The Mumbo Jumbo on Some Big Antique Cribbage Boards

Today, I’m going on a tangent about big, mostly antique cribbage boards which were specially made for making the scoring more complex. The main perpetrator (I mean manufacturer), was Drueke (variously pronounced as Drooky, Drew, Drooka).

The Drueke name turns up on most of the big two, three and four track vintage cribbage boards you find for sale on eBay. There are a few other makers, but Drueke is the one you commonly see. I don’t know anything about Drueke except it was a well-known maker of board games including chess and cribbage sets. The company was based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

If you know how to play the basic version of cribbage, you probably think it’s complicated enough as is. But Drueke made boards that allowed you to score many aspects of the game right on the playing surface.

There are other 4 track cribbage boards that aren’t designed to allow players to go crazy with scoring everything you do in a cribbage game. But typically, you’ll see a lot of what Drueke called the “Once-A-Round Scoremaster” boards. I got curious about the rules and found a couple of web pages on which I found out more about them. The rules are a little hard to find and a little vague when you do find them.

I couldn’t find out anything about them even on the American Cribbage Congress (ACC) website—and it’s the main authority about cribbage rules.

Reddit has a page titled Cribbage-Four Track Board (Example Rules). Click the “read more” below the image. It also shows a nice photo of a typical board. It’s tough to follow.

Then I found a Board Game Geek (BGG) page on which a guy named Jeff Bridghman outlined a clearer explanation of how to play on such a board. It’s actually better than the rules included with the Drueke game. By the way, if you have trouble with the web page, just reload it by typing “4 track boards and all the extra mumbo jumbo?” and hit the search button again.

What puzzled me were his comments about the High Hand score. He said his board had something I’ve not seen on pictures of the boards on eBay. The High Hand score goes from 1-10 on every one of those I saw. On the other hand, his board shows actual scores (14 through 29). I think it must have been a custom build. The thread has longevity; it started in 2011 and the latest comment I saw was in 2023.

If you buy the Drueke board, you’ll need the rules. But even if you have the Drueke rules, you’ll probably need something more specific. Maybe Drueke figured people would be more creative than they are. It’s a lot like life. I think sometimes you have to make up some rules.

Cribbage for Three Players

Hey, I found a great website for learning how to play cribbage with more than two players. In fact, you can learn how to play all kinds of games. If you already know how to play two-hander cribbage, you can learn the other common variations. Here’s the YouTube on the 3 player version.

Thoughts on Down Time Activities for Land Survey Technicians

I was just thinking about the old-time land survey crews. When I was getting on the job training as a survey technician, the typical land survey crews were at least 2-3 persons. One rodman, one instrument man, and a crew chief who organized the job, which could be property or construction jobs.

Nowadays, you get by sometimes with one man doing the jobs using a theodolite that measures angles and distances. You don’t always need a physical measuring tape; you can use something they call “total stations.”

It’s cheaper for engineering companies to use one man survey outfits. On the other hand, one disadvantage is the lack of mentoring for learners who want to become land surveyors or civil engineers.

Mentoring from surveyors on the survey back in the day not only taught me such skills as how to throw and wrap a surveyor’s steel tape—it also taught me how to work well with others as a team. Of course, this was transferrable to working on the psychiatry consultation-liaison service in a big hospital as well.

It’s well known that playing cards in the truck while waiting for the rain to stop was an essential skill. I don’t know how they manage downtime nowadays. We didn’t play cards on the consultation service during downtime, partly because we didn’t have much downtime.

Anyway, as I mentioned in a recent post, we played Hearts in the truck on rain days. I always sat in the middle. At the time, I was a terrible card player in general. It was a cutthroat game and I had trouble remembering which cards had been played.

When you consider that the strong suit of engineers and surveyors is math ability, you’d think that survey crews would have figured out a way to play Cribbage during downtime. You can have a Cribbage game with 3 or 4 people although I’ve never played it that way. If there are 3 players, it can still be cutthroat.

The one problem I can see is that, the guy sitting in the middle would have to set the board on his lap. You’d almost need a special, custom-made board which would have a space for placing the cards to keep track of what’s been played. I think that might have made things easier for me.

The other drawback to one man survey crews is that pretty much the only card game you can play is solitaire.

Reminder: FDA VRBPAC Meeting June 5, 2024 on Covid Vaccines for Fall 2024

There will be an FDA VRBPAC meeting on June 5, 2024, 8:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. ET to discuss Covid vaccines for this fall.

What Kind of Mailbox Does the USPS Really Want from Us?

I just saw the latest headline about the United States Postal Service (USPS) new recommendation that we all get a nice, big mailbox. Huh?

I gather one reason for the suggestion is to cut down on mail theft. I don’t think I’m allowed to put a lock on a mailbox, no matter how big it is.

In fact, the only way I’ve seen to reduce (notice I said reduce, not eliminate) mail theft are those big mailbox clusters you see everywhere in neighborhoods nowadays. Those are the neighborhoods with Homeowners Associations (HOAs), which require you to paint your window trim with beige (not taupe, read my lips!) or face lawsuits.

You know about those clusters, they’re a block away from your house. And you know how small your mailbox is there, yet the postal service is also big on recommending that you use them, probably because it makes their job easier. Which is it? Big mailbox with no lock or big locked mailbox cluster with small boxes?

Is the postal service in charge of maintenance on those mail cluster boxes? Of course not. We’re responsible for clearing away the ice and snow. And is theft not a problem with the cluster boxes? Scan the web for stories about armed bandits who hold up the letter carrier for the key. It happens.

