…with Gary Moss

I am awash with all those nostlgic feelings that are oh so familar when one returns home. Unlike so many others who ventured off to collage after high school or went off to the military or headed out to trek the world and explore, I was one who remined close to home, began a business and started a family All that kept me tied (by choice) to the city and county of my birth. I lived in Detroit and its environs for a half century before having the courage and circumstances align themselves in a way so I could give myself permission to break away.

At the time (November 1995). I heeded the words of Horace Greeley and headed West, I was already past mid-life and not really certain that I could handle being away. My head told me that there were always planes, trains, and automobiles available to scurry me back home to visit parents, children, and grandchildren. But you know how that goes . . .; at first one visits often, but then life happens and those visits become less frequent. Money become scarce and the visits diminish to a rare few on only very important ocassions. One develops new patterns and habits and people grow apart. Most the past remain the thread that continues to hold us together.

This weekend’s event was the thread that drew me back for this visit. My mom is celebrating 90 years; my sister turns 60 next week; my grandkids recently turned 11, 11, and 4 and if Auntie Annie had lived, she’d be 100.

From the moment the wheels of the plane touched down on Friday evening I was catapulted back from my warm, adventurous digs in southern California to ‘that was the life that was’ in a snowy Michigan winter. The only warmth here comes from mom and my siblings and my other family members. Last night mom and I stayed up til the wee hours of the morning telling stories, recalling scenes from the past, and laughing again at the good times and the silly times. The day was filled with visits from family and friends and dinner was a feast at a favorite, local eatery, Ginnopolis’. Today will be filled with more visits and a traditional Sunday brunch.

Scrabble family dymanics are very similar to that of our family of origin. We build relationships and history over time. And those of us who frequent clubs and tournaments think of opponents and scrabble friends as family. I feel oh so fortunate to have scrabble family from Maui to Michigan and from Cabo to California.

Going away is oh so much fun. . . . But nothing can beat coming home.

You can lead a horse to water . . . .

I can tell scrabble students the value of hooks . . . .

We are all creatures of habit and have our own special way of doing things. Advice that calls upon us to change our ways is hard to hear and not always welcome. Other times it is just too difficult to unlearn systems to make room for new techniques.

And even though the gurus of the game can each prescribe formulas for us to follow to become ‘just like mike’, they are not necessarily in agreement with one another. It is sort of like the billion dollar industry that publishes and sells diet books. Each claims to have ‘the answer’ to weight loss. One says, “eat grapefruit”; another tells us to “eat protein”; still another has us subject ourselves to weekly injections of urine. If you look beyond the ‘magical formula’ contained in each diet book and seek out the common denominator, you find that they are all successful when the dieter MOVES MORE and EATS LESS.

The same is true when you look at the messages of the scrabble gurus. One focuses on ‘hooks’ while another recommends consograms. Bottom line, spend time working on your game and mastering its parts.

There are many ways to get to the top of the mountain. But only those who prepare themselves with exercise and practice achieve the ultimate goal. And most will end up doing it their own way.

When does 90 equal 22.5? When does 90 equal 32,872? What does 90 have to do with Babe Ruth, ‘The Human Fly’, The League of Women Voters, and Poncho Villa?

90 years ago on February ‘29′, 1920 my mom, Dorothy Freedman Moss, was born in Detroit, Michigan. If it wasn’t for that event, I wouldn’t be sitting here at 2:28AM, February 26, 2010, writing this blog. By the way, February 29 only happens on ‘Leap Year’, so my mom has only had 22 actual birth date celebrations to date. You might think that is sad, to miss so many birth dates enjoyed by the rest of the population. But no, it has been a thing of distinction; it was always fun as a 10 year old telling my friends that my mom was only ‘8′. And maybe that number thing is responsible for keeping her so young and spry. You’d never know that she is 90 from the way she lives her life. My mom lives on her own since my dad passed away, 5 years ago. She does her own cooking and cleaning. Mom has a trusty Pontiac Vibe and is still a good driver. She is the designated driver among her senior friends whether its to a Saturday matinee, an evening dinner, or her Tuesday Maj Jong game. Mom lives in Southfield, a suburb of Detroit, the city of her birth. She could move to some warmer place on the planet but she prefers remaining close to her many relatives who live in and around her home. Grandchildren, great-grandchildren and a myriad of nephews and nieces live nearby and remain close with visits and phone calls.

