Game Night

By the time I was a junior in high school I had been working for over a year at a grocery store. Working there allowed me to purchase a car, and with that of course, independence. But with that busy work schedule my leisure time was gravely reduced. The first year was all nights and every weekend. After a year however I had risen up the ranks and by the time I was a junior I had my pick of the schedule. This hard bought seniority allowed me the gift of being off most every Saturday.

During my high school and college years I loved to play games. It was a great way to burn off stress, learn strategies, and hang out with friends. In high school my friends and I started off playing card games, always playing at my friend David's house. His Mom loved to have us come over and we quickly were adopted into the family. There was a big table in the Dining Room and we happily settled in for the evening. David's mom would make us food and we would bring some snacks and time would fly by like I had never experienced before. This time became a sacred spot on our schedules. Yes, we would all go through stages where girls would take precedence over game nights, but it always seemed like that was a short diversion. Another interesting perspective is that the girls that stuck around in our lives were always the ones who realized the importance of those Saturday fellowships.

Top 5 Greatest Games

Slate magazine published an article this week listing their Top 40 greatest family games. That got me thinking about my favorite board games and all of the great memories that these games have brought to me over the years. Playing Stock Market with my Mom and brother on our kitchen table, playing chess with my Dad, playing Careers (who remembers this game?) and many more. So without further ado, here are my top five games:

CBS Radio Mystery Theater - The Old Ones Are Hard To Kill

What Evil Is This

Today a middle-aged man got up early and started his drive to his workplace. He got up before the sun had started to share its light and as he drove toward downtown Nashville he might have been thinking about his family, the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday, his to do list for his workday and other thoughts common to most of humanity as we start our day.

Yet there are other humans that wake up dwelling on more sinister thoughts. How to steal from others, how to inflict pain, and maybe even plotting how to destroy people they have never met. I can't imagine what has brought a person to this place, to where their obsession is to cultivate destruction but it is evident that this is not an uncommon mindset. Their motivations are the opposite of pure and sometimes our life intersect with these people when we least expect it . . .