Games People Play

This is in response to the StoryWorth question: What games did you play when you were young?

I don’t recall playing too many games as a young child. I seem to recall playing red Rover, tag, and musical chairs upon occasion. I recall playing outside a lot as a child but I don’t know if our play was organized enough to call it games. I recall making mud pies in the dirt of the lane at Grandma and Grandpa’s. I remember trying to catch lightning bugs in the summer. I can recall trying to climb a tree or two but I was never much of a climber.
I do recall playing with my dolls. I had a baby doll and I am sure that I played with it quite a bit but my favorite was playing with Barbie dolls. I acquired about four or five Barbie dolls over time. I had an old Midge doll that had been passed down to me from someone. I had a brunette Barbie with long hair and a Stacy with shorter blonde hair. I also had a Francie doll. I had hours and hours of fun playing with those Barbie dolls.
I recall that one year my Aunt Fanny and her two roommates had used a big box to make a Barbie house for me. They cut out windows and put a partition in the center of the box so that there was a downstairs living area and an upstairs bedroom. They made furniture out of cardboard and covered it all with fabric; fabric curtains, bed covers, couch covers… My Barbies and I loved that cardboard box townhome!
When I was in grade school, I remember carrying my Barbies with me to school sometimes. My other friends did the same and there was a big rectangular piece of stone outside on the playground. That stone became a Barbie mansion and we would play with our Barbies at recess.
I think that I still have my Barbies somewhere. Even in high school, I would bring them out when my younger cousins Jennifer and Laura would come with their mother to visit. We would play with my Barbies. I recall that for some reason, I always had Stacy talk with a British accent.
In grade school, when we didn’t have our Barbies at recess, we would play on the merry-go-round, the jungle gym, and the swings. I always loved the swings and I still enjoy swinging. We would also play kickball at recess. When I got a little older, we played softball at recess.
In junior high, I played on the basketball team. That was when it was half-court and the guards and forwards remained on their half of the floor. I loved basketball when it was half-court. I was a guard and I loved defense; blocking shots, getting rebounds, passing that ball down the court. In high school, they changed girls’ basketball to full-court like the boys. My coach made me a post forward and I never liked to shoot the ball. I did have a pretty good hook shot and I recall once at basketball camp even the opposite team applauded when I made a beautiful hook shot. I didn’t keep playing ball as it just quit being enjoyable to me.
When I was a teenager, I recall playing the card game Rook occasionally with my parents. We also played Rummy. My family never really played board games that I can recall. We really didn’t play many games in general. We would sometimes go bowling but that was rare.
Now in high school, sometimes our study hall teacher would let us play cards if we had finished all of our homework. We would play Spoons until we got too rowdy. Sometimes, the last “spoon” would end up flying across the room as everyone tried to grab for it! We would also play Uno at times. Of course, Uno helped us learn our Spanish! :P
In college, I played some Backgammon with Mohammad and I would rarely play it with other people. My brother David would play an occasional backgammon game with me.

                         My brother and I playing backgammon at the 1982 Nolen Reunion.

My roommate and other college friends loved to play Spades! We had a Spades game going any time we had free time. We would also play the board game Clue and another one called Stop Thief. Stop Thief had a board, but it had an electronic gadget that would make sounds to give you clues to solve a crime. It was kind of like a fancy Clue. We also played Pictionary occasionally.
Of course, back then, we didn’t have electronic game systems like many kids have today. Oh, sometimes we would play Pac man if we went out for pizza and had money to play. I really enjoyed Pac-Man. I tried it years later on an electronic device but it was a handheld Gameboy and didn’t have a joystick. You had to use the arrows to move Pac-Man around the maze. I wasn’t coordinated enough to get the hang of it using the arrows.
Over the years, I have played several games with the kids. We have enjoyed Phase Ten, Rummy, Apples to Apples, Battleship, Charades … I really love to play charades as I love to try to act out the clue. The only trouble is, my acting must rank right up there with my singing as folks seem to have a hard time deciphering what I am up to! We play Rummy occasionally. My husband loves to play Rummy.
Now, my favorite game is a memory game that I made from photos of family members. I made it to play with my granddaughter Jooniebug. She seems to like it. I plan on adding photos of our ancestors to the game. She loves to climb up into my lap to see the “great-greats” on my phone so I think that she will like it with her ancestors too.

Jooniebug playing our memory game with me.

                                    Jooniebug playing the memory game with Dayee Cammy.

So this is about the games that I have played over the years. I am sure that I have left some out but I believe that I have covered the highlights. One thing that I can say about playing games; they are much more fun when you can play for the fun of playing. Playing solely to win can take a fun game and make it rather boring. Being able to lose and still enjoy the experience of having a little carefree fun with family or friends is the best kind of game playing to me.