A blast from the past

When my brother was in middle school- of course we called it Junior High, he and his friends would get together up in his room and play Risk. It is the game where you have little colored pieces that represent armies and you roll the dice to do battle and the highest roll wins. The board is divided by territories and continents and the more territories you conquer, the more land and armies you acquire. After playing this game you see why Europe and Asia were constantly being over run throughout history and so difficult for the
conquering army to hang onto. I would walk by my brother's bedroom and the chatter was deafening. There was so much excitement and shouting. My brother and his friends would spend hours and days playing the game. They loved it..


It is a great game, then and now. I used to play it on the occasional weekend night with my friends in the dorm when I was in college. We would go all evening and finally it would end with someone flipping the board, or throwing pencils. We were very competitive and didn't handle losing well.


We used to play here at home with the kids or just Harry, after a holiday meal or on a cold Saturday evening in the winter. As in, Monopoly, another Moore favourite, in this household, we always try and form alliances or make deals. I loved playing with my husband, because he'll always do these truly sweet things for me exclusively, like in Monopoly, let me land on Boardwalk four times rent free (this is after he's got two and three houses on it, and could bring you to your knees in the game financially), or in Risk he'll give me a country that he would like for us to visit sometime, or the one that I should be Queen of. He was such a gentleman, and there is nothing the kids can do about it.


My son plays Risk. He plays with his friends and he plays when he goes to Chicago to visit his cousins. Or on vacation, he will bring a Risk board and the cousins will spend an evening at it. If you talk to the boys, my son and nephews, they will engage you in a discussion of the game, and their strategy and who was winning, or how the game was won or lost by whom. It makes my eyes roll to the back of my head to listen to them. I appreciate that they get so excited, and it represents drama to them, but frankly it is dull to listen to. But I think back to the excitement I used to witness with my brother and his friends, and I think, well alright, its that kind of thing.


My son just recently went over to his friends and they played a rousing game, or so he says. He was telling me how he won the game with great gusto and excruciating detail; the alliances and deceptions that were occurring. And here is something, they were text messaging each other under the table. As he was negotiating pacts and alliances with one party, he was receiving text messages on his cell phone from another party. Sweet.