Mom hands have always been busy. Her skills as a seamstress must be in here genes, following in her father’s footsteps, him being a tailor and all. Mom’s skills as a baker are legendary; she still bakes batches of goodies for all sorts of occasions. She has baked batches of cookies for the stars, including Rob Reiner, Billy Crystal, and Bill Charlip. In fact she’s probably up at this very hour, baking away in her kitchen, anticipationing a birthday visit from her clan.

Dorothy is one of those selfless people who has always done for others. She’s a problem solver with all things fabric, and in the oven. She’ll never let you down, but she’ll let down a hem for you or take in a seam, she’ll bake you a chocolate chip cookie or a kugel, she’ll send you an email, tell you stories from the days on 12th Street, or make dolls and give them away, so no child will be without a gift on Christmas.

My mom is the world’s worst teller of jokes but always leaves everyone laughing and splitting a gut. If you really want to laugh, you need to get her to play you in a game of UNO. She should have been a detective on Law & Order because she know the scoop on absolutely everyone (In Detroit). She remembers.

In less than 10 hours from now I will board a Southwest Airliner and scurry northeasterly into the cold, cold winter where I will receive the warmest of greetings from my mom.

I will be scrabbleless for 5 days. No one back there will play with me anymore. But that’s okay; I’ll survive. I’ll be with my mom, my bro, my sis, my kids, my grandkids, and the entire mishpacha. We’ll share hugs and kisses, retell old stories that we’ve told so many other times, and still laugh with hilarity. We’ll attempt to eat all the goodies that my mom has prepared, and then send the rest home wrapped in tinfoil for tomorrows meals.

We’ll sing Happy Birthday, eat some cake and ice cream, and wonder where did all those years go? We’ll open presents, but we’ll all know that the greatest present is the mere gathering with family and friends, being with the ones we love and those who love us unconditionally. We’ll remember other loved ones who have passed away, in the stories that we tell about days gone by. We’ll keep mom in the center and snap picture after picture, trying to preserve the day and the celebration.

The time of the party will pass oh too fast, just like life itself. All the joy won’t be fully realized until sometime next month, next year, or ten years from now when we each think back and relive the joy in our memories, being glad that we were there to share.

So who’s counting?

We accumulate collections one piece at a time. We accumulate savings a few dollars at a time. We accumulate knowledge bit by bit.

When a newbie come to scrabble club for the first time and see the enormity of the OWL2, they frequently make a decision that they CAN’T learn all that . . . . and we never see them after that.

The truth is . . . every body of information is massive in its own way. Information is absorbed incrementally. There is only a very small fraction of people who become masters of anything and who are capible of learning things instantaneously.

So, when you recognize something that sparks your interest, 1) know that you can; 2) create a plan; and 3) do whatever is necessary to pursue your interest.

We don’t all learn at the same rate of speed. Some newbies learn the 101 2-Letter-Words in a few days while other require a month. Some look at the list and think that they need to learn 101 words. The reality is that most people already know more than half of the 101 words. Here are 30 that I am sure that you know: (ad, am, an, as, at, aw, be, do, go, ha, he, hi, ho, id, if, in, is, it, me, of, oh, on, ow, pa, pi, si, so, to, up, we). That leave only 71 more. Learning as few as 5 every day makes it a two week job.

Here’s the link a page on my web site designed to help you and others to learn the 2 Letter Words, along with their front and back hooks. Use it and share it freely with other scrabble players. CLICK HERE

There is a biblical story about a time when all mankind communicated with the same language. There was an enormous harmony, a time when all individuals understood one another. In the bible’s story things changed when ‘Man’ undertook a project to build an enormous tower, as high as the heavens, in tribute to Man, overlooking God. As a result, God used powers to change the languages of Man, creating confusion among the builders, to interfere with the construction of the tower, and then disbursed groups of peoples to far away, remote regions of Earth. ( I never could imagine why anyone would voluntarily choose to live above the Arctic Circle.)

It is my theory that Alfred Mosher Butt, the invention of Scrabble, and then the NSA were all instruments in Man’s attempt, be it thousands of years later, to resurrect a uniformity and conformity, to imitate how it must have been before the Tower Of Babel. It was the NSA that called for a single dictionary as the ‘Official Word List’ to be used among players. Then players like Michael Baron produced books and systems which encouraged word mavens to get on the same page. The word committee saw fit to include foreign words (taco) and ancient words (crwth) on the ‘official word list’ to provide a splash of familiarity to those potential players, scattered around the planet. Like a magnet attracts iron shavings, scrabble attracted etymologists, idiot savants, and others seeking The Word. Scrabble has grown swiftly in popularity around the globe. Cells of players from Israel to Thailand not only play in English, with words from the OWL2, but excell and win regional and national championships.

