Andy Young: Banana. Yellow. Submarine. Torpedo. Speedo.

By Andy Young

It was on a lengthy car ride with several family members some years ago that my sister introduced us to a word association game that made the time pass far more pleasantly than would have otherwise been the case. The initial player names a person, place, or thing, and each other participant follows, in order, with something associated with whatever it was the previous player had said.

For example: Walter Cronkite. Chet Huntley. David Brinkley. Christie Brinkley. Billy Joel. Joel Chandler Harris. Uncle Remus. Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Log cabin. Lincoln Logs. Lincoln Continental. Continental Divide. Divide and conquer. William the Conqueror. Conquering hero. Sergeant York. New York Yankees. Mickey Mantle. Fireplace mantel. Fireside chat. FDR. JFK. LBJ. BLT. XYZ. A to Z. Alphabet soup. Soup to nuts. Nuts to you! You stink! Pig-Pen. Charlie Brown. Lucy. Snoopy. Beagle. Dog. Hot dog. Frankfurter. Frank Sinatra. Nancy Sinatra. “These Boots are made for walkin’.” Boots Day. Rainy day. Doris Day. Rock Hudson. Plymouth Rock. Plymouth Fury. Fury Gene Tenace. Tennis, anyone? Arthur Ashe. Arthur C. Clarke. Clark Gable. Anne of Green Gables. Green with envy. Nevada (N-V; get it?).

It’s enjoyable, provided all involved parties trust one another. For instance, in the example above everyone took my word for the fact that Boots Day and Gene Tenace (his given first name really is Fury, and his last name is pronounced “tennis”) actually were reasonably well-known major league baseball players in the 1970s. But that’s only fair, since if my sister threw out a name I’d never heard before and told me they had won an Oscar sometime in the 1940s, I’d have believed her, too. However, if someone younger than me blurts out some bizarre moniker and claims it’s that of a “social media influencer,” well, that’s a different story. “Social media influencers” I’ve never heard of (a classic redundancy, since I’ve never heard of any of them) don’t count. Period.

Or perhaps I’m remembering wrong. Maybe the rules were that you had to name someone or something well-known, real or fictitious, and the next person had to do the same, only using a first name that began with the letter that started the previous subject's last name.

Like: Ronald McDonald. Meat Loaf. Larry Fine. Fred Flintstone. Flat Stanley. Senator Sam Ervin. Ernie Banks. Bart Simpson. Snoop Dogg, Derek Jeter. Julius Erving. Elizabeth Taylor. Thomas Edison. Eddie Arcaro. Australian Outback. Outback Steakhouse. Stan Musial. Mount Katahdin. Kaiser Wilhelm. Winston Churchill. Concord, New Hampshire. Norman Vincent Peale. Peter Marshall. Mashed potatoes. Paul McCartney. Mary Travers. Toni Tennille. Theo Epstein. Eddie Munster. Michelle Obama. Oscar Robertson. Reggie Jackson. Jack Benny. Bruce Wayne. Will Ferrell. Ferdinand Magellan. Minnesota Fats. Flash Gordon. Ginger Rogers. Robert Frost. Fred Astaire. Al Roker. Rhode Island. Ivan Rodriguez. Rodney Dangerfield. Dolly Parton. Patrick Dempsey. Denis Potvin. Pete Rose. Rose Marie. Mahatma Gandhi. George Carlin. Charles Barkley. Benjamin Harrison. Hakeem Olajuwon. Oskar Schindler. Sherlock Holmes. Harrison Ford. Fidel Castro. Carl Sagan. Stevie Wonder. William Shakespeare. Sigourney Weaver. William Shatner. Serena Williams. Warren Spahn. Smokey Robinson. Regina, Saskatchewan. Sandra Bullock. Bo Jackson. Joanne Woodward. Wilt Chamberlain.

When it’s played in a car, the game concludes when everyone quits or falls asleep, you reach your destination, or, while going 70 mph, someone opens a car door and falls out onto the highway.

Every so often I’ll try playing the game by myself.

Andrews Sisters. Marx Brothers. Smothers Brothers. Smothered Potatoes. French fries. Italian dressing. Swiss cheese. Belgian waffles. Portuguese rolls. English muffins. Irish Whiskey. Russian vodka. Hungarian Goulash. Spanish omelet. Polish sausage. Swedish Fish. Dutch treat. Norwegian Wood. Prune Danish. Greek yogurt.

Czech mate. <