Friday Photo Flashback

I know Christmas is over, but my neighbor still has his lights out, so here is a Christmas photo for this week’s Friday Photo Flashback. Christmas 1980.

What you have here is 10 year old Keith. (Good Lord, it’s Christmas! You’d have thought I would brush my hair!) I am holding the cribbage board that my Grandpa and Grandma D gave me. This would have been Grandpa’s last Christmas.

I don’t recall exactly when he started to teach me how to play cribbage. Maybe I was 8 or 9. I know I was easy to beat, as I often forgot to count things. My grandpa taught me how to play on his board. The board was old and I think he had it around the time of World War II. When he passed away, my grandma said he would have wanted me to have it. (I still do!)

If you beat him on his board, he let you sign the back of it. If memory serves me right, there are three signatures on it. One of his buddies, my dad, and me. I had bought a small board to play on and we played on it a couple times. If my grandpa “skunked” me, he got to sign the back of my board. The two games we played on my board – he won both times!

He used to call me Charlie. “Skunked Charlie on this board (date) H.D. And we know who Charlie is don’t we” is his first signing. The first allowed him to write a shorter bit next. “Did it again 12-31-80 – on New Year’s Eve!

I still have the “29” cribbage board. There are a couple signatures on the back from friends who have skunked me on my board, too.

At one point, I taught my second son, Dimitri, how to play, but he hasn’t been over for a while. I guess I will just have to teach Ella or Andrew how to play …