Comments on: The Manly History of Cribbage and How to Play the Game

By: jud

jud — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 22:45:57 +0000

Taught by my father who played in the Army during Korea. Have taught many people to play over the years. My most recent board, a folding two track, has seen action in Baghdad, Iskandariya, Abu Ghraib, Radwiniyah and Camp FerrTiomonettin-Huggins in Iraq, as well as, two trips to Tiomonett

By: Sylvain

Sylvain — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 03:50:38 +0000

French-Canadian here, from Quebec. Cribbage (crible in French) is one of the games we play the most on my mother’s side. My grandfather, who died this year, was a very good player. Thanks for the piece of History! And I’m quite happy to learn that it is a part of art manliness. Merci beaucoup!

By: Phil

Phil — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 18:59:59 +0000

In Maine, my family plays cribbage at every get-together. Love that game!

By: Kename Fin

Kename Fin — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 09:07:15 +0000

My brother has a theory that there are a finite set of cribbage players in the world. One cannot simply learn to play cribbage, rather someone who knows must either pass away or forget to enable newer players to come into the fold. As our father taught us to play early on in life, I still wonder from time-to-time who died or forgot such that I could learn.
My father also learned while a kid, and honed his skills as an orderly in a Naval Hospital. I have tried repeatedly to teach my wife and kids, but I think we must be up against the limit.

By: John

John — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 20:44:59 +0000

Cribbage is very much alive and well in the sailor community. I graduated this past April from a maritime academy, and every deck department instructor plays during lunch every deck cadet and many engineering cadets at least know how to play.

It’s extremely popular among tugboat crews. They work the same waters all the time, so there’s not much in the way of new things to see every week, so whenever they get a spare hour, it’s down to the galley for cribbage.

By: Tim

Tim — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 13:41:33 +0000

Neat article,
My wife and I are both retired Navy. She spent 3 years on the USS O’Kane, a destroyer named after the Admiral. She was privileged to meet Mrs. O’Kane in 2004 while the ship visited San Fran. A wonderful family and Admiral O’kane was a true hero and fantastic leader of men! My wife did the ships history for visiting parties. If I remember correctly the ADM. wrote a couple books
thanks
tim

By: Larry

Larry — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 06:34:25 +0000

I served on the USS Bremerton from 06-09 and learned to play cribbage while on board!

By: Andrew

Andrew — Sun, 02 Dec 2012 09:59:52 +0000

I learned cribbage from an older fella who ran a stall at the local markets out front of the milk bar my now-wife used to work at (wow- that sounds like a memory that should be in sepia, but it was only 5 years ago!)
Here in Australia, I’ve consistently been told cribbage is a miners game.
In fact, most people in the mining town I now live in use the term “crib” to refer to either a work break or the food eaten on such a break!
Great game, and a great looking board in the other post!

By: Antonio

Antonio — Sat, 01 Dec 2012 19:09:45 +0000

Been reading AoM for a while and this is my first comment. While wrestling in college, cribbage was our pastime, and interestingly enough it was the pastime of the other college teams in Oregon too. We would play before practice, after practice, on the bus, basically any free moment we had. I had to learn to play on the fly with muggins and knobs, but I learned to count fast. Love the game and thanks for the post.

By: Stever

Stever — Sat, 01 Dec 2012 03:27:20 +0000

I have fond memories of my Dad (a WWII Army medic) playing crib endlessly with one of my uncles (a WWII Marine – point being, it wasn’t just the Navy who claimed this game, I think). My Dad taught me to play when I was around 9 or so and we played often until I left home for college. That pretty much ended the cribbage days for me except for once in awhile, like when visiting an uncle up in Minnesota (a WWII Army infantryman) who loved the game (I’m pretty sure his estimation of me went up the day he discovered I knew how to play the game and could even beat him on rare occasion). In one odd twist, a good friend of mine who lived only 1 block away from me for years loved the game, but we didn’t discover each other’s knowledge of the game until we had moved many states apart from one another; the game just isn’t on the radar screen of too many people these days.