We play a fair amount of Scrabble at The Dale. Years ago we inherited a large turntable board that The Salvation Army Thrift Store (the location of our Tuesday drop-in) graciously allows us to keep stashed in a back room. Most weeks it is set up on the table in the Coffee Corner, surrounded by mugs of hot drinks, a few snacks, and a rotating group of interested players. Nine times out of ten we don’t keep score, partially eliminating the competition factor- depending on who you play with.

For some people Scrabble is a new game. It is always interesting trying to describe the rules, especially when we regularly *ahem* loosen them: there must be at least two players and no more than four; the person who draws the earliest letter in the alphabet plays first; the game progresses as each player lays down tiles on the board that make up words that connect to already played words (this might be the most challenging rule to get across); tiles cannot be placed diagonally or backwards; suffixes, prefixes and abbreviations are not allowed, nor are words that require the use of a capital, hyphen or apostrophe.

There are many memorable Scrabble moments for me. A community member once had us play “Christmas Scrabble”, where we were only allowed to play Christmas-related words with an accompanying STORY (which for some turns was how we learned a word could be remotely related to December 25th). I love playing with another friend who reads and writes in a very limited way, but eagerly wants to participate. Oftentimes he will excitedly say, “I’ve got a good one!” to a word that has been entirely made up, his face erupting into the biggest grin.

I love to play games and admit it is where my otherwise non-existent competitive streak tends to come out. Playing at the Thrift Store has helped me keep this in check. It’s not that I still don’t enjoy a very serious game of Scrabble, it’s that I’ve come to love the very NON-serious style we have at The Dale. I have seen unlikely relationships form as two people commiserate over what to do with seven vowels. We get to be very engaged with each other, while also collectively strengthening our brains. It’s fun. And given the variety of challenges our community faces, fun is a very good thing.