When I was in my late teens, my friend taught me to play a card game called Spades. It was a partnership, “trick-taking” game that is a stepchild of the classic game of Whist. I didn’t often play Spades – I was just glad to know a card game that my friends played – but after migrating to Los Angeles, I met some people who introduced me to Bid Whist.
I don’t remember all of the details about how to play either Spades or Bid Whist but I distinctly remember an arrogant assumption on my part: I could play Spades, so I could also play Bid Whist. In one of my first outings with my new LA friends, my bride and I were partners in the game, and I overbid my hand, committing to take more “tricks” than I and my partner could achieve. We were subjected to a brand of ridicule, biting and raw, that is not seen in most civilized gatherings of card players.
In Spades there are 13 possible tricks or “books” to be taken. When a player “runs a Boston,” the team takes all 13 of those books. In ridicule cards, when a player is taking all the books, a member of the opposing team will lick a card and stick it to his forehead; this would be the card that would stop the run. Or, when a run is underway, the “runner” will slam the cards onto the table with an exclamation of “Pow!” or “Bam!” and a twist of the wrist that would spin the card. When I overbid my hand in Bid Whist, the ridiculers took vocal pleasure in showing me the error of my ways.
When I worked at the ill-fated Marble Hill Nuclear Power Plant, the break room in the administration building would be filled with people playing a card game; someone told me the game was Euchre, which is another trick-taking game. I would hear a certain amount of raucous banter but nothing like the opprobrium brought to bear by, and on, the players of Spades and Bid Whist. And about that, there is this: According to Wikipedia, the games of Bid Whist and Spades are popular in the U.S. military and “a tradition in African American culture.” My experience would conclude, “true dat.”
I have played Hearts and Go Fish with my oldest grandchildren, who are now 17 and 12 years old, and spectacularly uninterested in card games with the old folks, Grammaw and Cool Papa. If you can’t Xbox, you gotta sit and watch. You’re a boob if you don’t YouTube. People of all ages tend to spend quality time perusing the offerings of their phones. If you see a foursome at a nearby table you are likely to see four bent necks and eight hands clasping cellphones, quietly ignoring the human contact while in search of the bounties of the Internet.
With the lifting of some Covid-19 precautions, there will be larger gatherings of people. I plan to increase my visits to Ken’s porch and sip some bourbon with little fear of coronaviral danger. Paula, Ethel, and I will continue our tradition of meeting at Ash & Elm each Saturday, and I, for one, would like to play Bingo at Ash & Elm again. Though the only skill required for Bingo is to remember a letter and number and place a marker in the indicated space, I enjoy the camaraderie, the company of others. But I’m not likely to be drinking and slapping Kings, Queens and Jack in the pursuit of a Boston.
That’s not in the cards.