The smile defies description......

At this time of year, with the snow, falling at infrequent intervals casting a lovely icing upon the Capital City of the Northern State, and the well-placed lights of red and blue are placed upon green trees and wreaths making the evening constitutional a triptych of neighbors' personal stories....and the fragrance of pine and sugar cookies blending into a single aroma that defines the holiday season, my thoughts turn to the idea that Colonel Mustard did with the Wrench in the Library.

Yup.  CLUE.

Not the movie, mind you, although I find the movie a laugh riot; I prefer the THIRD ending, by the way.  But my thoughts always turn to CLUE at this time of the year.

Because it was the only game my Brothers and I could agree on.  And it was a game that everybody would get involved in.  And it was a game even we could win.

Yeah, we played MONOPOLY from time to time, but truly, those games could go for hours, and in some cases, days.  It was always fun to start, but invariably it would lead to acrimony, and on one occasion, near fisticuffs.  But CLUE.....it was a game that went as long as it needed to, and there was a decided winner, and almost nobody (except Mr. Boddy) died.

The image that stays forever in my head is sitting on the floor in the living room, the Christmas tree lit behind us, rolling the dice and showing the cards, trying to beat my two brothers to the solution.  The snow was falling; school was out until after the first of the year; and my Uncle from New York was soon to join us, and he always brought a little fun to the holidays.

The family tradition was always that somebody would bring a game, and that would be the thing we did after breakfast and before dinner.  Through the years, there were a ton of them; some of them good (who can forget Trivial Pursuit?  It's a cliche now, but in its infancy it was the game for 'smart people") and some were bad (there was this one game where you had to finish a lyric of a song from a random decade, and I always wound up doing Buddy Holly or Little Richard), but through it all, CLUE always seemed to make an appearance.

Yup.  The cherished books of my younger days have been translated to a small, portable pad; the music has gone from LPs to CDs to ITunes; and the candles are now electric and the tree lights are LED.

But I would give a ton of whatever is valuable these days to travel over the lake, light a candle or two, pour a glass of whatever is desired, and set up the board with my Brothers again.

Sigh.

Maybe next year.