Anything but Candy Land!

This post written for The Red Dress Club's memoir meme.

(I've been seeing my friends write entries, and thought I'd give it a whirl.)

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“Easy, medium, or hard,” he always used to ask before we started the game. My confident eight-year-old ego would promptly respond, “hard.” And Daddy gave me exactly what I asked for. Four moves later, queen kidnapped. Two moves after that, checkmate. But that was part of the fun.

Dad was my sister and I’s game partner, and the way he taught us to play not only reflected the rules, but competition as well. He would play ‘practice rounds’ with us until we were sure enough of our abilities to strategize for ourselves. During the practice rounds, he would answer our questions, look at our cards, and help us make our decisions about what to play or how to play it. But when we decided it was time to play ‘for real,’ we were on our own. But how can little-girl-versus-daddy ever be fair? That’s where the easy-medium-hard question was born. If we wanted to win, we could pick easy. If we wanted a challenge and a chance, we would pick medium, and if we wanted the elusive glory and household bragging rights, we would pick hard. I don’t remember if I ever won when I chose hard, but it wasn’t just about the win. It was about the process—debating over each move, thinking ahead, anticipating what he would do. It was about being good and being smart and working toward a goal knowing that losing 40 times would make that one win that much more valuable (and the celebratory dancing around the house completely appropriate.)

We were a gaming household, but not the gaming kids nowadays are into. No Mario Cart, Just Dance, World of Warcraft or Halo. Rather the Monopoly-Risk-Sorry variety. And in addition to every board game imaginable, we played cards too. Gin Rummy, Hearts, Euchre. And strategy games like chess and checkers. And timer games like Perfection and Boggle. And dice games like Yatzee. I have vivid memories attached to each of these pastimes.

The first rule of getting Dad to play a game with us? Do not ask to play Candy Land. He hated Candy Land.  Chutes and Ladders and Hungry, Hungry Hippos had only a slightly higher rate of play. Becky and I could play those with each other, but if we wanted Dad, we had to pick something that required thought. Now that I am a parent, I can sympathize with my father, though I think I will be willing to play Candy Land before Chutes and Ladders any day of the week—just when you think the game is nearly over, the player that is approaching the winning square will inevitably land on the giant slide, careening back to the beginning. I would never encourage cheating to win. But cheating to end the bloody game might be justifiable.

Two of my favorite games to play with Dad were Monopoly and Risk and he was a take-no-prisoners kind of player. His strategy in Monopoly, which I have since adopted, is to buy up all the cheap-o, bottom-of-the-board properties and put hotels on them immediately. The seemingly crappy Baltic and Mediterranean Avenue, with two and four dollar rents, were the most coveted spots. At 60 bucks a pop and another $250 to upgrade to hotels, they were the quickest, most economical way to siphon dough out of your competitors. While everyone else was collecting $20 here or there while rounding GO time and again to save up enough money to buy all the green or blue properties on the far side of the board,  he would earn regular $450 paydays and take over the board promptly. Most people complain that Monopoly is a never-ending game, but not when we played with Dad. The whole thing could be done in under an hour, as long as he wasn’t watching a tennis match on TV simultaneously.

Risk was the infinitely-long and therefore scarcely played game in our household, but it was, by far, my first choice in the game closet. Dad was always the black army. It is a game of war and he played to not only win, but intimidate. His motto: “Don’t spread yourself too thin.” He would concentrate his army on one smaller continent first and slowly spread out. “You won’t win if you think you’re going to conquer and maintain Asia at the beginning of play.” You knew you were doomed when you saw the black cloud of 10-army stars approaching your meagerly occupied Africa.

Then there were the games rather unique to our household. For some reason, Dad had a deck of cards with famous author’s pictures on them instead of suits or numbers. The game was simply called “Authors” and was played like Go-Fish, the object to match all four of the same author and collect as many completed sets as possible. I always felt sophisticated playing Authors, especially since I was only six years old, calling out “Alfred Lord Tennyson,” or “James Fennimore Copper.” Perhaps this subtle literary instruction led me to become an English teacher, though I am much more a fan of Edgar Allen Poe and Washington Irving.

Though games are considered by many to be a childhood pastime, I love playing games as an adult, which is an interest not shared by my husband. I have to beg and plead to play games at gatherings of family or friends, though the only guaranteed treat I get is at New Years. We traditionally visit friends of ours in Boston, and during the four-hour trek in the car, packed to the brim with luggage, kids, the cat and the dog, I make him promise me that we will play either Taboo or Pictionary. Hubby, a die-hard competitor, has a hard time playing games for the fun of the process. He often doesn’t find it entertaining unless he is winning. It has taken seven years of marriage and seven New Years Eve trips for him to learn that the amusement of Taboo is the inside jokes and the flubbing of the clues and Pictionary is pointless without the chicken-scratched sunny-side-up egg. “Yes, that is an egg. It’s obvious. Can’t you tell that is a frying pan?” But I probably wouldn’t like Pictionary much either if I was a professional artist and art teacher that can’t sketch under the pressure of an egg timer.