A lot of game playing is going on in these houses.
As a young girl I always enjoyed playing games. Sometimes we played games with pencil and paper - hangman, dots and boxes, battleship or tick tack toe. My uncle taught me a variety of solitaire games I would play for hours on end in the summer. Also in the summer we would set up a card table and in between playing outside and doing chores we would play a never ending game of Monopoly that no one ever won by the time we had to put it away when school started. With my friends at school recess we would play jacks. We always used a golf ball, not the ball that came with the jacks. Oh, we knew all sorts of fancy moves! We also jumped rope to rhymes like 24 Robbers, Cinderella or Fudge, Fudge, Call the Judge. When I lived with my sister-in-law before she became my sister-in-law, we played Backgammon, Cribbage and Scrabble and later Trivial Pursuit. We would also buy the same crossword puzzle book and race each other to the finish on the same puzzle. After we were married my husband and I played a lot of Canasta and Samba. Now the grandkids join in all the games at holiday gatherings so I try to buy games a group can easily play (boys against girls) like Outburst or Taboo. At my family reunions we usually play at least one game of charades. Sometimes we play dominoes - one of my dad's favorite games. At my husband's family reunions the men usually get in at least one game of all night poker. The women used to play sometimes too but now it seems the women play Scrabble or Farkle or just sit around and talk (and I do hand work). As my nine year old grandson says: "Grandma, you sure do like word games". Yes, I do! (Scrabble, Quiddler, Boggle). His favorite type of game is an interactive problem solving adventure we play on the computer. He solves problems with grandma and grandpa while the granddaughters go off and giggle and talk about boys.
Vacation Houses
We didn't have one. We rarely went on vacations but if we did it was to go camping at a lake close by. It was not comfy RV camping but tent camping - gathering wood, cooking over wood, hiking, gathering fresh raspberries to put in pancakes, s'mores, lake swimming, bug spray, sleeping bag, sunburn, fishing, fish fry, outhouse (bring your own toilet paper), sing around the campfire kind of camping. I loved camping. Still do. Are we there yet?
Garages
I've only owned a few cars in my lifetime. My first car was a red Chevy Corvair (unsafe at any speed) I bought for $75 at age 16 from a friend of my dad's. I didn't have it for long because a drunk driver ran a stop sign and totaled my car. I was uninjured. The impact just spun my car around and around. After that I bought a beige Ford Fairlane with manual transmission for $130. Oh, my goodness... while learning to drive that thing I stalled out in many an intersection and a couple of times while going up Division street hill - a steep brick paved hill. I left it at home when I went away to college for one of my sisters to use but my brothers who were not of driving age at that time evidently used to take it out for a spin at night after dad went to bed. There wasn't much left of the car when I came home from college. My next car was a used VW Beetle. I was on break after sophomore year of college and was going to take a year off from studies to work and save for another year of school. I was working full time at a Cafeteria then so had a regular income and Dad co signed on the loan. If I remember right the payments were $69 month for three years. It was my first loan. I was still driving that car when I got married. My husband drove a Ford Mustang. After that we have jointly purchased a few different Toyotas over the years.
I've only owned a few cars in my lifetime. My first car was a red Chevy Corvair (unsafe at any speed) I bought for $75 at age 16 from a friend of my dad's. I didn't have it for long because a drunk driver ran a stop sign and totaled my car. I was uninjured. The impact just spun my car around and around. After that I bought a beige Ford Fairlane with manual transmission for $130. Oh, my goodness... while learning to drive that thing I stalled out in many an intersection and a couple of times while going up Division street hill - a steep brick paved hill. I left it at home when I went away to college for one of my sisters to use but my brothers who were not of driving age at that time evidently used to take it out for a spin at night after dad went to bed. There wasn't much left of the car when I came home from college. My next car was a used VW Beetle. I was on break after sophomore year of college and was going to take a year off from studies to work and save for another year of school. I was working full time at a Cafeteria then so had a regular income and Dad co signed on the loan. If I remember right the payments were $69 month for three years. It was my first loan. I was still driving that car when I got married. My husband drove a Ford Mustang. After that we have jointly purchased a few different Toyotas over the years.
