One of the games that Robert and I would play when he was younger involved his small plastic toy soldiers.

Everyone has seen these. Normally they are green, but they can be gray or other colors and are about 2 inches high. The game we would play involved each of us picking out 25 soldiers for our army. The soldiers all needed to be the kind that were standing up and not laying down. We also had three plastic cannons for each of our armies. Bonnie made some small beanbags that we used as “cannonballs." We would set our armies up at about 3-5 feet apart and take turns shooting our cannon balls (throwing our beanbags) at the other army.

The only rule was that each cannon had to be manned by three soldiers. So if one or more of the soldiers manning a cannon was knocked down then you had to take some other soldier who was still standing up and move that soldier near the cannon so that cannon could be fired. If you got to the point where you did not have enough soldiers to man one or more of your cannons that cannon could no longer shoot. For example, if you got down to eight soldiers they would only man two cannons with two soldiers left over, then - in this example - you could only fire two of your cannons (throw just two beanbags) during your turn. When you could no longer man even one cannon you were the loser.

This was a fun game and Robert and I played it off and on many times through the years.

Now fast forward something like 25 years. Robert is married and his family, including son Benjamin who is around eight years old, is visiting our house.

Benjamin brings out the box of plastic soldiers and wants to play with them. I explained the game that Robert and I had played many years before. We still had not only the soldiers, but also the plastic cannons and the small beanbags.

So Benjamin chose his army and set it up, and I chose my army and set it up about 5 feet away. Benjamin went first, of course, and though I don’t remember, I suppose he knocked down one or two of my soldiers with his three throws. Then it was my turn. From just 5 feet away, and with three beanbags, I “somehow“ missed every one of Benjamin‘s soldiers. Robert, who was watching us play, looked at me somewhat in surprise, as he realized my misses were deliberate.

I looked back at him, with a small smile on my face, and said, “You didn’t really think you won all those games all by yourself when you were younger, did you?”