Many long years ago, two small boys lived in a community with their mother, the father was off “hunting” and the boy’s responsibility was to “catch” the days dinner from the creek, using the “noodling” technique was a bit scary so these boys devised a game from their fathers “cards”. A game of chance that ultimately determined who would be the one to “noodle” the nights dinner.
Soon the community noticed one brother was most frequently at the creek while the other was rarely seen, they asked the young man why he always “drew the short straw” and the boy said…”Go Fish”. He soon taught the others in town how to play a simple card game that gambled away the right to sit at home while the other went out to do the work.
Now as time passed these two boys grew and one day “Little Milt” mentioned to his brother that he seemed to “lose” at “Go Fish” too often and it was time to find a new way to determine who would go out and catch the fish.
Now with a lot of time to spare, while “Milt” was fishing, “Brad” had anticipated this and had begun planning the “ultimate game of conquer-ship”, consisting of a map and many multi-colored little blocks the objective to this game was to conquer the “world” and ultimately get “control” of the home, as their mother was most frequently out with the “girls” planning ways to obtain “manhood” and gain the rights they deserved for the job they were doing.
This particular game often took days to complete and the boys soon realized they would starve if they took the ‘risk’ of finishing this game so they devised another that allowed the smaller “ocean” going battles, and “strategically place armies” for other battles to break down who would do the house hold chores now going by the wayside.
As the summer days grew into fall, “father came home”, with “mother” at his side, seeing the shambles of their home, they themselves devised a game to teach the children about “choices” in life, and began encouraging them to go to school or get a "career".
Now this concept was a bit confusing to the boys and they soon figured out that with a ‘job’ you can make money, and with money you can buy more things, doing less “work”, and they quickly invested in some property and began to “monopolize” the community.
As the years went on the community continued to struggle to achieve what seemed to them “went out faster than it came in”, the cost of rent ever increasing, the fines and fees from taxes causing them to sell and sacrifice while they watched the brothers obtain “a Kingdom” made from the communities own hard work.
Now what the community did not know was these two boys had “long ago” started a game of risk, and now that game had finally come to a head after many battles and upsets.
The game was now dominated by “two large armies” and a few smaller ones of various color taken into “control” to fill the roles of other won allies….behind closed doors these boys used this game to decide who would now pass out the foreclosure papers to their parents, as they had NOT paid their taxes since age related illness had caused them to slow down.
One morning the sun rose high, and a young lady woke to a day of sorrow as people cried in the streets over the injustice of it all and she realized that the “life of playing games” had ran its gauntlet and we had now come around in a complete circle; Where people watched as another talked of ‘tossing the entire board” the “brothers” used for decision making, off the table.
So with “ants in their pants” and hoping “not to break the ice” causing us all to “sink or swim”, they waited wishing that the world had stayed with “fairy tales” instead of moving on to “games”.
