~+7 LE
At our house we played games. Some were simple card games like Crazy 8’s , Gin, etc. There were some oddball games from Hoyles Book of Rules, like Russian Bank. We also played board games, Candyland, Park and Shop which was my first introduction to “hard problems”, Stratego, and others. Oddly we did not play Backgammon. Checkers and Chess might require another entry on the timeline.
We also played Monopoly. In our house playing Monopoly cheating was fair. But you could lose a turn if you got caught before the next turn. This could include underpayment, stealing from the bank, and moving to the wrong space. Like when stealing my nothings, my brothers would gang up on me. Somehow they could roll the dice and know exactly where they had to move their token to without counting. I was not a great student at this point and had not learned to add well although I was passing. At some point I started to do my addition on the Monopoly board.
The board is broken into four sides. Each has the originating corner, space 0 and the final corner, space ten. The spaces at 5 on each of the sides are the railroads.
So, lets say you are on space 8 and roll a 10. That would put you on the next space 8. Lets say you roll a 5. The first two gets you too the corner and three remains leaving you on a the 3 space. Or lets say you roll a 9. That almost puts you on the next 8 space, but one before. I see this happen in my head. There are no words, A seven fills the space between 8 and 15. In my head addition is often visualized.
This year is +69 LE and I still sometimes add this way even though I have the table memorized.
The winter break before I married Gail I went to her house during Christmas. Her family plays games on Christmas day and they brought out the Monopoly set. I needed to know the rules. There are factional differences in how the rules are interpreted and I straightened these out. Then I asked, “Is cheating fair?” The silence is still reverberationg and the astonished stares are etched deep in memory. “Ok, I just wanted to make sure I understand the rules.”
Daily Archives: November 13, 2025
Timeline Nothings
1960-62
My conceptual art carrier began with the setup of my factory to produce nothings. Nothings come in generally three flavors, chocolate, strawberry and vanilla. Of these many more chocolate nothings were produced than the other flavors.
Setting up the nothing factory required me to upturn my tricycle in the driveway. Making them required me to turn the wheel. If you turned it too fast it did not work. There are only so many nothings that can be produced in a day on a tricycle. Given its operation in a system of capitalism this stabilizes the price.
My brothers, both older used to gang up on me. It was not all negative. If you want to read about that see “Timline Monopoly”. But they would gang up on me and steel my nothings. Normally I would not have noticed, but they would say, “I stole your nothings”. This would set me crying. They were mean. It did not prevent me from making more.
Recently I did something special for my son Ben. I said, “you owe me”. He promptly settled his debt to me by placing 5 nothings in my hand. I did not know where he got them from. He said he got them from his fiance’.