Growing Up With Cards and Games

Summer and games go together for me.

My family had a cottage on a small lake in Northern Minnesota when I was a child. It lacked electricity and plumbing, which was fine with me; I liked the feeling of camping but still had a comfortable bed to sleep in at night. The only drawback was an outhouse half a block from the cottage, not a fun nighttime trip. My mother solved this by creating a “honey pot” that we all used at night, and one of us emptied in the morning (although I suspect my mother ended up with the job most often).

Cards and Games

Our light came from kerosene lamps and a large brick fireplace in the evening. After my father, mother, brother, and I came in from evening fishing (or on a rainy day), we played card games in front of the fireplace, kerosene lamps hanging overhead to light the small table in the middle. We played gin rummy, 500 rummy, and Schmier, which I remember as a little like bridge. (If anyone knows how to play smear, please get in touch with me because I need a tutorial!) I loved gin rummy and won more than my share of games, but I usually couldn’t beat my father. Looking back, I’m unsure which was better: the card games or the quiet evenings with family. However, I grew up treasuring both.

We added Monopoly to the list at some point, but I always had a love/hate relationship with that game. Your houses lined the board, and the stack of money in front of you grew larger every time someone shook the dice and landed on your property. If you’re winning, it’s great. But if you missed purchasing the best properties, every shake of the dice put you further and further in debt – perhaps a little bit like real life! I couldn’t handle the slide into poverty and was usually very relieved when I lost all my money and quit the game.

Xu, Qua, and Za fit into small spaces and earned many points. Of course, Scrabble was always a favorite, but as the youngest, I was a little handicapped by my vocabulary. At the time, I didn’t know about short words like Qi. Today, I play Scrabble online with friends and use these words regularly, although I admit I still have no idea what they mean.

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In college, I was introduced to Bridge. – I had only played a few times when I met Barry, my husband-to-be. After we were engaged, he and I were invited to dinner and a bridge game at one of his married friend’s houses. I was nervous and felt like a kid; these couples were four or five years older than me and lived in houses rather than dormitories. I watched friends playing, listening to their bids, and studying their plays. By the end of the evening, I felt more confident and felt my bridge playing had been pretty good. As soon as we were in the car, Barry turned to me and said, “Never, never did a three-card suit!” He married me anyway and even taught me how to bid correctly.

For several years, we played party bridge with twelve friends who were mostly at the same level as us. Each one of us rotated around three tables and different partners. However, one man in the group took the game very seriously. Being his partner meant opening yourself to four hands of verbal abuse. I didn’t say anything then, but this older and wiser version of myself would not have kept her mouth shut!

Once (and only once), I played duplicate Bridge. We were living on an army base in Japan then, and a friend asked me to substitute for her in a once-a-week bridge game while she stopped to have a baby. My bridge game had vastly improved by this time, and I immediately said yes. But I soon learned this game had very little in common with party bridge. The room was deadly quiet, interrupted only by silent bidding at each table. The emphasis was on each hand, and the scorecards were kept meticulously. Also, the needles were carefully replaced for the next player.

After playing all the hands, everyone gathered to see where they had landed on the points list. I was second from last, with only a few more points than a ninety-year-old woman with dementia. The game was only two hours, but it felt like eight. By the time I got home, I had a terrible headache. When Barry walked in the door, I was lying on the couch, an ice pack on my head, a glass of wine, and a bottle of aspirin on the table beside me.

When our children came along, we spent hours playing children’s games such as Candy Land, Old Maid, Go Fish, and Chutes and Ladders. Although those games disappeared as our children grew up, our game closet is now restocked, with all of them waiting for our granddaughter’s next visit. I’m finding it more fun to play the games this time than when our children were young. I’m sure this is because we can enjoy playing with our grandchild without the anxieties accompanying raising our children. Grandchildren are simply fun!

With the advent of computers, we can also play many games online. As I mentioned, I play at least ten games of Scrabble with friends and family, but these move slowly, with only one move by each player in a day. In addition, I am addicted to the Microsoft Solitaire Collection, which includes a daily challenge in five different solitaire games. And this is where the addiction starts! You collect points, which grow daily until (hopefully) you reach the gold bell by the end of the month when the scoring starts over. If you miss a few days, you get behind on your games. Catching up can be fun if you don’t mind a marathon day (or two) of computer games.

Since living in Florida, we have been introduced to two new games we play with friends. The first is Rummikub, a board game much like 500 Rummy. Barry and I play with three friends every few months, and we usually lose. One friend has been playing this game for years with a group in her hometown. They play for money, a penny a point, and she would also like us to do this. I’d be willing if either Barry or I won once in a while, but at the rate we’re going now, that isn’t happening anytime soon.

The other game we play with friends in our neighborhood is Mexican Train, a dominoes game. The strategy is fun, but the best part of this game is pushing the button in the middle of the plastic train, which emits a loud “Choo choo, Choo choo.” Of course, to be allowed to push the button, you have to win the game first, but unfortunately, that doesn’t happen to me often. So, occasionally, I cheat and press the button for fun.

As you might have guessed by now, I don’t seem to win very often. However, I’ve decided that, for me, winning is not the object of the game. Of course, I prefer winning to losing, but since that isn’t in “the cards,” I focus on other things, such as strategy, taking tricks, combining the correct numbers, and adding up all the points I’m stuck with that someone else gets! I also tell myself that playing games is good for your mind. But the best part of playing games is spending time with good friends, eating delicious food, and building lovely memories in this phase of my life.

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Alcohol scholar. Bacon fan. Internetaholic. Beer geek. Thinker. Coffee advocate. Reader. Have a strong interest in consulting about teddy bears in Nigeria. Spent 2001-2004 promoting glue in Pensacola, FL. My current pet project is testing the market for salsa in Las Vegas, NV. In 2008 I was getting to know birdhouses worldwide. Spent 2002-2008 buying and selling easy-bake-ovens in Bethesda, MD. Spent 2002-2009 marketing country music in the financial sector.