I’ve posted this piece before. It’s one of my happiest memories of growing up. I decided this evening was a good time to revisit the kind and loving Mr. Morgan of my youth.

Mr. Morgan was a retired Episcopal priest who lived a few houses up from my family on East 9th Street in my hometown of Bonham, Texas. He and his wife, Anna, must have been in their late 70s when I was young. They both had white hair and walked with the stoop that comes with advanced age.

Mr. Morgan had an office with a private entrance on one end of his house. When I was five or six, I often visited him there. When I arrived, he’d open a large closet where he had several games stored. He would allow me to pick which game I wanted, and then he and I would proceed to play either checkers, chess, or my very favorite: pick-up sticks.

For the game of pick-up sticks, we’d settle on the office floor. I don’t remember any difficulty Mr. Morgan had sitting on the floor, though now I can imagine it was much more difficult for him than for me. Once we were situated on the rug, Mr. Morgan would put the brightly colored sticks on their ends. In anticipation, I would wait for the moment he released them, and they fell in a tangled jumble on the floor. The game’s object was to carefully remove one stick at a time without disturbing any other sticks. Mr. Morgan and I spent lots of time carefully teasing out those red, blue and yellow sticks from the pile, each taking turns when the other caused a slight wiggle. I remember his hand, liver-spotted and pale white, deftly manipulating those little sticks. He might have been old, but his hand was steady, and he was a formidable opponent. Sometimes, I won; sometimes, he won. I appreciated that Mr. Morgan never “let” me win. He was a real opponent.

While he and I were playing whatever game I had chosen for that day, Mrs. Morgan would always come in at some point and say hello. Then she would disappear for a few minutes, only reappearing with a plate of cookies and lemonade. Mr. Morgan and I would continue to play while we munched on the cookies. We were serious about our games and didn’t stop just to eat.

I had fun playing games with Mr. Morgan. I looked forward to my impromptu visits, and I knew he was happy to see me from his smile. He was always dressed in a suit when I visited, whether morning or afternoon, and Mrs. Morgan always wore a dress, never slacks or even a skirt. I knew they were good and proper people even at my young age, and very decent indeed.

I would announce at home that I was going over to play with Mr. Morgan, and my parents would just smile and say, “Have fun.”

I did, and he did, and we did. Even now, I think of that lovely old man sitting in his office with its roll-top desk, walls covered with filled-to-the-brim bookshelves, that closet with its shelf of games, and the floor where he and I sat and carefully and strategically dislodged stick after stick during our pick up sticks game. This remains one of the loveliest images I have of my childhood: an old man, a young girl, and an afternoon with nothing more to do than sit on the floor and play a game. What could be more perfect than that? Or more special?