Margit’s Note: Games People Play

By Margit Detweiler

(Graphic: Helen Jane Hearn/TueNight.com)

Stretched out on the shag carpet with your pals, you’re Operating. All eyes are on Kim, who is delicately attempting to pincer the Charley Horse, quivering and steadying when BLEEP! The nose is ablaze.

HA! Let me show you how it’s done, SHAKEY.

It’s the first time you ever talk smack. You feel a little bad about it. (Nah, not really — that’s 48-year-old you talking.)

There will be more smack to come in life. On the field hockey field, getting in your opponent’s head and then losing. Dramatically. Driving to the away game explaining to your 10-year-old daughter that you can’t always win, but there’s something called sportsmanship. (Sportspersonship?) Or, you can’t always win, but you keep trying. Even when the other person is across the way waving their giant “Number 1” foam finger in your face, you don’t quit. You try to get better. And sometimes you have to wait for your “J-Mac” moment to shine.

There are valuable life lessons in every game — whether played with a racket, a joystick or your finger tip. We learn how to be competitive. The pleasure in winning. The “agony of defeat.” I can still see that skier tumbling down the hill…

So this week, paraphrasing the words of the late great Jim McKay, we’re spanning the globe (or at least that away game in Scranton) to bring you the constant variety of sport:

• Renee Dale rediscovers the rebound
• Jennifer Ha makes friends with Minecraft
• Kate Goldberg finds love in the lob
• Wendy Scherer learns about life from SET
• Diane Otter kicks for the win
• And I finally delete CANDYCRUSH!

Play on, player,

Margit