Board games have a way of tugging at our emotions.
When I asked Boomer friends around the country to share their nostalgia about popular games, responses were often unexpected.
Monopoly drew the biggest reactions.
Aly Colón, a media ethics expert and retired journalist, says he recalls playing Monopoly in California, Nebraska, Maryland, Michigan, Louisiana, and Colorado, as well as Puerto Rico and the Canal Zone in Panama. He now lives in Virginia.
Colón describes the Monopoly experience this way: “The idea of owning as much of the board properties as possible drove everyone to play hard and fast.”
Tom Gresser, who owned a popular tavern for nearly 30 years in rural Wisconsin until he retired in 2018, says Monopoly was his go-to game even as a kid.
“As an adult, I won much of the time because as a capitalist, I was merciless. I also played Clue but usually lost because I was clueless,” Gresser says.
It’s true the board game bug passes from one generation to the next.
Anne Kelly Feeney, a volunteer mentor for nonprofit leaders in Oregon, grew up playing Monopoly and Clue with her seven siblings. She went shopping recently with her 11-year-old granddaughter Àine. Àine’s favorites? Clue and Monopoly, it turns out.
The true magic of a game of Monopoly comes from Seattle’s Geraldine Murray, who, as a youngster in Atlantic City, N.J., played Monopoly all the time. No surprise. It was her reality.
“We used to ride our bikes through Marvin Gardens and of course up and down the boardwalk where we could identify all the streets and landmarks in the game of Monopoly,” Murray describes.
Murray loved Clue, too, and won quite often. She and her husband Jon have several friends who love games. They get together to play a dice game called Farkle, along with another called Left Center Right. Yahtzee and Shut the Box are other favorites.
Floridian Gary Fletcher, another retired middle school teacher, says he found life lessons in board games, especially Monopoly and Risk.
“Once, when I was 11 or 12—and I am not proud of this—I was playing with two friends and got so frustrated that I overturned the board. I had some apologies to make afterward,” Fletcher admits, adding that by the time he was in his early teens, Risk was quite the fad, and it was a game he played and played. And always lost.
“I finally got frustrated enough to stop. I never overturned the board, though. I think, in hindsight, that I always lost because I tried to do too much, too fast, spread my forces too thin, and got wiped out shortly after. I have tried to remember that as a life lesson,” he says.
These days Fletcher, who is also a retired Navy officer, and his wife Sherrie have a cabinet full of games and still play Yahtzee and Stratego, which he usually wins, and Scrabble, which he might win or lose.
When the grandkids are around, he and Sherrie play Parcheesi and a game called Masterpiece, where they all participate in auctions for famous works of art.
Based on his experiences, Fletcher has one key recommendation for parents and grandparents.
“When my children were small, I taught them to play checkers. But I never let them win. I thought that would be dishonest and that they would find more satisfaction in the long run by winning on their own. That happened eventually, but it took frustrating years,” Fletcher says.
“So, I offer some advice to adults playing games with kids. Learn from the experience of my poor kids and me, and let the kids win once in a while! They’ll be just as good at the game in the long run and it will make them proud and happy in the meantime. And that’s most important.”
Annie Culver developed a knack for unearthing oddball characters and improbable events as a staff writer for various newspapers. In the early 90s, she went to work for websites where she wrote sassy essays aimed at women. In recent years, she morphed into a writer for several universities in the Northwest. She retired in 2016, yet still enjoys freelancing.
Let the Good Times Roll
As popular as Monopoly continues to be, there are still plenty of other board (and card) games attracting the attention of grandparents, parents, and grandkids.
I dug through heaps of games at a pub in my neighborhood that has close to 100 choices if you count the numerous well-worn boxes of Trivial Pursuit. As expected, there was Pictionary, Charades, Uno and, interestingly, only the game rules for one called Dirty Minds. Here are some other games to consider, along with their teaser lines:
African Kalah or Mancala—Annie Culver’s favorite*
Box of Lies—Jimmy Fallon Party Game
Brain Quest—Be a Know-It-All
Cards Against Humanity—A Party Game for Horrible People
Dog-o-poly and Anti-Monopoly II—When You’re Looking for a New Monopoly
Fun Employed—The Interview Game of Actual Jobs & Absurd Qualifications
The Game of Hot Seat—The Ultimate Get-to-Know-You Game
Mind Trap—It Will Challenge the Way You Think
Pandemic—Can You Save Humanity?
Pun Intended—It’s All Pun and Games
Quelf—Where You Obey the Card
Reminiscing—Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader?
You Are What You Eat—A Memory Game
5-Second Rule—Just Spit It Out!
*I’m no mathematics whiz, but Kalah/Mancala, with its simple strategies and just two players has been my favorite board game since the early 1960s. You move stones around a hardwood board, dropping them one by one into pits. The winner gathers the most stones in his or her Kalah/Mancala, yet the game has plenty of ways to capture them.
Aging with Intention — Come Play with Me
The Lighter Side—Please Say It’s So!
Spring Training: Old Enough to Play for Fun