And all the while God’s agents (angels) have been watching, concerned that Man’s self-righteous flaw might reproduce the same conditions that led to the construction of the original Tower. Hence, angels, disguised in the form of scrabble players, have taken actions to assure an imbalance within the world of scrabble. The NSA, for instance, succumbed to financial woes and divested itself of the adult scrabble players’ association. The newly emerging NASPA faces many challenges from within, as well as competing, scavenging wannabes in the form of competing associations. The chasm between the OWL2 and the COLLINS has players around the world speaking different languages, proselytizing each the other, with little hope of any uniformity any time soon.

And all the while, individuals players from Hong Kong to Fish Hoek, South Africa continue to scrabble til they babble.

My yesterday was no different than other days in most respects. I got dressed, checked my emails, packed up my computer and headed over to Breugger’s Bagels for my morning repast and a comfortable spot to write my daily blog. When I entered, I spied a small empty table; I made a beeline for it. Usually I seat myself on the edge of the diners; this day I was more in the middle. The place was packed; it was about 8:15AM. The line of people placeing their orders was beginning to build. By 9AM the line can sometimes snake clear out the door. The constant hum from the patrons does not distract me when I’m writing, in fact it is usually comforting, except when there is a crying, shrieking baby. I stop at Bruegger’s so often that the staff knows me. When they see me enter the eatery they call out to me to comfirm that I want my ‘regular’ (sausage-egg-and cheese on an ‘everything bagel’, untoasted). By the time I cut through the crowd to the cash register, my order is waiting for me with a cup for my coffee. People who are standing in line may be a little pissed at me, but it only takes a fraction of a second. It makes me feel very special to receive this preferential treatment.

The people in line and eating at the tables always seem friendly and happy. There are couples and families. There are business meetings and tutoring. There are school groups and dog walkers. There are young and old, tall and short, men and women. But on this day I noticed that there were white and black and brown and yellow. They conversed in English and Spanish and Japanese and Hebrew and other tongues I could not discern. The room was filled with lively chatter and a lot of laughter.

I sat back in my chair and looked deeply around the room at the different groups. And then it hit me. They were all laughing in the same language. How cool is that.

Then it occurred to me that the breakdowns in the world are most like due in part to the misunderstandings in the translation of things. It’s too bad that everything was as easily understood as laughter.

Scrabble players have a genuine understanding of the vast differences among people on the planet, in relation to their languages. Scrabble players learn words from many world languages in their quest for mastery of the game.

Oh how the world be a more wonderful place if instead of wars we could simply call, “Challenge”.

Stop! Take a look arund. Take a look within.

Are you where you want to be? Are you who you want to be?

If yes, great.

If not, consider this. We become who we are by the example of our teachers. When we were young we had little, if any, choice with regard to our teachers. They were mostly our parents, extended family, neighbors, and school teachers. Sometimes they did a great job; other times they did a good job; and other times they did a poor job.

The good news is, if you had a poor teachers, you are not condemned to live with the results of those examples for a lifetime.

Since we turned 18 and became emancipated we’ve each had the opportunity to choose our own mentors and teachers. The people we now choose to spend our time with each day make a huge impression on us, who we are, and help reflect our values.

And now, we are each teachers to others, beginning with our children then extending out to every person with whom we come in contact.

Be a shining example to others.

With this being said, consider where you spend your scrabble time. If you want to become a better player, you had better be playing against others who are better than you. You’ll have to suck it up and ignore your losses. You will learn very little if you are only playing against weaker players.

I believe that we scrabble players need to seek some balance in choosing our battles. When playing weaker players we each have the opportunity to become the mentor. When playing against stronger opponents we become the student. And every once in a while we can even teach our teachers a thing or two.

Choose to be all that you can be.

Today is yesterday’s tomorrow. If your yesterday wasn’t so great, brush it off and create a wonderful day today.

We all have something that we love to do.

An aside:
There was a time when I hated those people that gave me that ‘pollyana’ cliche that I just dumped on you. It was a time when I was hurting.

I had just been through an ugly, hurtful, costly divorce; my ex had quashed the business that I had built over two decades, which had become my personal identity; I was a single again / forty something / in the limbo of ‘crazy times’.

