Thursday, January 17, 2008 - The Greatest Scrabble Player That Ever Lived
One of my fondest moments with my dad, oddly enough, is playing Scrabble. He is unbelievably great at it. He knows how to play the game. He’s told us many stories about it, playing against his friends, and the time when he was in the Philippines, managing to “hustle” people out of their moneys.
He hustled people! Yes, playing Scrabble!
My father worked as a pressman for a once staple newspaper in Los Angeles called The Herald Examiner. He was as he called it, the “last and final editor”. It was because once in a great while, he would find a typo on the front page. Yes, newspaper editors do misspell headlines, if you can believe that! He loved the job and took a lot of pride in it, until they closed down in 1989, a truly sad day for him, his co-workers, and countless other Angelinos.
My dad has always had a fondness for words. (Funny, but somehow I have to acknowledge that I get some of that from him.) Not that he has a great vocabulary, or that he’s a language expert, because he barely even finished grade school. A man of the letter, he is not. He just knows how to play Scrabble, like a pro!
Now it seems so incredible, but in all honesty, scoring in the mid four hundreds is pretty normal for him. The only one in my family who can compete toe to toe with him is my older sister, Beth. She beats him once in a very long while. And she should, she is the only one in our family with a Master’s Degree.
There are a few cool “word facts” that we’ve all learned from good old dad. One is that the words remains, marines, and seminar all share the same letters. All have seven letters. (That’s a free one, you’re welcome!)
Words like jo, adz and adze, oxo, aye, and axe all have been challenged by either one of us, only to find them in the dictionary, thus giving him fifty more points! If you’ve ever played Scrabble, you’d know that when a player continually proves you wrong, and scores fifty on you, he or she pretty much can bluff their way into any word they want to use. Like I said, my dad knows how to play Scrabble, beyond just knowing a lot of words and being able to find a word from a group of seven scrambled letters. Remember, he’s hustled people for money!
There are many other words that my dad has used over the years that we never challenged, but our challenge of the word “fez” holds a special place in the Calixto lore.
It happened either in the late seventies or in the early eighties, on an early Tuesday evening. (How did I remember the day? You’ll find out at the end of this story.) My dad, my sister Beth, my brother Rene, and myself found ourselves in an unusually close game of Scrabble. Of course, we were all very aware of dad’s expertise, and for some reason, on that particular evening, we were really trying to gang up on him, making sure he doesn’t dominate us, as usual. Towards the end of the game, when it was to be decided who will get the bragging rights for the rest of the evening, that’s when it happened.
Dad puts up the word “fez”, scoring highly and going ahead of everyone. To our disappointment, we all erupt in protest! We all looked at each other in disbelief, without saying anything, thinking of the same thing:
“Fez isn’t a word! Or is it?”
This was a very crucial moment, because if we challenge, and that word comes up in the dictionary, then our evening’s goal of “not letting him win” would disappear! Obviously, none of us had ever seen or even heard of the word “fez”.
Finally giving in and letting us off the hook, my dad finally declares: “Just trust me, it’s in the dictionary! You don’t want to challenge this one!” After mulling it over between us bewildered kids, we finally gave in and accepted the word. Needless to say, he won the game! None of us losers even bothered to look up the word after the game; like we’ve done with most other impossible words he’s used. Actually, none of us wanted to look it up, thinking maybe he had just cheated us, lessening the blow.
After the game, we all went to the living room to watch one of our favorite shows on television, Happy Days. That’s when Dad became the “Greatest Scrabble Player That Ever Lived!”
Towards the middle of the show, a scene occurred where Mr. Cunningham was trying to leave the house in a hurry. He went back into the house and, as if in slow motion, says: “Wait Marion, I almost forgot my fez!” Then it quickly went into commercial.
In disbelief, we all looked at each other with awe and amazement. My dad’s crowning moment! All he could say was: “See, I told you! A fez is that hat!”
We all could have died in laughter! It was one of the funniest moments our family has ever had.
The story still gets told after all these years!
(By the way, fez is a great Scrabble word! Three letters and fifteen points! Again, you’re welcome!)
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