Adults at play

Pardon my recent absence from the blogosphere. I recently discovered you can play Scrabble online against a computer (http://www.scrabulous.com/solitaire_scrabble.php -- but don't say I didn't warn you), and for the last three days I've been playing Scrabble the way some people play the horses, or the way other people use heroin.

Having emerged from my haze, I'll write some more about our walk along the canal in Roxy. Appropriately enough, today's subject is games.

The kite-flying kids weren't the only ones enjoying a Saturday off. There's a little pavilion next to the canal, and a bunch of the neighborhood guys were playing board games. This one looked like a variation on checkers, using a reduced number of chess pieces and half the board.


Behind the modified chess game was a big handmade board that seemed kind of like a cross between billiards and air hockey. You have to flick the round white disk at the colored pieces and try to knock your opponent's pieces into the pockets at the corners.


Everyone was amused to see foreigners give it a try.