‘The best backyard in the nation’

Sat., July 12, 2008

Krystn Axton

Each year for the Fourth of July the entire Widmer family – almost 40 people now – congregate in the Spokane Valley for the “FFTOF: Family Fun on the Fourth.”

We celebrate our nation’s Independence Day with a little good old American competition – backyard competition, that is.

Gramps, Woody Widmer, spends his days and nights inventing completely original backyard games to add to his repertoire. This year the new game was called “whizzy” – the hardest game to win.

Here is how the afternoon goes.

Everyone arrives, and there are preset brackets for each game – this year totaling five games. For each game, one has a new partner to play with. So we all find our partners and opponents and the games begin.

The games this year were:

•Ladder Golf. Yes, now a popular game, but Gramps had made it on his own many years ago but had a different name.

•Wheely Gig. Tossing rings made of rope onto a rotating windmill made of piping. This is a strategic game where you can cancel your opponents’ scores, but, if the windmill gets weighted in one spot, you might lose all your points.

•Crocce (pronounced crotchee). A mix of croquet and bocce – the name has now been changed due to it sounding like a body part. Now called gochee, it involves rolling bocce balls into a circle getting more points by going through wickets on the way, but don’t get stuck on a wicket or its negative points.

•Holey board. There are three holes in an elevated board and one must throw large washers into the holes. First team to 21 wins.

•Whizzy. The new genius invention has a board mounted on a laundry drying pole with a spring on the back. One must toss washers onto nails that are sticking out of the front of the board. When a washer hooks onto the nail, the spring is weighed down to reveal how many points you will receive.

The winners are recorded and then it’s scored like any other tournament and the winners all get prizes.

And then the night is closed down with a harmoniously perfect singing of “God Bless America” before a barbecue that could feed a small country.

Hands down the best backyard in the nation.

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