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When I was a kid, my mother's parents used to rent a condo in Highland Beach, Florida for the winter. My mother and I would go down to visit them over Easter break for a week in the sun. There was an old lady named Helen Lammerding who lived in the same complex, and she used to sit by the pool and make kittens out of yarn. I became friends with her because of those kittens, because I always wanted the newest and cutest kitten she was working on. Throughout the years, when I went to visit Grandma and Grandpa, I always spent lots of time with Aunt Helen, and we were pen pals when I wasn't visiting.
Aunt Helen was very talented at crocheting (I still have a chick-and-egg that she made) but what she really loved to do was play Scrabble. I used to play with her all the time once I got old enough. I was never very good at the game, but Aunt Helen was very patient, and she taught me a lot about the game that I had largely forgotten until now.
In my office, all of us kiddies now have smartphones, and we've been playing Words with Friends together. It's a Scrabble knockoff, and it's buggy, but we're having fun. The poignant part is that playing this game makes me think of Aunt Helen, and her lessons about little words that use the 10-point tiles, and opening up a triple word score tile, and other Scrabble strategies. I don't remember them all, but I remember playing with her and having a very good time. Normally I am cutthroat-competitive at games, but in this case, I don't mind having my ass handed to me.
The last year we went to Florida, before my grandmother died, Aunt Helen was also ailing. I was thirteen at the time, and I'd outgrown yarn kitties, but we played a game of Scrabble or two when she was feeling up to it. I didn't hear from her again after that, and she has certainly long since passed away by now. In a weird way, I feel like I'm honoring her memory by playing this silly game, because it helps me to remember all the days I spent hanging out with her in her apartment, watching soaps and talking. Aunt Helen is the reason I know the words to "Let Me Call You Sweetheart," because that was her song with her husband.
Not that any of you asked, but if you want to play with me, my username is Section211.
Aunt Helen was very talented at crocheting (I still have a chick-and-egg that she made) but what she really loved to do was play Scrabble. I used to play with her all the time once I got old enough. I was never very good at the game, but Aunt Helen was very patient, and she taught me a lot about the game that I had largely forgotten until now.
In my office, all of us kiddies now have smartphones, and we've been playing Words with Friends together. It's a Scrabble knockoff, and it's buggy, but we're having fun. The poignant part is that playing this game makes me think of Aunt Helen, and her lessons about little words that use the 10-point tiles, and opening up a triple word score tile, and other Scrabble strategies. I don't remember them all, but I remember playing with her and having a very good time. Normally I am cutthroat-competitive at games, but in this case, I don't mind having my ass handed to me.
The last year we went to Florida, before my grandmother died, Aunt Helen was also ailing. I was thirteen at the time, and I'd outgrown yarn kitties, but we played a game of Scrabble or two when she was feeling up to it. I didn't hear from her again after that, and she has certainly long since passed away by now. In a weird way, I feel like I'm honoring her memory by playing this silly game, because it helps me to remember all the days I spent hanging out with her in her apartment, watching soaps and talking. Aunt Helen is the reason I know the words to "Let Me Call You Sweetheart," because that was her song with her husband.
Not that any of you asked, but if you want to play with me, my username is Section211.
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