Rediscovering Scrabble | A Family Tradition

“You’ve learned well, Little Grasshopper.”

That’s what my Dad says to me when I make a good play. I’m 45 years old, and it tickles me that he calls me Little Grasshopper.

3 years ago, we moved next door to my parents, and every Sunday night we go to their house to relax and share a meal. It’s a great time to catch up on how everyone is doing. Usually one or both of my brothers will show up too, so our kids get to play with their cousins. We talk about our week, and I often get advice from them. I like that my kids rely on our Sunday nights at Grandma and Grandpa’s house.

It’s like soaking up nourishment through our roots.

One Sunday evening in January of 2017 Dad suggested that we play a game of Scrabble. I’m a word-nerd, so of course I was happy to play the game. That was the beginning of our weekly (sometimes more often) competition.

Dad grew up playing Scrabble with his parents. He said they were really good players, often making scores above 300 points. I laughed when he told me that my Grandma would often beat my Grandpa….which Grandpa didn’t really like! Dad said that when he was a kid he would read the dictionary to find little words that he could use in the game. As a young man in the Navy, he played Scrabble with other sailors on the aircraft carrier. He said there was only one guy on the ship who was as good a player as his parents were.

So, that January night, my Dad got his old Scrabble box out. When he took off the lid, he pulled out his score tablet. Every game that he has played since 1972 is recorded in that tablet. The names of uncles, cousins, and friends are jotted down, with their running scores, and of course who won each game. From time to time, Dad will look through the tablet, seeing who won or looking at how often he has played over the years.

Dad is intensely intelligent, with many talents and skills. In this, I think of him as the King of Scrabble. When I first started playing with him, I thought the goal of the game was just to make great words. Seriously, isn’t there sweet pleasure in the words themselves?

But oh, no. There is strategy in Scrabble. I think I only won once or twice during the first year of our competitions. Yes, I love words. I love to read them, I love to write them, I like to study them, and when I’m overdosed on life’s stresses, I love to create them. But during that first year of Scrabble games, I simply could not see great words in the seven tiles on my tray like Dad could, let alone strategically place them on the board to score higher points.

However, I’m a good student, and week by week I learned to watch Dad carefully consider where he placed the higher valued letters. I learned how he uses the “S” letter to draw a score from two words instead of one. Sometimes he plays a word in singular form so that on the next play he can make it plural while also making another word.

I think the best thing I’ve learned with the Scrabble games with Dad is that strategy works. I might have a crappy tray of letters, but I can take time to see how to make the best use of them. Also, when I have a fantastic tray of letters to use, by golly, I should use them well! This is probably a very obvious, very simplistic principle, but some things don’t come naturally to everyone.

I have a tendency to think in patterns. Perhaps I’m stretching things a bit but I have a feeling that the Scrabble strategy can be applied to how we approach life. Whether we have crappy or fantastic options, we can carefully consider how we choose to use them in order to gain the best outcome.

So now, we’ve been playing for a year and a half and I win more often than I used to. He is still the King of Scrabble, but our competitions are a little more fierce. The more I win the more he calls me Little Grasshopper.

Every family has its own little traditions. I really like that Dad and I found this one. My ten year old boy watches us play and often asks if he can join the game. I surely hope our Scrabble tradition lives on.

Here’s a fun How To video about Scrabble strategy. Who knew there were so many ways to use a “Q” without a “U”?