Back in 2012, I posted a game board and rules for playing “Quaker Checkers.” Photocopies of that game had been passed around for years between Unitarian Universalist Sunday schools. I decided to create a clean copy, and put it online where maybe more people could access it. And if you read the comments on that 2012 post, you’ll see that Quaker Checkers has been played with great success in Unitarian Universalists Sunday schools (and maybe in one or two Quaker First Day Schools as well).
This week, I received email from Sally Q Campbell, who invented the game. Sally said she’s currently talking with a friend of hers about developing an online version of Quaker Checkers. Actually, I would have loved to have an online version during the pandemic when Sunday school had to meet online.
It appears that Sally is one of those endlessly creative people. She is also a songwriter, with a number of songs about peace and spirituality to her credit. On her her Youtube channel, she writes: “I’m a Quaker Singer/songwriter. Many of my songs are given to me in the silence if I will S l o w D o w n.” In fact, I especially like her song “Go Down Low,” which is all about slowing down and centering down. She hadn’t come up with chords for it, so I did. Here’s the standard warning for online chord/lyrics sheets: this is my interpretation of someone else’s song, posted here for educational purposes only; the songwriter Sally Campbell retains the copyright.
(N.B.: she sings “Go Down Low” in B flat.)
All the above is by way of digression. My real point in writing this blog post is to correct something Sally pointed out in her email. She said: “You did make one error when you tidied it up. My board does not have dark and light squares, it’s just a grid. Makes it more of a challenge.”
She’s absolutely right. To make amends, here’s a corrected version of the game board:
