The Four-Hour Board Game

On a rainy Saturday in November, my girlfriend and I wandered into a board game café downtown. They have a wall of more than eight hundred games. You pay a few dollars to sit at a table and play anything you want.

We were looking at the shelf, overwhelmed, when an older man at the next table noticed. "Have you ever played a train game?" he asked. We had not. He invited us to join him and his two friends.

The game was about building railroads across Europe in the 1800s. The box was the size of a suitcase. The rulebook was forty pages. He explained the rules for half an hour with incredible patience and a twinkle in his eye. Then we played for four hours.

I came in last. My girlfriend came in second, which she will tell you about. The old man, whose name was Herb, won by a single point and celebrated with a tiny fist pump.

Now we meet Herb and his friends every other Saturday. He brings a new game every time. He says he's been waiting years for "young blood."