Did you ever stumble upon something at the back of the drawer that you had totally forgotten about, and it reignites sweet memories? Have you ever been going through the things hanging in you closet, getting back to the items hidden deep in the back, only to re-discover a shirt or an outfit that was your absolute favorite (it was from a time when you were younger and sleeker; and just looking at it transports like Ebenezer Scrooge’s ghost of Christmas’ past.? Did you ever loose touch with a good friend from days gone by, without being able to recall exactly why you both had taken different forks on life’s road, and surprised that the two road had now converged again, so many years later?

Re-discovery can be so sweet; I imagine that at times it may be equally as painful, for some.

I experience re-discovery in so many pieces of life; I experience re-discover on a regular basis while playing scrabble. Whenever anyone plays the word ‘anisole,’ it takes me back in my mind to Livonia, Michigan in 1988. (I was a newbie back then. I was playing against Edna Miller when I played the word ‘sealion’; Edna didn’t hesitate a second before she challenged the play. I couldn’t imagine why she was challenging my word. I had visited the sealions on many occasions at the Detroit Zoological Park in Royal Oak. As it happened, Edna won the challenge; sealion is not a word, but rater ‘ sea lion’ is two words.) I have never forgotten ‘anisole,’ the only word containing the letters that make up ‘sea lion’.

If you study words and word lists regularly, for the purposes of improving your scrabble game, you will many learn words that used in general conversation with friends and co-workers. Some of these infrequently used words will tend to fade from memory; at times, a particular set of letters on your rack will mesmerize me and lead me to see some word which I studied in the past. A lot of vowels on my rack like ‘ A B E I O T U’ will cause me to look for an ‘A’ on the board so I can play the 8-Letter-Word ‘aboiteau’. I learned that word while driving to a tournament with three expert players who chatted incessantly about words that end with ‘eau’. For some reason, that one word stuck in my memory.