Personal Influence - UNO

 

When I was a kid, Sundays at Mamaw’s house were a big deal.  She would cook dinner (or supper as they say) and my entire family would come.  When I say my entire family, I mean my mom and dad and sister, along with my mom’s four siblings with their spouses and kids.  All of the kids and grandkids (except for my two oldest cousins who lived out of state) would gather at our matriarch’s home.  Usually for my favorite meal that she cooked; deer steak, creamed potatoes, gravy, macaroni and cheese, and green beans.  Looking back now, it’s hard to believe.  Mamaw is still alive and ornery as ever; 88 with a sharp mind and even sharper tongue.  Several of us grandkids have moved away from DeWitt.  We rarely speak to my two oldest cousins that live out west.  We don’t get together nearly as often as we did years ago (every Sunday meant every week).  Now we only get together for holidays, and it’s usually not all of us.  One thing that we still try to do on those holidays is play Uno.

Uno was our family favorite.  I’m not sure who got us playing Uno, but I’m thankful for that person.  Uno is a card game that I’m sure you are familiar with.  It’s for the young and old.  If you knew your colors (well, blue, red, green, and yellow) and your numbers, you could play.  This was everyone except for a couple of my younger cousins that were still babies.  I’ve always thought of Uno as a wholesome, family game.  That’s what it was for us.  Plus, it was about the only game that we could get Mamaw to play; and she loved to play it.

I think McGonigal wrote something about finite and infinite games.  Finite meaning that it had an ending and you wanted to get to the end and win the game.  Infinite meaning that it’s a game to be played, for as long as you can play it.  I’m mentioning this because it hit me that my family was playing Uno, which is a finite game.  You play to win.  It’s fun to win.  It’s especially fun to make Uncle Bob draw four since he tickled you long enough to nearly pee your pants an hour before; or your older cousin Jeremy, who earlier pretended that he wanted to show you something cool and dragged you into Mamaw’s bedroom to show you this secret thing that no one else could see only to knock you down so he could sit on your head and fart.  However, we wanted it to be an infinite game.  We always had so much fun.  It was always sad when the game ended.  Toward the end of these Sundays at Mamaw’s, we had combined several decks together, so our games would last longer and longer.  My mom even bought a machine that would shuffle all the cards at the same time.

Games were present early on in my life.  They brought my family together.  Uno brought my family together in a way that nothing else did.  It’s been a while since we’ve all played.  Maybe once the pandemic is over I’ll gather my family that’s still around so we can play Uno with Mamaw.

My nephew loves video games.  He especially likes the new Pokemon games for Switch (I guess they aren’t so new anymore).  He also collects the cards.  I gave him his first manga over the weekend.  I hope he gets interested in manga and anime.  I like sharing these things with him.  I also think it is important to pass along games and our ideas behind them.  I would hate for a game that meant so much for me and my family like Uno to disappear within the next hundred years.