The Butterfly Hours Memoir Project: GAME

For 2019 I'm running a year-long series on my blog in which I share my responses to the writing assignment prompts found in THE BUTTERLY HOURS by Patty Dann.

I welcome you to join me, if you like! I've divided the prompts by month, and the plan is to respond to 3 (or so) a week. For some of these I may write poems, for others prose. The important thing is to mine my memory. Who knows where this exploration will lead?

In January I wrote about: apron, bar, basketball, bed, bicycle, birthday, boat, broom, button, cake, car.

In February: chair, chlorine, church, concert, cookbook, couch, dancing, desk, dessert, dining room table, diploma.

Here are March's prompts: divorce, door, dream, emergency room, envelope, eyebrows, first apartment, first job, food, game, garden.

GAME

I've written about gaming before... my middle son Andrew is quite the gamer. Here's a poem For Love of the Game.

The Dykes family
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, 1975

My earliest memories include play time with Saudi children when we lived in a Saudi neighborhood in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. We couldn't speak the same language, but we could play games: hopscotch, chase, marbles, goats. (Goats were everywhere! We loved scaring them off the tops of the cars, just to see them leap onto the street, where the fine, red dust would puff up in clouds.)

When you grow up in a big family – esp. a family who moves a lot -- your siblings become your primary playmates. We played Candyland and Sorry, Battleship and Monopoly. Later, as a teen, I loved Pictionary and Trivial Pursuit. Our card games were pretty elementary – Go Fish and War.

Our favorite games were outdoors: my brother Ken and I had many a contest: who can swing the highest, who can swim across the pond the fastest. Lynn and MicaJon and I were constantly inventing games and pretend worlds. The pasture across the street from us at our Folsom, LA house we named “Egypt,” after watching THE TEN COMMANDMENTS many, many times. One of the huge oaks was Nefertiri and the other was Rameses. We'd ride our ponies over there across the Nile (a creek) and “play” Egypt. At the Burns Lane house in Birmingham, we hosted our own backyard Olympics. We have all the events we could possible create, including a synchronized swimming event featuring me and Lynn. We created and awarded medals.

One not-so-happy game memory: playing Bingo with Grandma Oslund and my brother Ken and my grandparents home in the retirement community of Sun City, FL. We had one of those sets with the round wire cage that you'd crank to spin, and then pull a number. I had been the “caller” for several rounds, and Grandma said it was time for Ken to have a turn. I didn't like that idea – I wanted to be the caller every time. When I refused, Grandma called me a “snotty little girl.” It hurt my feelings so much that I ran away from the game and cried in my room. Grandma had every right to be frustrated with me... but she could be sharp-tongued and hurtful. I've carried those words with me for many years.