Regina Gonzalez
Monopoly Game, watching Travis play in the 1970s
On some occasions, in the early to mid 1970s, Travis and Marcia Johnson would leave their log cabin to come visit us at our house at 40 Valley View Drive in Frewsburg NY. I vividly remember one time, New Year’s Eve, at 40 Valley View Drive. Of course my sister Cathy and I wanted to stay up and be present for all the fun, but we were told to “GO TO BED!” But we only pretended to go to bed. Instead, we sneaked out of our rooms, and sat ourselves quietly in the carpeted hallway, hiding just around the corner so we could not be seen, but we could hear everything. Our parents were having drinks and playing Monopoly. We called him Terri in those years, so it was Terri and Marcia playing Monopoly with our parents. They were having so much fun joking around, and of course the Monopoly game dragged on for hours. Quiet and stealthily as kittens, my sister and I sneaked quietly closer and closer to get a closer look at the action. We were finally all the way in the living room watching the Monopoly game unfurl at the kitchen table. (My mother Linda sometimes allowed me to sneak out of bed to watch Johnny Carson on late night tv with her sometimes too, if I could stay calm and quiet.) As usual my Dad was winning at Monopoly. He had the most property and most hotels and houses. But somehow, Terri, (Travis) managed to turn the tide of the Monopoly game, and win with a huge grin on his face. How did he do it? How did he manage to pay those exorbitant rents on the hotels on Park Place and Boardwalk and still survive and bankrupt everyone and win? After a good laugh or two, he came clean and explained that he had hidden up his sleeve several extra five hundred dollar bills from his own Monopoly game at home and used them during the game. And he could not stop smiling about it. That was the far out sense of humor he had. My father had often called Travis a hippie. I guess that is how hippies play Monopoly. I know I was so surprised and I wanted to laugh too. But my Dad, who is a professional landlord in real life, did not smile about it, so I tried not to smile too much either. They did not come over to play Monopoly anymore after that. But Sandy Swanson in later years told me they spent other New Year’s Eves together with her and her husband, Tom, listening to music, drinking and dancing, so they all still remained good friends. After this, my sister and I often got to spend New Years Eve with Frewsburg babysitters, like Kimberly Lawson, or Andy Proctor’s three older sisters, while our parents went out to see their friends or family, like Sandy Swanson, her husband Tom, Santina and Denny Johnson, with Travis and Marcia Johnson and others included.
