Bridge? It’s basically indoor golf.

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‘Why I am not a fan of either game.’

When I was a little girl, I liked hanging around while my parents played bridge. My mom belonged to a ladies’ bridge club that played during the day. (Much laughter and coffee-drinking.) And both parents belonged to a group that met at night. (Much laughter and smoking. Drinking, too, and not just of coffee.)

I don’t have any photos of me — or anyone else — playing bridge. But I do have this nice one of a Scrabble game at my Mom’s 90th birthday party

The couples took turns hosting, and my sibs and I loved it when it was our parent’s turn. Then we got to “bartend” and pass around bowls of Bridge Mix. (Do they still make Bridge Mix? That was good stuff.) As I recall, this was one of the few times — other than Halloween and Easter — that we kids got to eat candy. And, yes, I can’t say this enough, that Bridge Mix was good stuff. Sophisticated, you know? At least if you’re twelve.

Bridge is really serious, too. There is studying involved. From books like this one. Not exactly a page-turner

So I grew up associating bridge with Adult Fun. But when I finally got a chance to learn bridge, I got a rude awakening. Bridge was really serious. And took up large chunks of time. Two-hour lessons one morning a week, plus four-hour duplicate events one afternoon a week. The only bridge I liked was the Tuesday afternoons I played with three friends where we took turns hosting. Talking and laughing (along with wine-drinking) were allowed.

The Child plays outdoor golf. She was pretty good at it. Better than me, at any rate

So basically I discovered that bridge is like golf. This is not a compliment. Over the years I have tried to play golf. Not very hard, I must admit. I think I tried exactly twice. I remember both occasions vividly because I became extremely frustrated at not being able to hit a satisfying drive. To be honest, I couldn’t even hit a puny drive. I failed in every attempt to even connect with the ball. It just sat there on the tee while I whiffed and puffed and swore. I finally gave up and just rode up to the green in the cart and sort of tossed the ball up toward the flag and putted it into the hole. That was the only part I liked — the putting.

Dude Man is very good at golf. He is very good at every sport. Grrrrr

The rest of golf I hated. You should have seen my face when I realized I couldn’t just go home — but had to wait until the other members of my party were done playing. (This was Dude Man and our BF Jim; it’s amazing he’s still speaking to me and coming to Thanksgiving after this awful Golf Outing. To this day, I can get a reaction by saying, “Hey, Jim! Remember that time we played golf?)

Another fun indoor game: Sorry! You get to be sort of mean, even

My Dad loved golf. He even liked to watch it on TV. I remember him supine on the couch with a cat nestled somewhere, snoring away with a golf game on. When you tried to change the channel to something well, more exciting, he’d startle awake — “Hey! I was watching that!” The thing that was sort of funny about golf on TV was how the commentators would whisper. Because you’re supposed to be quiet when someone’s lining up a shot and whatnot. But, um, the commentators were somewhere else, in a booth, right? Even the clapping after a good shot was quiet. We kids had a name for it: “golf clapping.” Basically, the only thing loud about golf was the pants.

At least golf was on TV. I doubt very much that bridge is on TV. Televised bridge: now that’s a concept.Tune in to watch people seated around a table not talking and not doing much else either. Poker is on TV. There have even been poker scenes in movies. Remember the poker games in The Odd Couple with the green and brown sandwiches? That’s because poker is fun.

If I want to spend a chunk of time inside doing something boring, I can do this. At least I have a clean stove when I’m done

But bridge? Nah, it’s basically golf. No talking. No drinking or smoking. Takes huge chunks of time. Involves keeping track of numbers. So. I say bridge is golf. And the heck with it. At least with golf, you get to be outside.

Being outside is the best — especially when you’re outside in Brazil. Where I saw absolutely no one playing bridge. Or golf, for that matter

New York City. February, 2024

 

 

 

The Smarts against the Dumbs

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‘Show me a kid who grows up playing games, and I’ll show you a grownup who knows how to play games.’

If you have the good fortune to have access to the New York Times on Sunday (forgive the local journalistic boosterism), then you may already be familiar with a feature called ‘Sunday Routine’. New Yorkers of all stripes, including Jim Grant (better known as Lee Child), are asked about their, um, Sunday routines. Heady stuff.

Most of the New Yorkers profiled here, interestingly enough, do much the same as me and everyone else on a Sunday: read the paper, and drink coffee. (‘Lee Child’ drinks even more coffee on Sunday than I do, and that’s saying something.)

Well. I was giving this week’s piece (about some landscape designer or whatever) a perfunctory skim when I noticed her saying that her son wakes her every Sunday with a demand to play ‘Sorry!’. I felt an immediate connection with Whatshername, even though she’s decades younger and lives in a row house in Queens. And it was all about that demand to play a game.

When I was a kid — and even when The Child was actually a child — games were a big deal. I don’t, alas, have photographic evidence, but I swear on a stack of Scrabble dictionaries that we did in fact play hours and hours of Sorry! Also Clue (Miss Purple in the library with a candlestick, anyone?) and Monopoly. (I liked to ‘be’ the iron, for some strange reason.) Board games were big. Very big. And, of course, there was Scrabble. But before I get into Scrabble, let’s talk about cards. Continue reading