Raymond and Myrna were around, because they were great game players. They were serious about it and were very good, so there wasn’t any of this “let Sherri win once in awhile.” But I loved it!

I have a particular memory of a New Year’s Eve gathering. We were sitting around the dining room table in the downtown house and we were playing Rook. We even had Dad playing that night. I remember him wanting so much to beat Myrna, but he just couldn’t do it. As a side note, I also remember what we ate that night. It was a concoction of Afton’s that she had eaten in Austria or Switzerland on her mission: cheese cut into small cubes, mixed with onion and mayonnaise, and served open-faced on rye bread. We also had the yogurt-dressed fruit salad she learned to make in on her mission, too,…I don’t have any idea of the real word or the spelling but in my mind it is called Bercurmussli.

I have another fond memory of games with Raymond and Myrna. It was a summer when our children were about 10 and 12, and we spent a few days staying with them in Mesa. Their house was totally fun for Sarah and Nathan with it’s openness, the large master bath, the ceiling fans in every bedroom, and (most importantly) the swimming pool. We never tired of running out and being in the pool for a little while several times a day. However, second only to the swimming pool, our favorite part was playing games around their dining room table. We played several board games, learned the real rules of dominoes and played many hands of Sets and Runs. Nathan, especially loved this because he did beat Aunt Myrna a couple of times with his “beginners luck.”