Maybe it’s because I have written a few things about it lately or maybe it’s from spending a day with my brother yesterday, or maybe it’s because we are in the middle of winter, the introspective season, but I seem to be remembering my childhood a lot. And today I am remembering cloudy winter Sundays. Days that were too cold and dreary to go horseback riding. Days when the only thing on TV was some car race, (boring) some golf game (boring) or some documentary (really boring). Back then we only had 4 channels. The three major networks and public television. That was it munchkins. So let me tell you, one had to have some tricks up one’s sleeve to keep from going stark raving on a Sunday afternoon in the dead of winter.
My brother was over 4 years younger than me, so a game of Monopoly was sort of over his head. But we used to play marbles, with HIS marbles.
I don’t remember having any of my own, maybe just a handful. And my brother was WAY better at marbles even though he was younger.
I think it’s because he knew how to hold his mouth a certain way when he aimed. He was very serious about it and knew all the “rules” which were obviously made up by boys you could tell. Obscure things having to do with nicks, bounces, steelies and boulders.
We also used to play a card game called “War”. This game could take you an hour to play. And of course when you lost, you were completely humiliated. You don’t lose by one point in war, you lose everything ! And if we were desperate, we played “Old Maid”. I don’t think either one of us liked that game very much. I think next to War, we liked to play “Go Fish”.
We never seemed to get tired of uttering that pun phrase back and forth.
I think it was because it was so close to “Get Lost” or “Go Suck Eggs”
An acceptable quasi insult that everyone expected you to say, because the game required it.
And when my brother got tired of all this organized play, he would go get his army men. He would arrange complex battlefields on the living room floor. This is when I would play solitaire with the abandoned deck of cards.I didn't really like playing army that much.
If we were lucky, we had used up the whole afternoon by then and it was time for dinner. And then the ritual that practically everyone in America observed played itself out. We watched “The Wonderful World of Disney” hosted by old Walt himself, kindly father figure that he was, and then Bonanza. It’s funny, now when I see the re-runs of that show. Everyone always had on the same clothes! I guess they saved money on the wardrobe to use on all the women who came, died, were helped out of their desperate situation, or went away sad. Because those were your only choices if you were a woman on Bonanza…
Okay, enough of this. I have to go see if I can get a game of “Go Fish” going with D. Wonder if I could beat him at “War” ?