Back in the day, even after video games came on the scene, we were board game fans at our house. Mostly thinking and planning an counting games; Monopoly (back when there was only one edition!), Operation, Sorry!, Life, Scrabble, Yahtzee.

One game we wanted to play was Hungry Hungry Hippo, but it never ended up in our stash. I wonder if my parents saw no value in a game designed to slam pieces of plastic around; I saw that as it’s charm. It teased us between afternoon cartoons; looked a fun and exciting way to pass the time. But by the time we actually got to play it – yawn. Made me glad to not have spent allowance money on it, though I was glad we saved up for and bought Cathedral. An old version of an older game, we could spend hours playing that game, even into our teen years.

Now I see shuffleboard and curling have made a comeback in a revised version of Sorry! – you slide your pieces in and at a target, bumping others out of the way. Makes sense and a great way for kids to work on their fine motor skills; but I don’t know how long attention it will hold for the five to eight set. But its a way to get families gaming together, spending time together. In a hopefully friendly competitive way; games are great for learning.

So here I am, out of practice at blogging, and I don’t remember how to wrap things up, or even what my point was (I’ve got some kind of bug of doom that’s kept me on the sick list most of this week). But in one fevered moment Helter Skelter came on the radio and I had to wonder if the Beatles were playing Snakes and Ladders when they wrote that one … and what songs about other board games would be. Or other appreciations – BattleShip Haiku?

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