Winners and Winners.

One of my favorite things to do is to play games with my family. This week we were blessed to have Sara, Emrys and Gwendolyn with us to enjoy the holidays. We played cards, we played liars dice, and we played board games. I lost every game. I am not complaining, not whining although I was falsely accused of such. I told the kids when they left that they know where they can come to win games. I am the winner as long as they keep coming.

I remember when Sara and my Dad would team up to play cards they seemed to be unbeatable. When we played cards with Mom and Dad, Dad would annoy my mother by counting out the cards she dealt to him, deliberately and methodically--one at a time--and she would let him know of her displeasure.

I remember the time when cousin Vicki was losing badly at a board game. She took the board and flipped it over ending the game--a move known in the annals of our family as "Pulling a Vicki". (Vicki to this day denies the incident in spite of numerous eye witnesses.)

I remember watching TV while playing Skip-Bo with my sister and the crew. I would be focused on a football game and would only look back to the game when my turn came. Sis would whine profusely when I would win without paying attention--much to my delight.

When I was a boy, I remember my father and his brothers sitting around the dinette set in Uncle Ed's house playing dominos, smoking cigarettes, talking and laughing, the cloud of tobacco smoke forming a haze near the ceiling of the kitchen. It was a different time.

My brother and I and our friends would go to the fire station late at night with our friends and play dominoes until time to go home. The night life in Fort Cobb, Oklahoma was spectacular.

When family and friends gather around a table to eat, to play there are only winners.