If you are from the northern half of our country, you probably already know what a cribbage board looks like. But even if you’re not from these parts, you might be familiar with it. I used to consider cribbage a rather old-school game enjoyed exclusively by Midwesterners. Apparently, however, cribbage is experiencing a surge in popularity. I’m thinking it has something to do with all the spare time those lazy Millennials have on their hands (I am kidding. Please calm down. Plus, depending on what survey you look at, I may actually be a Millennial. So there.).
Dan taught me to play cribbage back when we first started dating, and it has remained one of our favorite pastimes. It’s more than that, really. It’s a part of our story.
We purchased a fold-up cribbage board at Walmart for $6 during our first year together, and we have put some serious miles on that thing. Our pegs must have traveled around that board a gazillion and a half times. (Mine have traveled a little further than Dan’s, though!) And the cribbage board itself has traveled to Mexico, the Caribbean, Alaska, Florida, Hawaii, Baltimore, and a host of forgotten destinations over the past 13 years. Specifically, it has visited lots of beaches and lots of bars. It is truly a well-traveled cribbage board, as far as traveling cribbage boards go.
Pulling out the cribbage board is a signal to our brains that it is time to relax. Time to sit down and enjoy each other’s company. Cribbage even has the power to keep us off of our phones, so that we actually speak words to each other!
The cribbage board always makes it into my carry-on bag. I am a nervous flyer, so playing cribbage is an excellent distraction on a plane. You have to be careful if you start playing before take-off, though. If you are unlucky, you might have a once-in-a-lifetime hand and take an early and commanding lead, only to be deplaned due to mechanical issues, at which point the game must be packed up. Sometimes, if you’re Dan, you whine about that injustice for years. Years.
We have lost countless pegs along the way, so we have been forced to “borrow” new pegs from our other, less-favored cribbage boards and sometimes from my dad’s cribbage board (Sorry, Dad!). In desperate times, we have even resorted to using toothpicks as pegs. We finally broke down and ordered extras from Amazon when all other sources were exhausted. But the board itself has survived.
On our last vacation, Dan had the idea to start documenting the cribbage board’s travels on its back in Sharpie. This was a great idea, if just a tad late. I’m surprised it took us so long to get to the idea, because it actually reminds me of the wooden oars that we use to measure our kids. We periodically pull the oars out of the closet and stand them up against the wall to see how much the kids have grown in the past few months (…or in the past 11 months, but who’s counting. At least it didn’t take us 13 years to come up with the idea in the first place!) I’m thinking maybe we should get the oars out and just take care of that right now.
This summer we purchased a cribbage table for our back porch. I am grateful for it, as well. It is beautiful, and it gives our friends a place to gather on the porch to get their rear ends kicked. It also gives our crazy puppy a perch. You might call it an upgrade, but I still prefer the traveling cribbage board.
