Scrabble is more than just strategy for Barbara

Every Thursday morning Barbara Dreyer happily makes her way to Roosevelt Recreation Centre where she spends her time marvelling over new and old words. She does this through playing scrabble, a game she has grown to love one letter at a time.

She has been member of Rosepark Scrabble Club on and off for the past five years after she was introduced to the club by her sister. “I have only really become a member in the last few years and I have a lot fun playing the game.”
Though she didn’t grow up playing the game, she is a firm believer that playing such games as a family as through it you get to not only communicate but also learn life skills, manners, competitiveness and speech.

Before she retired, Dreyer’s career was in sales, but she noted how she learned most of her people’s skill through playing games and growing up in a family that communicates well with each other.

Many of you readers may think that it’s only through reading books every day that you would be good at scrabble. But, it’s players like Dreyer who debug this assumption as she isn’t much of a reader – she is more inclined to read up on something that will improve her knowledge on a subject rather than a novel. She credits her vast vocabulary to the game. “When I put down a word that happens to be correct, and I do not know its meaning, I try to look up.” She joked that at 71 years old however, it does get a bit tougher retaining all the meanings of the words.

Every day she plays the game she gets to learn a new word and in all these times it still surprises her that some words are actually words. Much like the word ‘Moz.’ It’s these sort of quirks that the game of scrabble comes with that always make the game fun for her.

Related Article: Local is lekker with Scrabble