I was three, certainly not four when they first came. Tall, straight men with buzz cut styles and square stubble on the middle of their top lips. And they had guns but didn’t bring them into the house. They were loud and lively, and my father smelled of yeasty homebrew after they were gone. They were Americans.
I was four, certainly not five when they came again.
They brought a bombardier, and boxes and boxes of stuff the likes of which we
had never seen before. Not even at Christmas had these wonders ever entered our
realm. Even the black and white television when it was first turned on didn’t
compare. The biggest box could hold a fridge if we had known of such a thing at
the time. There were clothes, bicycles, footsies, and boardgames. Payday,
Monopoly, Life, and a yellow box with a word on it none of us could pronounce.
I was five, certainly not six when I first heard the
rattle. The American’s were back. They brought their children. And dolls. We
named them after their American children. Tammy and Sherry were cherished for
years. As our bellies hit the floor, feet dancing in the air, we dressed and
undressed those dolls. In the background, Bonnie and Lloyd were teaching my
parents the game in the yellow box. It was Yahtzee.
I was six, certainly not seven when I watched my
parents play Yahtzee as we gathered around the trouble game, the older ones
played Life, a storm raged outside and there were no Americans. The plastic cup
was loud and sometimes one of them would let me shake their turn and spill out
the die across the kitchen table. Perhaps one would fall and clatter across the
floor and pause the game in the scramble to find it. All the score sheets were
gone so they used scribblers or paper bags to keep track.
I was seven, certainly not eight when I played Yahtzee
for the first time. Dad wanted somebody to play and Mom was making bread. There
was a storm outside. I had learned by watching and keeping score for Dad or Mom
on times. I loved the game. I was hooked.
I was nineteen, certainly not twenty when my then
boyfriend, now husband, learned to play. There would be a table full of us in
stiff competition. The shaking can had been worn out ten times over. The
cardboard baking powder tin made less noise. Tally sheets, scribblers, loose leaves
were worn out, numbers scratched into the table top through the brown paper
bags. The Yahtzee die shaking was a constant and the shout of Yahtzee for five
of a kind turned everyone’s head.
I was forty, certainly not forty-one when I played my
last game of Yahtzee with my father. He was keen to win and would play from
morning to night. By then my children had interest and played with him, too. We
knew the game had been passed on when we bought a game for our house in St.
Brides and the can made a racket without either of my parents there. Nor the
Americans.
I was fifty-five, certainly not fifty-six when I
taught my grandson how to play Yahtzee. He’d come from upstairs after school. Sometimes
his Poppy would play with us and sometimes his Mommy. The familiar rattle of
the die before they were upset on the table and the one that would sometimes
take off and end up under the chesterfield held a generational comfort.
I was fifty-eight, certainly not fifty-nine when I
played my last game of Yahtzee with my mother. It was at the long-term care facility
and she could neither shake the can nor keep the score but she wanted to play
anyway. We had endless games as we passed away the days at Pleasantview Towers
telling stories about my father and the Americans. I have her game tucked in
beside my own at the house.
I was sixty, certainly not sixty-one when I opened a
gift this past Christmas from my daughter. It was a new-fangled Yahtzee game
that is just waiting to be opened on a stormy day and stories told about my
father, my mother, and the Americans.
Yahtzee!
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