~+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.”