Sunday, September 6, 1998

Scrabble Club celebrates game's 50th anniversary

By BILL WHITAKER

Associate Editor

What the Abilene Scrabble Club lacks in numbers it more than makes up for in words.

Admittedly, some of those words are practically unheard of, but plenty is spelled out each Monday night. That's when a half-dozen or so members of the local club meet in the little Unity Church of Christianity, itself situated in the Brookhollow Shopping Center.

"We usually have about seven," said 80-year-old Hildagard Powell, one of the club's longest tenured members, playing on a special Scrabble board commemorating the mind-tickling game's 50th anniversary. "We started out with about 20 members years ago, but some moved away.

"And some," she sighed, "have died."

"We used to have a couple of people from the Abilene Reporter-News," 81-year-old Mary Lee Couey said.

Asked what became of the two newspaper players, she replied wearily: "Oh, they quit coming."

While Abilene Scrabble Club members poke fun at their age and declining membership, they're quick to stress that the game has not lost its popularity nationwide. Two local members have even returned recently from the biennial competition in Chicago, which attracted several hundred players.

Top prize: $25,000.

"That's what we're working on," quipped DeAlyss Wood.

Hildagard Powell, who lives in Buffalo Gap and has long rallied others to the game in these parts, says Scrabble's great appeal is ultimately in its utter variety, something mirrored in the expansiveness of the English language itself.

"Every game is different," she said, "and you're always learning as well as passing the time having fun."

For example, during a recent Monday night of Scrabble, Mary Lee Couey spelled out the word "nertz," only for opponent Nellie Payne, 83, a player for 29 years, to challenge her on the word's existence. A quick referral to the Scrabble dictionary settled the matter -- in Couey's favor.

Going by the rules, that meant, Payne lost a turn in the game.

Payne, who checked her Scrabble pocket-sized dictionary computer while Couey checked her paperback book version of the same, shook her head upon discovering that the word truly existed, at least in the minds of the powers who oversee all that is and ever will remain Scrabble.

"I'll tell you one thing, Mary Lee," Payne said as they returned to the game, "I'll never forget that word!"

Therein lies one of the special quirks of the game. A players can actually play a word that doesn't exist, but only if he or she is not called on it. In one local tournament, false words challenged included aich, juta, hics, jeus and scuter.

Real words challenged during that tournament included ruga, fezes, eyer, moxas and unhaired.

While others across the nation stress the game's particular value to youngsters learning the language and its diversity, the old-timers in Abilene have their own reasons for continuing to play the game. Often they involve more than one reason.

"I don't know, but I love it," longtime player Elsie Owens of Abilene said of Scrabble. "I don't win very much, but I like it. I think it keeps my mind from atrophying. And also there's some very nice ladies who happen to play it."

Gloria Turner, 67, of Cisco, admits there are other games in Abilene that offer more in the way of socializing, including bridge.

"In bridge you have a partner and you can count on him or not count on him," she said. "But in Scrabble you're on your own. I think the thing that drives all of us is the competition of it. Plus, when you play bridge, you always have that one out -- you can always blame your partner!"

Nellie Payne says she loves the game so much, she plays it by post.

"I do Scrabble by mail," she said. "I do some in America, one in Australia and five in England. And they're all my friends."

Hildagard Powell long insisted she could play Scrabble day and night without ever growing weary -- a boast her daughters finally took her up on.

"On my 80th birthday, they gave me a day and night Scrabble party," she said. "I played 34 games and won 17 of them. I played 24 hours and I never got sleepy. In fact, I wasn't sleepy when it ended."

Needless to say, Scrabble remains a driving passion for Powell.

"You might say I use it as an incentive to my work done," she said, "so that when I'm through, I can sit down and play a good game of Scrabble with myself!"

Trying to top one's own score is at least one good argument for the game being perfect for those who otherwise prefer solitude (and, incidentally, for those who enjoy reading a lot), but the game does offer some lively moments during club meetings.

"I'm getting some putrid letters now," Mary Lee Couey remarked at one point during a game with her friend Nellie Payne.

"Well," Payne droned, never taking her eyes of the letters fate had bestowed her, "they couldn't be anymore putrid than mine!"

Bill Whitaker can be reached at 676-6732 or WTWARN@aol.com.