Laughter – Encouragement is Personal

Grandma’s Hot Chocolate

There’s something special about grandma’s hot chocolate.

It doesn’t matter that she boils water and pours in the envelope of instant powder like the rest of us.

It’s what she does while the water’s boiling. The questions she asks while stirring-in the powder. The way she stops stirring to listen to your answers.

Grandmas have that way of listening, even to the stuff we’re not saying.

It’s the way she adds the right amount of milk to “thicken it up a bit.” Nobody else gets it exactly right like grandma. She knows just the way you like it. In fact, she’s the only one who does.

It’s counting out the right number of baby marshmallows. Enough to sweeten things, but not so many that they get in the way.

It’s the way she squeezes your shoulder as she places the cup on your placemat.

It’s the way she sits to enjoy it with you.

That first sip is such a treat. Is it the taste of the chocolate, or seeing grandma’s warm smile across the table that makes it so good?

It doesn’t matter. Your loving journey to the bottom of this cup of wonder is just beginning.

Funny how the simplest things in life are transformed when they’re mixed with grandma’s love.

A love she teaches us to bring to the simple things in our own lives each and every day.

Photo by Salome Alexa on Unsplash

Yahtzee Lessons

I was probably seven when Grandma Anne taught me to play Yahtzee. I’d spend the night at her house with my cousin, Devin, and invariably, we’d be at her kitchen table, playing Yahtzee all afternoon.

It’s a simple game…on the surface.

Each player gets thirteen turns to complete their score card.

The top section of the score card consists of numbers 1 thru 6. You need to roll three ones, three twos, three threes, etc. to get your “minimums.” You could also roll four fives (or four of anything), which comes in handy if you were only able to roll two threes on a previous turn. The idea on the top section is to score at least 63 total points, so you can get the 35-point bonus.

Yahtzee! scores 50 points. That’s when you get all five dice to be the same during your turn. Some players focus solely on getting Yahtzee at the expense of everything else. The theory being that 50 points is huge, and if you get a second Yahtzee that one’s worth 100. Of course, the odds of getting a Yahtzee are against you, but the payoff is big when it happens.

Grandma was always clear that while a Yahtzee is nice, the most consistent winning strategy is to get your bonus on the top section. Rely on those 35 points as your foundation. A Yahtzee, or a big four-of-a-kind on the bottom section of the score card would be icing on the cake.

Relying on the foundational 35 and less on the Yahtzee probably explains many of the best decisions I’ve made in life.

Each turn, you roll five dice to start. You get two more rolls in your turn. Depending on what the dice show after your first roll, you may not need to take those additional rolls. Life is good when you roll a complete large straight or a Yahtzee on your first roll!

The bottom section of the score card has three-of-a-kind, four-of-a-kind, full house, small straight, large straight, Yahtzee! and Chance.

Chance comes into play when you’re rolling for something that doesn’t happen. Like, you already have your small straight, and now you’re rolling to complete a large straight. Unfortunately, that last number doesn’t come up. You count-up the total of all the dice and enter that number into Chance.

Chance is a lot like a mulligan in golf. A do-over. In this case, you get to capture some points even though the rolls failed to produce. They say there are no do-over’s in life, but I disagree. There are plenty of second chances, if you’re willing to ask for forgiveness (mostly from yourself), learn from your mistake(s) (hopefully), and try again.

How often do three sixes come up in a roll? How likely is it that you’ll be able to roll that one specific number you need to complete your straight or full house? When you’ve used up your Chance spot, and your rolls have led to nothing, which slot are you willing to sacrifice to end this turn? Odds and decisions.

Yahtzee seems like a game of chance. It’s much more. It’s a game of decisions and imperfect trade-offs.

After a while, we graduated to playing Triple Yahtzee, which entails playing three games simultaneously. You get 39 turns. One column is worth triple points, one is double points, and the last column is regular points.

The decisions and trade-offs from the “Single Yahtzee” game are in play, but now you want to maximize the point values in your triple column and consider sacrificing some of the slots in the regular column.

