This week’s challenge from Randy Seaver on Genea-Musings for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun:
1) Think about the games that your whole family would play when you were a child.
2) Tell us about one (or more) of them – what was it called, what were the rules (as you remember them), who played the game, where did you play the game, who usually won?
I had to think about this topic for a while. I know I had Monopoly and Chutes and Ladders when I was a kid, but I have no memories at all of playing games as a family. Part of the reason might be that my brother was five years younger than me so that makes it a bit difficult to play many board games together.
I do have one memory of a game that I quickly grew to hate – BRIDGE! Both my parents enjoyed playing the game – my mom loved it – and they regularly played with friends on Friday nights. It was an inexpensive way to have fun.
I think I was subjected to bridge “lessons” from the time I was about 8 or 9 years old. I found it boring and there were far too many bidding rules for my liking.
I have one memory, though, that I found hilarious, but irritated my mother no end. I was a bit older – 10 or 11 – and made it clear that I really didn’t want to “play” bridge. My mother wanted me to learn more bidding conventions (I guess a few bridge terms have stuck in my brain after all these years) so she dealt out a practice hand.
I looked at my cards and actually had what I thought was the best hand possible, so I bid accordingly. My mother got more and more angry with my wild bidding and she finally asked, totally exasperated, “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” She said it about that loud, too. I told her I was bidding my hand the way she told me to. The quick answer was that I definitely was not and what did I have anyway.
I told her I had a royal flush in spades. That really set her off and she demanded to see my cards. Funny thing is – I really did have a royal flush in spades! I think the lesson ended quickly that day.
I’ve never ever liked playing bridge, although my husband likes it. When my mother came to California to spend Christmas with us, she and Dave would go off and play bridge with some local friends. It was fine by me – I wanted nothing to do with it. To this day, I have zero interest in bridge!
Thank you, Randy, for this week’s challenge. 🙂
well played, Linda! Funny what we remember, eh?
With as much as my family played cards, we never played bridge while I was growing up. I don’t think my mother ever played it. My father and stepmother started playing many, many years later. So I was never subjected to it!
You were very lucky!