Playing the Game of Miniature in Solitaire: Inspiring and Therapuetic

[Reginald Rutledge]

For some of us, playing with others is so important to our competitive drive and energy and that's something many will never give up. For others, being involved in the world of solitaire can be inspiring and therapeutic.

After playing in leagues for 16 years, I find myself longing just to play alone. One of the things that bringme back to this method of play is seeing so many people who have collections of teams! I find that most impressive.

Being a miniature football company owner, you would think that I probably have a large stock of teams. On the contrary, I had none before I established this new venture called the NFL Greatest Teams Solitaire League. Even my team of Dallas Cowboys, which I played with in the BAM are not mine anymore.

You see, every team I've done, by the time I finished it, someone had already claimed them. While the enticement of dollars is great, at the end of the day, I found myself poor! I had nothing to show for my 16 years of being in a league and 8 years of owning a company.

I always said, "The reason I wanted an EFL company was so that I could have any and every team I wanted". However, that never seemed to materialize.

But when I see coaches who are wealthy in teams, I am envious! I think it's great to be able to pull a team off the wall and play a game. It's great looking at 40 unique custom poses on a team and knowing, these are not duplicated. It's great knowing you start with a regular stock pose and transform him into a totally different player! You relish the fact that you can re-create any player in the universe! You have a sense of serenity in your life that you've not had since your childhood.

What's great is that you've got the ability to play any team in history against another one. Create the moment and make it happen! Now that winter is coming in on us, there will be great days where I can just go into my EFL room, turn the lights on a stadium, hear the roaring crowd, turn on the video camera, and play the game I like it to be played.

This is what awaits anyone who wants that type of quiet time. I treasure those moments. The great thing about doing this is you get to be intimate with players, stadiums and other things which will enhance your experience.

Having created 5 teams in 7 days tells me I will not have a problem getting to the 32 teams. What is both inspiring and therapeutic is seeing how I create those teams. It's one of the greatest things in the world to take an all white player and paint the skin tone, then the jersey and pants, and then put the facemask and logos and turn him into who you wnat him to be.

Guys have done this forever and I've seen some of their awesome collections. If mine can be a fraction of what these guys have done, I will definitely be happy. This type of work is therapuetic in that it may take you away from a tragic event or some worries that you may have.

For this reason and many more, I am so geeked up in playing solitaire. The inspiration and therapy alone will be great in helping me move forward in this league.

Reg