This post is done by Bill, my first post on here. I posted this for my wonderful Aunts - Aunt Naomi, Aunt Marsha, and Aunt Audrey – enjoy!
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| These are my amazing aunts singing to my dad! |
As you all know, Grandma was a big fan of playing games with her friends and family. I can remember playing all sorts of board games and card games with Grandma while growing up. Although we were little, Grandma would never intentionally lose a game to us, no matter how much we cried, but she was always a gracious winner!
Laura and I have been playing 2 games of Rummikub a night this past week. The Rummikub set is from Grandma and I have enjoyed beating Laura in all but two games (Grandma must have taught me how to be such a gracious winner as well ;-). Last night after two quick games of Rummikub, Laura and I decided to play another game that came from Grandma.
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| One of the many Rummikub games played this week |
While Grandma was a fan of any game, one in particular held a special spot in her heart – Scrabble. I was never very adept at playing the game; the word CAT, landing on a “double letter” box, scoring 4 points was quite the accomplishment for myself. Last night Laura walks in with the Scrabble game we inherited from Grandma and challenges me to a match. I being a numbers person, and Laura being a woman of words, I knew certain defeat was upon me. But after countless games of Rummikub, I accepted the challenge.
I’m pretty sure that Grandma and I “played” Scrabble a few times, but I’m also pretty sure that we never actually finished a game (I probably whined enough about not liking it or not being good that she just gave up!). Either way, last night very well could have been the first full game of Scrabble I have ever played. Not only that, Laura and I used up EVERY letter in the little baggy; this was quite a shock to me.
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| The completed game, all letters used!!! |
I would like to take a second to explain that according to Parker Brothers, to play “Finish Line Scrabble” a variation of the original game, a beginner Scrabbler (is that the correct term?) needs to score 70 points, an intermediate 120 points, and an Expert in the art of Scrabbling needs to amass 200 points! Laura and I BOTH scored over the 200 mark. Understandably, it took us every single letter and approximately 1.5 hours to complete this task, nonetheless, in my eyes Laura and I reached Expert Scrabblation.
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| The score - Notice that we are both Expert Scrabblarians |
Was it our 75,000 word vocabulary? Was it the years of writing papers in high school, college, and now graduate classes? Or perhaps was it simply luck of the letter draw? I do not think so, I believe that by opening the Scrabble box, we summoned the Scrabble guru herself, Dolores T. Hoffman, who guided our spelling and propelled the two of us to Expert status.
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| Grandma - The Ultimate Scrabble Queen!!! |
Love you Grandma!
5 comments:
Very sweet! You are a great storyteller. Thank you for this post!
Very sweet! You are a great storyteller. Thank you for this post!
-Christine
Can I say this is perhaps one of the best blogs I ever read! ON a side note I never win Scrabble either, so I feel your pain and absolutely Love Rummikub! Congrats on winning Scrabble Bill, and perhaps we will have to play that last weekend in August! ~Julie
Excellent blog... I know Grandma was smiling as you played! So many fun memories, thank you for sharing this, we need to have one giant game day next time I am there! Sam and I just played Scrabble last week when he was home and in the box lid we write high scores and Grandma's 420 was on there from 2009!!! Great memories are made playing games.. love to your family and thanks for sharing the pic - that song was amazing if I remember correctly!!! HAHAHA
That was a really sweet post, Bill! John is AWESOME at Scrabble and beats me every time. Which is ironic considering I'm the grammar and spelling nazi. He always attributes his wins to his superior Scrabble gene pool.
Very nice tribute to Grandma.
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