42 and the Meaning of Life

William Thomas and his friend Walter Earl were twelve and fourteen years old in 1887. They lived in Trappe Springs (now Garner), Texas, about forty-five miles west of Fort Worth. One day their Baptist parents caught them playing cards, which was strictly forbidden. They then turned to dominoes, which were allowed, but thought to be boring. They created a new game in which the spotted tiles made up suits and yielded a point total of 42. The game called 42 caught on and became a popular Texas pastime taken very seriously by adults. (Dennis Roberson, Winning 42, p. xii).

Many 42 players are as devoted to their game as people who play Bridge, often playing every week. My wife’s 102-year-old aunt has played all her life and still plays twice a week in the nursing home. During an extended stay in Texas last year I was reintroduced to the game. I could see why it is so popular.

Recently I happened on an article about the Internet in the New Yorker magazine (Jill Lepore, “The Cobweb,” New Yorker, January 26, 2015, p. 40). It contained an odd fact that caught my attention. In the 1979 humorous science fiction novel, “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” a hyper-intelligent race of beings built a computer to calculate “the meaning of life, the universe, and everything.” After millions of years the machine came up with the answer, “42.” Clearly those Texas boys were on to something back in 1887.