Dear Liza,
Since we are all inside together more, we have been playing more games. Auntie Bridgett and I play Bananagrams, and we three all play Scrabble.
I should have known it would, eventually, come to this. Last night we played Monopoly.
We tried playing it together years ago, but Grandpa Nelson’s tendency to just wipe us out, every time, sort of took the fun out of it. So, we put the game in the cupboard. The way, way, back of the cupboard.
And last night, after Straight from New York pizza and a nice Beaujolais, we tried again. Determined to not repeat former mistakes, I went in with the strategy of buying everything I landed on, even if I had to mortgage properties to do it. I bought, I swapped, I built, and before the wine was gone, I won! It was weird, but true. I was a tycoon!
So now I know that the winning strategy is to overbuy, overextend, and overbuild. No wonder I never won before! I had been using good sense. Turns out, in Monopoly, greed is what works.
I’m glad real life isn’t like that.
Love,
Grandma Judy
Dear Liza 
Re: Monopoly ……. Jim and I were game players. For a long time we played Monopoly many evenings. One evening, Jim was broke and wanted to borrow from my stash. I wouldn’t let him. He stood up from the table, swept the entire game on to the floor. We stepped over it for several days. Finally he realized I had no intention of picking up the mess. He did so. : – )
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