Don’t be fooled. Mastering Triple Yahtzee isn’t just triple the challenge. As in real life, something that should be only triple the challenge is often exponentially more challenging than it first appears.

What is the answer to all this exponential chaos? Methodical effort and focused strategy. The priorities and the strategy are defined. The decisions that follow from these priorities become clear. Maybe even simple.

There’s a certain genius in showing a seven-year-old the game of Yahtzee. They haven’t fully formed their approach to decision making. Success, failure, decisions, and sacrifices are in play with every turn. Excellent practice for the real thing.

Yahtzee illustrates how something completely random and driven by chance can be managed within a solid set of priorities and strategies.

I didn’t just get to learn about rolling dice, counting numbers, and making decisions. Grandma gave me the gift of lasting memories that I cherish to this day, playing Yahtzee at her kitchen table.

Now that I have six (!) grandkids of my own, I can’t wait to teach them the game of Yahtzee…and then, Triple Yahtzee!

Photo by Lea Böhm on Unsplash

Fishing and Catching–Bruce Kerner Style

When I think of Bruce, I remember the fishing and the laughter. I don’t remember the fish we caught.

Bruce Kerner loved to fish. He didn’t get to fish often. He was a sign painter for various studios and was away working on movies a lot. He and his family vacationed with us many times when I was a kid. Back then, vacation time meant Big Bend Resort on the Colorado River and day trips to Lake Havasu.

We’d get a cove on the lake and set up our day camp with a shade, lawn chairs, and coolers. Bruce always had a bunch of fishing gear that we’d bring ashore.

While the rest of us focused on swimming and water skiing, he focused on fishing. The pursuit. The exploration. Deciding which baits to try. Changing rigs. Trying new lures. Moving down the beach to a new location. Floating out in a rubber raft to cast near the “proper” pile of rocks.

He always had a look of contentment on his face as he stared at that place where the fishing line meets the water. Constant vigilance, looking for any sign of a bite. Maintaining soft hands to feel the slightest movement.

It didn’t matter that the fish usually showed little interest in his bait. For Bruce, fishing was more important than catching. When he did catch a fish, he was rarely prepared to keep it. Somehow, his stringer was always left back at the camp. He knew that as long as we had daylight, he could cast his bait out there another time.

Come to think of it, we fished at night as well. Down on the dock along the river, after dinner. A bunch of us would look across at the lights on the Arizona side and cast out. Our quarry on the river was catfish, and that meant stink-baits and lots of waiting.

Funny thing is we didn’t catch many catfish either. When we did, we’d get a flashlight out, or flick a Bic lighter, to see what we’d caught. The stringer? Usually up at the trailer. We weren’t prepared to keep anything we caught.

Sitting there in the dark, fishing pole in hand, staring up at the stars, a kid can learn a lot talking with a fisherman like Bruce. The meaning of patience. The dignity of discipline. How the journey is more important than the destination. How quiet time is a good time. The way opportunity meets preparation when that fish hits your bait. How stories about nothing can mean everything when they’re gone.

Bruce was taken away too early from this world by a heart attack, many years ago. I find him in my thoughts a lot around July 4^th. That was one of the times each year that our families vacationed at the river.

When I think of Bruce, I remember the fishing and the laughter. I don’t remember the fish we caught.

They weren’t that important.

Photo Credit: Unsplash.com, Andrey Trusov

I Should’ve Laughed More

Grandpa Clyde used to say, “You had to laugh…”

Grandpa Clyde used to say, “You had to laugh!” whenever he told stories about something that had happened.

I’m not sure he was laughing when the thing was actually happening, but he knew you had to laugh when he looked back on it.

How many tough situations, crises, or plain old everyday events do you experience in a day, a week, a month…a lifetime?

What if we could pull ourselves out of these situations just long enough to hear the story we would tell? It won’t get us out of the situation, but might help us find the reason to laugh.

Photo: www.unsplash.com, Frank McKenna