When a therapist, trying to help me reinvent myself, asked me to make a list of the things that I love to do in life, I couldn’t come up with a single thing for my list. Looking back, I know now that I could not respond because I was in a state of shock. Nothing looked good; nothing tasted good; nothing seemed to matter. I am lucky that I didn’t turn to drugs; I am fortunate that I didn’t turn to drink.

I feel fortunate that I landed where I did. I was looking for love and appreciation when I followed an ad in the local newspaper, in the singles column, to an event at The Presidential Inn in Allen Park, Michigan (a scrabble event). When I got there I was annoyed when I learned that the newspaper had misplaced the ad. It wasn’t a singles activity. It was a playoff event, among some of the best players from the region, to determine those who would be selected to attend the upcoming national tournament.

I was there already, so I hung out and watched. I had always liked the game of scrabble. They were playing a brand of the game that was completely foriegn to me. I knew very few of the words that they played on the board; their scores were way beyond any score I had ever amassed. I was impressed and awe struck.

The players were friendly and invited me to join them for lunch. Then they invited me to come to their Tuesday night club in Livonia. I went. I was hooked.

I found something that I loved and wrote it as the first thing on my list.

One thing leads to another. Shortly thereafter I used my organizational skills and teaching skills to establish new clubs and tournaments in the Detroit, Michigan area. As I played regularly with my new found friends, I began to learn the secrets of how they played the game; soon I was winning now and then.

There’s a song from the depression days that begins, “Nobody knows you when you’re down and out. . .” The truth is, we don’t even like ourselves when we are that way.

At some point we each must take some action to get ourselves out of a slump. For me it was that scrabble event in Allen Park.

Slumps do not have to be as devastating as divorce, loss of a business, or loss of identity. A slump could be related to a self depricating feeling that scrabble players experience when they suffer loss after loss after loss.

No matter what the cause of the slump, the remedy is the same. Take a positive action. Nobody can do it for you. You are free to take that action whenever you choose,

The scrabble master is able to use wisdom disguised as foolishness. This is accomplished by learning and playing obscure words that trick the opponent to thinking that they are phonies. If you haven’t done so recently, just click here on BINGOS PLAYED IN 2010 and count the words on the leagal column that could have stumped you. (All the words in the PHONEY list were played and not challenged by their opponents.)

Would you challenge (C) these words or not (NC)?

(C) (NC)
___ ___ crwth
___ ___ wovens
___ ___ newtons
___ ___ godivas
___ ___ qwerty
___ ___ brung
___ ___ acold
___ ___ playings
___ ___ runnings
___ ___ pookie

For Answers: CLICK HERE

Not as easy as it would seem, is it? And all of this is going on as your clock is ticking away.

There are more that 155 thousand words in the OWL2, our official word list at CLUB #350, part of the NASPA. The Collins Dictionary, used in other parts of the scrabble world have almost double that number of words.

The words in the dictionary are determined by committees. This process is a little different than how words get into the Webster’s. But all club and tournament scrabble players are bound to the lists of their sanctioning authority. The lists are constantly reviewed in committee and updates and changes occur from time to time. The OWL2 was last updated in March of 2006.

The truth be it, there is little foolishness in scrabble and the forming of words. There are only different levels of wisdom. And there is always more wisdom to be acquired. . . no matter where you are at.
~ Gary Moss

It is a huge mistake to think that learning something is the same as mastering it.

Most of us who are over the age of four have mastered walking. But even walking can be something that some have to relearn after an accident or a stroke.

It is probably safe to say that few of us have really mastered very much at all in spite of knowing a whole lot of things. Last night at scrabble club #350 I felt all puffed up and pleased with myself, after finding a triple/triple for 167 points and going on to win the game on my out play (menacers).

And yet, my moment of glory wasn’t any better, compared to some of the higher rated players around the table. I scored my T/T against a lower rated player who didn’t consider the jeopardy she placed herself in by opening that opportunity for me. A Master would have tracked the board and known the exact tiles that I had on my rack; a Master would have explored my possibilities for points, based upon their play. A Master would have never provided me a chance for that T/T.

Scrabble is not Bingo! Scrabble is not entirely a game of chance, even though there is an approximate 30% luck factor, related to the random drawing of the tiles. The Masters of the game can improve their luck by 1) knowing more words, 2) understanding the composition of words, and 3) understanding the probability related to the tiles they may pick on their next draw.

Mastery requires work and diligence.
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Get the right tool to help you get the job done.
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SCRABBLE 101. . .(Click Here)