Summer Games

I like to play games.

Not the kind that would benefit my waist size or cardiovascular system, you understand. No, my sneakers are for strolling, my fingers have outgrown my bowling ball and my golf game is restricted to courses with a windmill.

My workout is all in the wrist --- with cards, dice, game pieces and a board.

But let's back up for a moment. I don't remember exactly how old I was when I got my first taste of game action, but I do know that the introduction did not involve "Chutes and Ladders" or "Candy Land."

No, my first time involved a game of strategy called "Pinky Lee and the Runaway Frankfurters" --- and if you're old enough to remember when it seemed that Pinky Lee. as the host of a TV show for children, was second only to "Howdy Doody," you're my kind of gamer. Only in America could a former burlesque comic become the idol of millions of kiddies.

But I digress. From Pinky, I grew and moved on to other, largely forgettable board games before the journey put me on a road that eventually led to the El Dorado of the industry --- the magical land otherwise known as "Monopoly."

Ah, "Monopoly." They call it a "board game," but that gives no credit to its wonderful game tokens, deeds, play money, houses and hotels, and -- of course -- cards and dice. The various playing pieces -- and their quality -- have changed over the years, but I learned on a friend's vintage set in which many of the items were wooden.

Sometime before "Monopoly," I learned to play checkers and sometime later, I grasped the basics of chess. The former was the game that got me through CYO Day Camp and the latter seemingly hit its peak around the same time as my 15 minutes as a martini drinker (extra dry, straight up, with a twist of lemon) and student of the French cinema.

But neither produced a match that stuck itself in my memory. "Monopoly," on the other hand, was special.

As a kid on summer vacation (the ones without day camp), I spent a lot of mornings playing that game with friends on the stoop, in the driveway or in the backyard. It was our own floating crap game, as we would meet on a daily basis, determined to financially ruin one another --- or, at least, be the first one to land on "Free Parking" when it was stuffed with fake cash.

The games went on for hours, interrupted only by the arrival of enough other kids to warrant a stickball choose-up or by a mother's call to come in for lunch --- whichever came first.

I don't recall any of those games ever being decided with a clear-cut winner. Mostly, I remember giving the business to the kid who picked up a "Community Chest" card and learned he had won second prize in a beauty contest or, better yet, been sentenced to jail by a "Chance" card.

I remember, too, the fear and loathing of leaving the yellows, coming around the bend to the greens and ending in a space that left me staring at what waited up ahead --- the dreaded hotel hell of Park Place and Boardwalk, either a more likely landing place than "Go" (and $200) on my next roll. Each now owned and fully developed by the same kid I had given the business to a few rounds earlier, after he had rolled himself into jail. Who knew?

Over the years, I've played my share of dealer's-choice poker and at different times, have been part of groups that would meet semi-regularly for evenings of low-stakes cards and good company.

Thankfully, none was more intense than that one summer morning when I sat in the driveway and stared down the barrel of blue bankruptcy --- and survived to roll again.