Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Memories (or forgetfulness!)


Once upon a time (about 25 years ago) in a land far away (Indiana) some really wonderful people (Bill, Sherry and Jay) introduced my family (mom, sister and dad from the living room) to a game known as Dutch Blitz. Now, for the record, if you have never played this game then your life is just too boring!!! Time passed and I played with other people like Julie Covert (a pretty competitive young lady) and then LaDonna. You need to understand that LaDonna and I got to be pretty good at this game but when you played with her, you took your life (or the life of your hands) down a very scary path! Listen, that girl has absolute daggers for nails - long and strong, VERY strong! If you reached to put a card on the pile, you just hoped with everything that was in you that she was not going to go for the same pile! I am confident that I have a few permanent dents in my hands from her fingernails! Joe & LaDonna and Dave & I played this game on occasion but we girls tried really hard to only play when the guys were dead tired. Otherwise, it just wasn't fun! But - get them tired and then play and the result was just sometimes too funny for words!!! Playing this game with Dave is an absolute hoot since the poor man is somewhat color-blind! He is a little slow at the game which makes winning a little easier than normal! (Sorry, babe!!) Anyway, our kids got old enough and we started teaching them how to play and soon, Dave followed my Dad's example and for the most part, stayed out of it!! Well, last night I decided that my family needed some extra bonding time and something to laugh about and we got out the very worn out Dutch Blitz game. We even allowed Dave to play with us which turned out to be rather interesting! I have this one child who shall remain nameless but she has a boyfriend named Josh, who thinks that she never wins a game, and lo and behold, the turkey starts off by winning more than once!!! As I sat there and played and managed to win once, maybe twice - I learned something. I am old and slow and have taught my kids one skill that they picked up well and that is that those two girls are really good at Dutch Blitz! I have slowed considerably but some things haven't changed. Dave still is color-blind, he is still slow and still tries to "cheat" by throwing all his cards into the center of the table when the game is over!! He still makes random noises and says stupid stuff to make us laugh so we can't play and he can take that time to find a place for his cards!! We laughed, had fun and then went to bed at a decent hour!

9 comments:

Tamra said...

I love this game!

Donna said...

Ahhhhh.....that is so cool! The part about Dave throwing in his cards when he isn't winning kind of surprises me......ok...maybe not!!!!!!

Mary Ellen said...

That game is so much fun, Rick and I spent countless hours playing that in the snackshop with a bunch of kids when we were in college..back in the days when the snackshop was ALWAYS full of college students since there was no Starbucks, etc. "-) That would be a tough game to play while color blind! Rick is probably even faster than I am, even with his huge hands...but I sure try hard to keep up! Looking forward to playing that with our kids when they are old enough.

Marcus and Julie said...

I love playing this game. This is a family favorite for us!! Your husband reminds me alot of my Dad, when he can't win he tries to make sure that no one wins!! =) My poor husband joined the family and hadn't really played the game and he found out real quick that you have to be fast to play with us. My Dad has some huge hands and it hurts when you get slapped trying to play a card that he wants to play too!! So much fun!
Sounds like you guys had way to much fun.

LaDonna said...

Ha!!! Lots of great memories. I still can't get my hubby to play...not even at 3 a.m. anymore. I guess he's just too old. I think we've moved on from Dutch Blitz to Blink, which is much faster and quicker, if you can imagine that. Yes, lots of good memories.

Beth said...

My family LOVES to play Dutch Blitz! Dad doesn't like most games, but he sure makes it fun for us. We haven't played it for a few weeks but love to.

Angie D said...

Okay Leah, we have GOT to play a game sometime! ;)

Vonnie said...

I love and hate this game all at the same time!!!!!!

Julie Waggoner said...

We were introduced to that game by the Gibsons when I was 10 yrs. old. We actually would play it until our cards were like toilet paper! Then we would get a new game which we hated because the cards were so slick! We have many happy memories with that game! Those were the days when we actually had time to have company over in the middle of the week just to play a game---kind of sad huh?
Julie