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The dictionary defines "scrabble" as "to claw clumsily or frantically," and when the Tuesday night mavens of the board game Scrabble at the Charlemont Inn offered me a place at their table, that's just what I did.
Scrabble night is every Tuesday, from 6-10PM at the Inn (air conditioned for your summer playing comfort). Everyone is welcome to join in the game.
"I hadn't played in 30 years and I played for the first time two weeks ago," Gloria Fisher of Heath said at a recent game. "And I'm doing really well."
Inn co-owner Linda Shimandle said the Inn's Scrabble Nights started in the winter to alleviate cabin fever. "It's social, and it's important to have educational contacts in the winter when you can't get very far," she said. "I think most people ... are afraid of playing board games... It's kind of fun to play with a table of strangers. But no one is a stranger for long at these friendly games."
It's all good-natured pressure. Even at what player Al Canali of Heath, (himself a calm sort of player) calls "the full-contact Scrabble tableî (the most advanced players) - usually Jen Packard of Rowe, Jan Rustemeyer and Pam Filoramo of Charlemont - are kind, and very helpful with word and placement hints for the less experienced, at least the first time you play with them!
"The goal is to beat Pam," said Rustemeyer, who's done it several times. Filoramo comes to the games with a big old dictionary from decades ago and a tattered old sheet of acceptable two-letter words. She graciously offers them to novices at the games, but hardly ever uses them herself.
You have to know those two letter words! In fact 1996 Scrabble champ Adam Logan, then a 21 year old Harvard student, agrees that "you have to know the words very well and how to use them," he says. You can find lists of them on the internet. A few of those links are listed on this site.
We were probably all exposed to this game as children. It's fun, it's thought provoking, you learn new words and strategies as you go along. You can play with experts, intermediates or beginners. Join a table of players if you come by yourself or bring one, two or three friends with you and play your own game. Eat dinner or order snacks while you play - THIS IS A GREAT WAY to get to know new people, hang out with old friends and reconnect with the game of words - SCRABBLE!
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