Game Night
So when prepping for the old radio broadcast this morning, I noticed it was the “birthday” of none other than the Monopoly board game that was a part of many of our young lives. Monopoly went on sale for the first time in 1935. My kids, now 24 and 27, had to tolerate more than a few “game nights” back in the day, just like their Mom & Dad did. I miss gathering around the Monopoly board to settle in for a long night of playing real estate magnate with the family. We had Life and Candyland and Risk and Battleship and Clue and all the other big-name board games I’m sure, plus chess and checkers, etc. Shared a lot of memorable game nights by the light of a Coleman lantern, while the rain stormed down on our tent. Primitive camping days, like the primitive games days will always have a warm spot in my heart. Sure the gameboys and guitar hero and playstation consoles came along, and we had many competitive marathons playing PGA golf and the more sophisticated games. But there’s nothing like reaching up to the shelf in the coat-closet where the games were kept, signalling some good old family team-building was on the way. Thinking of family Monopoly games when I was young transports me right back to that old kitchen table, in the ancient stucco house in DeLand, Florida. I can almost smell the cigarette smoke from my parents’ Marlboros, and imagine my little brother kicking me in the shins underneath the table. Wait, is that crying? Now we’ve done it, gone and woke my baby sis. Mom calls from the kitchen, somebody needs to either warm-up a bottle or keep an eye on the Jiffy Pop. What great memories. Now, whose turn is it to roll? Nuts! I need snake-eyes to get out of jail, right?
84 years ago “Monopoly” went on sale for the first time. Over SIX BILLION little green houses have been constructed since Monopoly was introduced. The longest Monopoly game recorded was 1,680 hours long. That’s 70 straight days.