Define “young”.  I was young in my 20’s and 30’s, and now that I am in the elderly stage of my life I consider anyone under social security age as young.  For purpose of this essay I’ll interpret “young” to mean my pre-puberty years and I’ll list my beloved childhood games.

There were board games and in my earliest years the ones I remember the most are Candy Land, Uncle Wiggily, and Go to the Head of the Class.  The latter game required the participants to correctly answer questions (mostly trivia), which, along with fortuitous rolls of the dice, enabled an advance from the rear of the classroom to the head of the class. Personally, I credit that game with inspiring me to excel academically in my formal educational years so that I might sit at the head of my class (which in view of my hearing loss was surely beneficial to me).

There also were card games I played in my pre-adolescent years.  Chief among those were Go Fish, Crazy Eights, War, Steal the Deck, and Slap the Jack (which was more of a reflex exercise than an actual game).  My most memorable early card game, though, was Old Maid.  The picture of the Old Maid in the deck we had resembled the Wicked Witch of the West.  No one wanted to be stuck at the end of the game with that bitch left in your hand and with the other player(s) yelling “Loser”.  It was enough to bring a young innocent child like yours truly to tears.  A more sophisticated card game that I played a lot with my sister and cousin Jackie after I was about 12 years old was Canasta. I do remember feeling annoyed because it seemed like my sister always won, but I never held it against her because she had some good qualities.  I didn’t play Poker and Pinochle until my teenager years.  My father and Uncle Bill played those games with me then, and, man, were they good.

Other table games were Scrabble (which my sister loved), Checkers, and Dominoes. Uncle Bill was the best I ever saw at Checkers, although I did manage to beat him occasionally.  I played Dominoes mostly with Jackie, but I think that more than the game itself we both enjoyed setting them up in rows on the table and then tapping the front domino to watch all of them fall.  Jackie and I also played a lot of baseball, basketball, and football table games.  I mostly was frustrated, however, with the electric football game because the players would just move around haphazardly and the little cotton football that the quarterback was to throw, or the punter was to kick, was a joke.

Moving outdoors, Hide and Seek was always fun to play.  My favorite hiding places were in the coal bin and under the back porch (unless mice were there).  Marbles was a fun activity in our neighborhood.  There was a dirt alley behind our house and us kids would often play marbles.  That involved drawing a ring in the dirt, with each player placing these little glass balls called marbles inside the ring, and then flicking your marble from outside the ring to knock the other player’s marbles out of the ring.  Truth be known, I never excelled at marbles.  What I was pretty good at, though, was wiffleball.   I had a knack for throwing that plastic ball with holes in it in such fashion that it would curve, slide, sink, and otherwise move to befuddle the unsuspecting batter.

Video games were nonexistent when I was young.  We did, however, have pinball machines.  They actually were banned in several major cities due to an unproven concern that they were robbing children of nickels and dimes they had for lunch money.  They were allowed in Scranton, however, and whenever I had an occasion to be at a restaurant or other location housing a pinball machine, I enjoyed the thrill of flipping the little silver ball so that it would hit various targets, racking up points before the ball disappeared in the hole beyond the flipper’s reach, all the while being careful not to tilt the machine which would bring a sudden end to the game.  I would love to teach my video game grandchildren how to master a pinball machine.

So those are the pleasurable games of my youth that I can recall.  While they were favorites in their time they do pale in comparison to games of my adulthood, such as drinking and kissing games.