Making American Scrabble Great Again

I USED TO DREAD GOING TO VISIT MY MOTHER, because, soon as I walked through the door, there sat the Scrabble board, all laid out and ready to rock. Mom was great at the game, and used to get into to it with my sister, both of whom had an uncanny knack of coming up with "Q"s, which can be a good thing, and a bad thing. Nothing against Scrabble, its just that I don't like sitting still, which used to cost me in school. I always thought the official game dictionary was too full of too many small pseudo words, there weren't enough letters in the box or on my rack, and too many double and triple pointers. I envisioned a super scrabble version, with a bigger board with twice as many squares, more letters per player, and longer, more intellectually challenging words. A version which, to my knowledge, has never existed in the real world, and most likely never will. Well, there is something to be said for tradition, the ability to compare players across the decades, and, as Goethe said, "it is the limitations which make the master". The international Scrabble championship is now taking place in France, presumably accompanied by pastries, cheeses, and wines for participants, and a full dress gala banquet for the winners. You know those French; they do't scrimp on ceremony. People play the game all over the world, and every country on the planet has its own local, regional, and national championship, and to get very far at any level has got to be a source of immense pride. Naturally, there are individual and team world rankings, constantly changing, in this highly organized "sport". The defending world champ is a Nigerian. The top ranked team and country in the world is Nigeria. Scrabble is a national passion in Nigeria; they don't play, they take is seriously, which is what makes anybody good at anything. The champ is a young man who doesn't leave home without his signature fedora, and is nicknamed "the cat in the hat" by his teammates. One of his teammates, a thirteen year old girl, says the game has improved her math, reading, and general academic skills, and when you hear her speak, you believe every last word of it, including those over seven letter in length. Bear in mind that the game is played in English, so, why isn't the United States the world's super power? well, probably for the usual reasons. Kids just aren't raised on a scrabble field like they used to be. Too much television, texting, and time spent on the couch instead of at the table. Why, kid, I'll tell you what. When I was your age, we'd walk five miles, through rain, sleet, or snow, just to get to the sand lot Scrabble table, and we played, no matter what the conditions on the field, no matter how worn our equipment. You kids today have just plain gone soft, and a little time spent at the letter rack with faded yellow squares in front of you wouldn't do you a damned bit of harm. Its a damned shame, sacrificing our American pride to a bunch of damned foreigners who didn't even invent the game. Bring Scrabble back to America, where it belongs! Make America great again......THIS IS NOT A PERSONAL BLOG. THIS IS A CREATIVE WRITING WEBSITE, WITH AN EMPHASIS ON SHARING.