In the Houston family, cottage time means family time. When my grandma was young, her 13 brothers and sisters would all gather at their cottage in Minden, and on rainy days, would all gather around their table and bring out the rummoli board. |
| A Rummoli Board like my families. |
The game has simple rules, but these are the “Houston” rules. The full deck of cards is dealt, if playing with six or more people, deal two decks. A “spare” pile must be dealt. After cards are dealt, if someone has a bad hand, they can “bid” for the spare pile. The person who bids the highest gets the deck. Next, all players must put one penny into each slot in the board. The person to the left of the dealer starts, putting down the lowest card of any suit that’s in their deck. The person who has the next card in that suit puts down that card. If no one has the next card in the suit, then the last person who put down a card puts down the lowest card in their deck and the play continues with that suit. If a “special” card (a card that is seen on the game board) is played, the person who played the card gets all of the pennies in that pot. The first person who has an empty hand gets the pot in the middle, then the cards are all shuffled and a new round starts. The game ends when an agreed “end point” is reached. When this happens, a single round of poker is played for each remaining pot. The winner of each round gets one pot until all pots are gone. The person with the most pennies win.
The name “put-put” came from my Uncle Bernie, who always caught my aunts and uncles not putting their pennies in the pots. He always tapped the center of the board and yell “put-put!”, startling everyone at the table. The game board we own (not the one in the picture, though same model. Ours is covered in duct tape because of overuse) has been passed down to me, even though my grandmother, aunt and I still play it at the trailer on rainy days.
Houston, Norma. Interview. 26 Oct. 2017.
I'm so glad that someone else has to suffer through (sorry, I mean enjoy!) Rumoli. We played it all the time when we were younger because it was an easy game for even the littlest children to participate in. It was also a good opportunity to use all of the pennies stored in our margarine containers! When the penny disappeared from Canadian currency, I had the following two thoughts:
ReplyDelete1) How will I teach my children how to make change?
2) What will we use for Rumoli?
I love that your board is held together with duct tape (ever watch the Red Green show? http://www.redgreen.com/), which makes it even MORE Canadian. Rather than buy a new one, you hold on to the board you learned to play on. It is a piece of your heritage, and a reminder of all of the good times you've had with your family. On a final note: do you play Crokinole?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crokinole
I love that you play this game too with your grandma and all her siblings ! It reminds me of when I play this game with all of my family too. Although we have to play without talking, which is quite difficult because all we have to go on is watching the cards being put down. The first time we played that way was the second round after we had learned. It is still really fun though!! You should try it sometime.
ReplyDeleteYour board is so much more put together than mine, even with the duck tape, ours is just a plastic sheet with the the separated parts inked on.
This is such a good game and I think more people should play it.
Playing without talking? How on earth do Ukrainians manage that?!? I am going to try that the next time we break out the board. Good tip Sam. :)
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