Saturday, August 23, 2008

Riddle Ma Riddle Ma Re

Aunt Lizzie


I used to spend a few days every summer with my Aunt Lizzie back in my early days. She had two daughters near my age and they lived on a farm. We always had a lot of fun when I visited there. They did not have a lot of money so there were not many games to play since they had no equipment for them.

But I do remember one game that we always played. I don't know what the real name of it was but we called it Riddle Ma Riddle Ma Re. It required nothing at all to play except your mental abilities.

For the game we would choose a person to be IT. That person then would say, "Riddle Ma Riddle Ma Re, I see something you don't see." Then they would mentally pick an item that was in clear view and that everyone could see.Then they would say, "It begins with a" --any letter of the alphabet could be used. Then each person could guess whatever they saw that began with that letter.

Whoever guessed the right item would be the winner. Then they would be the next person to be IT. We had to trust that the person would be truthful about what the item was when it was guessed. We would spend hours playing that game, usually at night when we could not be outside playing other games. She had kerosene lamp light since she had no electricity in her house so it was not always easy to see everything in the room.

Aunt Lizzie had a big family and the dining table was filled when we ate. She never had fancy food but she always had plenty of whatever it was.

One time she made fudge. She had mint growing along her fence so my cousins and I asked her to put mint leaves in the fudge so it would be mint flavored. She did so and it was very good.

Aunt Lizzie has been gone many years but I will always remember the good times I had when I visited her and her family!

2 Comments:

At August 23, 2008 at 1:10 PM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

I love this post. Aunt Lizzie was my favorite Aunt. How I would love to sit and listen to her talk once more. She could be pretty witty and fun to be with.

 
At August 23, 2008 at 2:01 PM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

I remember one of Aunt Lizzie's favorite riddles. Every time we passed Evergreen Cemetery, she would say, "Know how many dead people are out there?" And, of course, we would say, "No." Then she would laugh and say, "All of them!" I always liked to go to her house, because she usually had a candy dish on her coffee table with ribbon candy in it. I always thought it was so colorful, and I couldn't wait for her to say, "Get you a piece of candy." She and Grandma were really close, and they talked on the telephone almost every day.

 

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