Saturday means it is time for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun with Randy Seaver on Genea-Musings.

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?  

This is going to be a quick post, because I can’t remember any games that we played together as a family. My brother is five years younger than I am, so that might be part of the reason why.

I can’t think of any game that a pre-schooler would be playing with a 9 or 10 year old sibling and parents.

There was one game my parents both enjoyed – BRIDGE – and which my mother tried dearly to foist on me with no luck.

My parents often got together with friends on Friday night and played cards – bridge. It was inexpensive entertainment because all they needed were some snacks and a deck of cards.

By the time I was around ten years old, my mother decided to teach me how to play bridge. Not exactly what I wanted to do with my play time as I had no interest in learning to bid or mentally keep track of the cards that had been played.

I think Mom kept trying to get me interested for four or five years and then finally gave up.

I have no memories of her ever trying to teach my brother how to play – I think he escaped that fate.

My own opinion is that a ten year old isn’t going to be very interested in a game like bridge. If she had tried to teach me in my teens, I might have enjoyed it.

However, with the experience I had, to this day I have absolutely no interest in every playing bridge.

I do have one adult memory of a tie-in to bridge, though. Mom asked me why I couldn’t remember which cards had been played, but I could recite 5 generations of the family tree with names, dates and places.

My answer: THAT was important to me!