Nov 7, 2012 3 min read

Here it is November, and you know what that means: Try to figure out what to buy people in December.

With our sons adults now, the pressure is off somewhat. Mrs. Funk still likes to stuff stockings, though, so she’s always keeping an eye out for odds and ends as Christmas approaches.

I usually scoff at the concept of bringing more stuff in the house, but I saw some items the other day that might be worthwhile.

Today’s youngsters may have trouble envisioning a world in which video games didn’t exist, but plenty of us still are around who had no such diversions when we were kids. Somehow, we survived.

We survived by playing board games: rolling dice and dealing cards, moving markers and winning chips, sinking the other guy’s Battleship. No rigging anything up to a video screen. You unpacked a box, and away you went.

During a rare visit to the local shopping mall, I happened upon a kiosk primarily selling calendars, but also carrying lots of board games, some of which I hadn’t played or even thought about in decades.

Among them was Mille Bornes, which we used to pronounce incorrectly as “Milly Borns” and means a thousand miles. You might remember it as basically a car race, with each player drawing hazard, remedy, distance and safety cards. The fun part is hitting up an opponent with a hazard, causing him or her to suffer such tragedies as a flat tire, accident or empty gas tank.

Even more fun is when an opponent “hazards” you, and you happened to be holding the corresponding safety card, you can holler, “Coup Fourré!” – that’s French for “underhand trick” – and all kinds of good stuff happens.

So I wouldn’t mind seeing Milly Borns end up in someone’s stocking, so that I can take another crack at it.

Some other old favorites, in addition to perennial standbys Monopoly and Risk, include Billionaire, Masterpiece and, of course, The Game of Life. I think all those still are around for holiday shoppers.

Alas, some games no longer are available, except if you want to pay big bucks for 40-year-old sets.

Dealer’s Choice was a Parker Brothers game in which players would sell each other used cars. You could protect yourself with insurance cards, kind of like the Mille Bornes safeties.

My own Dealer’s Choice set came to an ignominious end one afternoon when we started trying to sneak peeks at each other’s insurance cards, which devolved into a full-scale riot and the destruction of the board.

Even more obscure is Get In That Tub, a late-’60s Hasbro offering with the gimmick of a short plastic strip, grooved like a record, that would call out various reasons for not taking a bath: “Don’t feel good,” “Can’t swim,” etc. I can’t remember the objective, but the game was what we considered high-tech.

OK, I’m ready to shop. I can’t wait to yell, “Coup Fourré!”

Harry Funk can be reached at hfunk1213@gmail.com.