Slice of My Life: Boggle with Joe
For the last ten years of my father's life, my husband and I played Boggle with him every Saturday morning (no matter--as I have often said--how much I had to drink on Friday night). For those unfamiliar with Boggle, it's a plastic grid of lettered dice; in a series of 3-minute rounds, players attempt to find words in adjacent letters.You only get points if no other player writes down the same word.
We actually played Big Boggle, which is a 5 x 5 grid rather than a 4 x 4 grid. And we only allowed words of 5 letters or more, which made us feel superior to those Boggle players who wasted their time writing down words like "cat" and "tree."
At the time, I was in the semi-habit of writing simple poems (doggerel, actually). Here's the poem I wrote for my father's reading pleasure:
BOGGLE
The reasons we like Boggle abound
It’s simple; no rules that confound
Need nothing but skill; no luck involved
Except when Joe crosses out Rob
No two shakes are ever the same
No here-we-go-again refrain
What fun to say “that’s an eleven”
The rare fifteen is close to heaven
We all look forward to INGs
And words that begin with RE
Whether the version is five or six
We do enjoy our Saturday fix!