"Way Back Whens Day"

 Doodle Games. Remember that?

 My dad would entertain me, and apparently himself, during the times we waited for food to arrive at our table, with doodle games. We rarely left a paper place mat without pretty convincing black, ball-point ant trails all over it. We played "dots", a napkin dotted with, um, dots, making a square grid.

Then you take turns drawing a single line from one dot to another.
The player that places the line that finishes a box, puts their initial in the box.
The player with the most boxes wins.



Then there was the squiggly line. Don't know that we ever had a title, so let's give it that, "The Squiggly Line". It's strictly a challenge of imagination.

Player one makes a squiggle, or a nonsensical scribble.
Player two then analyzes what they're working with, and makes something of it. 







Recently, I put those skills to use when I turned a failed cheeseburger into an amplifier.





Hangman.
Good old hangman. The game that combines our literacy with our lust for violence. It's the man's words that get him in trouble...

Player one comes up with a word or phrase, and sets out spaces for the letters.

Here's where rules vary: Some already have their gallows constructed, some make the gallows construction part of play, increasing the number of guesses.

Player two then commences guessing, and you start of pool of incorrect letters to the side, as guess after guess, your condemned stick man materializes.          

The object is to guess the word or phrase before your man is completed, that is, before you hang your man.


I like the idea that, no matter where you are, if you've got a pen, you have a medium, you've got art, and entertainment. You've got illustrations, and words, visuals, and verse.


Would these still be effective at your dinner table?

On a side note, why did we ever think the contours of our sneakers were for coloring?
I'm really glad I grew out of that one.