100 Day Project 2021

Monday, August 1, 2016

Game On! - Part 2


Have you been playing this weekend? As I mentioned in last week's post, I've been playing with games and my camera. Here's a look at the next set of games I found in my game cabinet.


Do you know how hard it was to put all those Scrabble tiles in order for the top left photo? I got them all set, took the picture, and I had one out of order. Set them up again, took the picture, and one of the "H's" was upside down? Let me tell you, playing with games can be very challenging! If you find a mistake now, please don't tell me!!

Okay, back to the topic of this post. It seems a game cabinet would not be complete without a Scrabble game. My mom liked to play Scrabble. She was good at adding those long, unusual words; words I’d never even heard of! We trusted her when she said it really was a word, because when challenged, she was always right!

TRIVIA: Scrabble was created by an American architect Alfred Mosher Butts in 1938. It is a variation of an earlier word game he invented called Lexiko. The history of Scrabble is quite interesting. If you’d like to learn more about this popular game you can go here. There's a legend that "Butts studied the front page of 'The New York Times' to make his calculations for the letter distribution in the game." When he first began selling the games, the letters were hand-stamped on the tiles. His game didn't do very well until in the 1950's when Macy's began to sell it. Then it became so popular that the game had to be "rationed to stores around the country."


One of my all-time favorite games as a child was Jacks. I remember we carried our Jacks to school in a small pouch and played on the sidewalk at recess. I also remember the scrapped knuckles one could get trying to pick up the Jacks quickly!

TRIVIA: Jacks is a game of ancient origin. It was originally called Knucklebones and was played with real bones, usually from sheep. The most popular game of Jacks is Onesies, but there's also Around The World, Over The Fence, In the Basket, and Pigs In A Pen. Do you remember those? I still sit on the floor and play Jacks every now and then. I'm still pretty good at it, but it is certainly much harder to get up off the floor!


I also found four boxes of Dominoes in the game cabinet; an old black set from early married life, a white set with the Union Pacific train symbol on the back that was bought when our train-loving-son was home, a Dora set bought when our first grandson learned to play Dominoes and loved to watch Dora, and a Lightning McQueen set bought a few years later for the grandsons. I would really like to know how many different Domino sets there are!


TRIVIA: Dominoes are believed to have originated in China in the 12th century. Of course Dominoes have been used in many challenges. Here's a few records I found, but they could have changed by now.

most dominoes toppled by a group
4,491,864 in 2009
most dominoes toppled by an individual
321,197 in 2011
most dominoes toppled underwater
11,466 in 2015


And lastly I uncovered several card games. There was Rook, Old Maid, Go Fish, several kinds of Uno, and a regular deck of cards.


TRIVIA: Scholars agree that playing cards appeared in Imperial China as early as the 9th century. By the 11th century, playing cards, were spreading throughout the Asian continent and later into Egypt. Playing cards first entered Southern Europe in the 14th century.


You might be surprised to know that the United States introduced the Joker into the deck. The Joker was invented about 1860 as a third trump card. The earliest reference to a Joker functioning as a wild card dates to 1875 in a variation of poker.

Well there you have it, probably more than you ever wanted to know about games!! I love finding out about things, little bits of trivia that I didn't know. Oh, that reminds me of Trivial Pursuit a more modern game invented in 1979. I don't have a Trivial Pursuit game, because I don't like it. I've never been able to retain all those little bits of information that I've read!

I hope you've enjoyed my photography theme of games and remember to keep on playing and laughing.

"Play keeps us vital and alive.
It gives us an enthusiasm for life
that is irreplaceable.
Without it, life just doesn't taste good."
~ Lucia Capocchione

9 comments:

  1. Hi Cathy H. I love to play scrabble. Wish I could get into your game cabinet, we'd get a game going! But, I have noone to play with so I do WORD on facebook. Your post was very interesting.

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  2. I always learn interesting things from your posts! I've never seen a set of Scrabble tiles set out in order before. I admire your diligence! I remember playing jacks a lot around the age of 8-10 or so. It was a favorite game of girls at recess. I never liked those red rubber balls, though. I preferred a ping pong ball or golf ball, either of which bounced much better and made a satisfying noise when they hit the pavement. These are wonderful photos! I like the variety of images of each game and collages you've made.

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  3. Another excellent round of games and photographs. I loved playing Old Main as a kid, the deck I had had the best/scariest graphics, wish I still had those.

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  4. What a fun post, Cathy! Your images are great. I am a huge fan of scrabble so I love those the most. Your trivia is quite fascinating. Thanks for making me smile.

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  5. I enjoyed your second post on games. I loved the photo shoots and I sure did enjoy learning about each game. Looking and waiting for your next post.

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  6. Great job! Loved the info and loved the pictures! Well done!

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  7. You made me giggle at you trying to get the tiles in order. Sorry but it did! Love the macro shots Have a good one Cathy.

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  8. Wow, a blast from the past! I remember playing jacks and dominoes and marbles as a kid, and still play the occasional game of cards or dice with friends. And solitaire is still one of my favorite games, usually played in the early morning hours at our cabin, when I'm the first to rise in the morning. I love the photos, especially that lone face-up domino in a sea of domino blanks. Thanks for this little series, what fun!

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  9. I love board games and uno is my favorite card games!! Cool info on the joker!! You take the best pictures!!

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Thanks so much for stopping by!!