Monopoly

First the good news, then an apology, and finally an explanation.
 
It is possible to make Wisconsin Five Cheese Macaroni in the microwave. You just have to remember to put white paper towel or wax paper or a proper dish cover over it so the top bits don’t get too crunchy.
 
Two of the girls from my Northwest Cooking Camp wanted to test the theory and sure enough...bakes great in the zap zone.
 
The apology? More a mea culpa , please excuse me sort of thing. Goy though I am= that means Gentile= I do know ‘atah’ is not capitalized and there is no ‘h’ at the end of ‘shema’. Please excuse the errors from last scribblings. Writing my column on an iPhone during this first month of a year dedicated to finishing every writing project is a challenge.Hebrew transliteration is the heftiest of those obstacles.
 
The explanation?
 
Well... about getting drunk at Delta Sigma Phi -Berkeley chapter - my freshman year that I mentioned in the last column....
 
So they use to truck us women from Mills College to other colleges and universities for social events like we were prime meat on the hoof. We loved it. It kept our class time separate from our social lives. Do you know women answer 27% less if there’s a man present? Still.
 
So there we were at our all women’s college learning free of the Y chromosome , but on weekends we were ready to interact. Some of us became enamoured of the guys at Delta Sig... Bob Krahe, Gary Fish, Rich Mazurka, Bill Rubendahl we still talk about you at reunions.
 
Anyway I was raised by a tea totaling father. Sure Mom had the evening jug of Gallo under the sink next to the dish soap, but basically I knew nothing about liquor.
 
Freshman year in college I discovered I liked this thing called a sloe gin fizz. We were playing Monopoly at the fraternity house and I was slugging ‘em down like they were lemonade. Suddenly I became a killer financial whiz. My grandfather would have been so proud. I was shrewd. I was ruthless. I talked out of both sides of my mouth while I was working deals. It felt powerful and strong. I beat everyone, went to the bathroom and as I was washing my hands, looked in the mirror and said to myself. This is not right. It was fun for a night but don’t ever do it again. And that was the end of my drinking career and winning at Monopoly.
 
The marketing of Monopoly is a lovely story, though it eventually had a lawsuit as part of it’s legacy.
 
Clarence B. Darrow promised his wife he was going to be a millionaire someday. Then the Depression hit. He lost everything and eventually released his wife from her wedding vows because he couldn’t support her. She said ,"No, let’s spend every evening talking about how we’re going to spend the money when we’ve made it’. Eventually they made the game parts and long story short he tried to sell it to Parker Brothers. They said it was boring, too complicated and had no easy goal for the players.
 
He took it to John Wanamaker’s department store in Philadelphia. They sold 5,000 copies of the game. Suddenly Parker Brothers declared it was a fascinating game that engaged the players in an exciting way. They offered to buy it for... you guessed it... A million dollars.
 
I’m not going to tell you the more complicated side of the dispute after the sale. The point is this. Freedom.
 
We have the freedom to choose how we’re going to behave, how we’re going to react, what we’re going to do with our lives. Rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief. It’s all about choices.
 
Our choices, how we use them and what we do with our freedom is our single biggest legacy in this world. We can be ruthless and shrewd or wise and benevolent or hardworking and thrifty. Whatever your political beliefs, in this country we are all free. No one keeps you down without your permission. Maybe you have to stand up for your freedom, but you are free. Maybe your are experiencing injustice and will have to remove yourself from a situation.But you can claim your own freedom.
 
This I guarantee, if your are or have been ruthless , shrewd or talked out of both sides of your mouth your are drunk with power and wasting your freedom. Go to the bathroom and look in the mirror. What do you see? What does your inner voice tell you?
 
Choose wisely what you do with your freedom. Happy Fourth! Be blessed. Better yet, be a blessing!!
 
Love, Deborah