Bigger mailboxes are not the answer to the postal service problems. They can attract the Halloween pranksters showing off their Hank Aaron batting skills (look him up!) and sadistic city snowplow drivers who like dragging your mailbox into the next county after plugging your driveway.

I can remember when the letter carrier walked the delivery route pushing a cart filled with mail. He stopped at every house in the neighborhood to put your mail in the mailbox, which was attached to the front of your house, or to drop it in the mail slot in your front door.

I’m not saying mail theft was not a problem in those days, but I don’t recall hearing about it on the news broadcasts or reading about it in the newspaper—which I hand delivered, sometimes risking injury from big dogs. The only theft I recall was by customers who avoided paying when I tried to collect:

“Do you have change for a hundred-dollar bill, sonny?”

“I’m a paperboy, not a banker!”

“Come back next week.”

Here’s an idea. What if some scientist invented a mailbox which contained a device which would trip only after your mail was delivered? This device would spray concentrated poison ivy resin all over the inside of the mailbox, teaching thieves a lesson. Of course you would have to wear gloves to collect your mail.

Another idea is to make your own mailbox, which would be big enough for a Ninja warrior to hide inside. That would surprise the crooks! I think you can get a Ninja for a fair price on eBay.

Big Mo Pod Show: “In Search of Good Company”

When I listen to the Big Mo Pod Show, I tend to almost free associate to memories which the songs sometimes evoke. The 5 songs this week came from, as usual, his Big Mo Blues Show this past Friday night. The theme of the pod show was “In Search of Good Company.”

I’m not so sure about good company thoughts, but the comments about Muddy Waters song “Long Distance Call” reminded me of something way back in my past. Big Mo talked about making long distance calls a long time ago, which he connected with pay phone booths.

I don’t think I’ve seen an actual pay phone booth in decades, since the invention of cell phones and that kind of technology. But the conversation about phone booths reminds me of my youth.

I used to live at the YMCA and the rooms didn’t have phones. No cells phones were available back then because it was well before the 1980s. The only way you could place a phone call was to use the one phone booth in the building, which was on the second-floor landing. The rooms were on the third floor, and they were for men only, of course.

Also on the third floor was an old snack vending machine and I’m pretty sure I’ve told this story before as I recollected while writing this post.

I got a Butterfinger candy bar from that vending machine one time. I took a bite out of and saw half a worm wiggling around in it. You don’t want see a worm at all, but half a worm has a whole different meaning.

I was worried and used the pay phone to call the local emergency room. I think I paid less than a quarter to place the call.

I guess I would have been relieved to hear the ER doc tell me that I would be OK—if he hadn’t been laughing so hard. Good thing it wasn’t a long distance call.

Memorial Day Events 2024 in Iowa City, Iowa

The Memorial Day ceremonies in Iowa City, Iowa this year will be on May 27, 2024. At 8:30 a.m. there will be a ceremony at Park Road Bridge. Then at 9:30 a.m., the second part will be at Oakland Cemetery. At 11:00 a.m. the third part will be at Memory Gardens.

Reminiscence of My Younger Days

The other day we had some stormy weather roll across central Iowa, although it was not as bad as the tornado that swept through Greenfield. We hope the best for them. We didn’t actually get a tornado, but I remember wondering why the siren went off about 6:00 a.m. It woke me up and I wondered what was the matter. Turns out it was a tornado warning and we had to sit in the basement for a little while. It was a little scary, but the storm moved east pretty quickly northeast out of our area.

For whatever reason, this eventually led to my reminiscing about my younger days. Maybe it was because of a temporary scare and increased awareness of our mortality.

I used to work for a consulting engineers company called WHKS & Co. in Mason City, Iowa. This was back in the days of the dinosaurs when it was challenging to set stakes for rerouting highways around grazing diplodocus herds.

I was young and stupid (compared to being old and stupid now by way of comparison). I lived at the YMCA and took the city bus to the Willowbrook Plaza where the WHKS & Co. office was located on the west side of town.

I usually got there too early and stopped for breakfast at the Country Kitchen. The waitress would make many trips to my table to top off my coffee while I sat there waiting for the office to open. That was fine because I had a strong bladder in those days. I left tips (“Don’t cross the street when the light is red”).

My duties at WHKS & Co. included being rear chain man and rod man, at least when I first started. A “chain” was the word still being used for a steel tape for measuring distances. It was well past the days when land surveyors used actual chains for that purpose. You had to use a plumb bob with the chain to make sure you were straight above the point (usually marked by a nail or an iron property corner pin) you measuring to and from.

You and the lead chain man had to pull hard on each end of the chain to make sure it was straight. It was challenging, especially on hot days when my hands were sweaty and the chain was dirty. Callouses helped.

The rod was for measuring vertical distances and an instrument called a level was used with that. One guy held up the rod which was marked with numbers and the guy using the level read the elevation. Another way to measure both horizontal and vertical angles used a rod and a different instrument that we called a theodolite (older instrument name was “transit”).

We worked in all kinds of weather, although not during thunderstorms. In fact, when it was looking like rain out in the field, a standard joke for us sitting in the truck waiting for rain was to draw a circle on the windshield (imaginary, you just used your finger although if your finger was dirty which it always was, you left a mark) and if a certain number of drops fell in the circle, you could sit in the truck and play cards.

When we played cards, it was always the game Hearts, which I could not play skillfully at all. I always lost. But it kept us out of the rain. If a big thunderstorm blew in, we just headed back home.

We never got caught in a tornado.