A game of cribbage. Anyone? ~ November 14, 1996

David Heiller

“Fifteen-two,15-4,15-8, and a double run of 10 is 16.”

Grandma spoke those words and in a slow and steady hand, moved her peg 16 holes down the cribbage board.

Grandma Schnick in her living room.

There they lay in front of me, those darn cards, 6-7-7-8-9. I counted them for myself, just to make sure she didn’t miss any points. If she did, I’d claim them for my own.

But Grandma never missed points, and I didn’t either, because she would do the same to me.

Grandma and I played cribbage at the card table that was always set up in her living room. She lived upstairs in our house, and she always had the cribbage board out on the table, or on the buffet that held old photographs and a magnifying glass and paper and pencils and other grandma stuff.

The cribbage board was always waiting, just like she was, for a game of cribbage.

I played a lot of cribbage with Grandma when I was growing up. She always won a few more than I did. She was a little better, a little luckier. She taught me to lead with a four. She taught me to keep an ace handy for pegging. When I was first learning, she told me what to keep and what to discard.

On cold winter nights, she would turn up her oil stove and the room would boil. Grandma never seemed to get too hot though. I thought that it was always too hot or too cold in her house. But it was always just right for Grandma. She didn’t complain.

I loved playing cribbage with Grandma. It was a way to escape from the chaos of a big family downstairs. Grandma and the cribbage games were a refuge from that.

I think those games also formed a bond between Grandma and me that we couldn’t have obtained any other way. We didn’t have to talk much about current events or how our days went. We just played cribbage, and for some simple yet unexplainable reason, it made us a lot closer.

At times like that, I couldn’t imagine that Grandma would ever be gone. She was like a lighthouse. But of course that changed. I went away to college, then to the Peace Corps, then to marriage and a family of my own, and the cribbage games dwindled and died.

Grandma followed suit in 1989. (Pardon the pun, Grandma!)

Cribbage is passed from parent or grandparent to child. Here's my brother Randy playing with his daughter, Grace. They are using the nice board I gave to David on an early Father's Day.

Lately I’ve been thinking about those games and Grandma again, because we are on a cribbage kick in our house.

We play with a beautiful cribbage board that Cindy gave me about 10 years ago. She bought it at a Swayed Pines Fiddle Fest in Collegeville, Minnesota. It is hand carved out of cherry wood, with a duck flying in the middle.

Cindy and I will go for months without playing, then we’ll take down the board from a shelf in the laundry room, and go on a tear, and play every day for a while. Then we’ll quit again.

The nicest thing about this latest surge is that our 11-year-old daughter, Malika, has joined us. We play three handed. It’s fun watching Mollie learn the game. It reminds me of my games with Grandma. We have to be patient with Malika, and it makes me think Grandma must have been patient with me. But I never noticed it.

It makes me wish Mollie had a Grandma Schnick living upstairs where she could go for a game of cribbage. In the meantime, we’ll keep playing.

“Fifteen-8 and 8 is sixteen,” I told Grandma triumphantly. I laid down the cards: five of hearts, ten of diamonds, jack of clubs, jack of hearts, queen of spades, and the card she had cut, the six of hearts. I looked over the cards to make sure I hadn’t missed any points, and marched my peg toward the finish line.

“You forgot Nobs,” Grandma said, and took the last point.

“Grandma!” I said with a laugh. Then we played another game.