We recently we had a visit from Someone’s niece. We played cribbage. I haven’t played the game in over 20 years. My grandmother used to play the game; my parents continue to play it.
It made me think about playing cards in general.
My parent’s and grandparent’s generation seemed to play a lot of cards. This was a marvelous way to socialize. Couples were continually coming over for evening games of gin or hearts or cribbage.
Then there was bridge. My parents belonged to several bridge clubs. When my mother had “bridge night”, it was quite an event: card tables were set up and we boys would help with the preparations. I could these events were important. I realize now bridge was a social superglue. I don’t know how to play bridge. My grandmother, the ‘high priestess’ of bridge, refused to teach me how to play it. She was genuinely fearful that if I learned to play it, I would waste my college days away playing bridge.
I don’t know many people my age who play cards, let alone bridge. Most people who play at cards do so at the casino rather than in the context of a community – and they play alone, not with their neighbors. They play for money. I think this is a loss.
Cards were the means to get together and talk and relate to friends and neighbors.
So I miss the card games. And I wish I knew how to play bridge.
Any Spo-fans know and play?
Spo-Reflections 
18 comments
March 29, 2008 at 3:22 PM
manic mo
Love your daffs!
Never played bridge or cribbage.
But last year I played “hand and foot” with a bunch of guys and it was a fun evening of cards.
Urspo – that game sounds rather erotic.
March 29, 2008 at 4:29 PM
BentonQuest
I had some friends in seminary try to teach me to play bridge. It seemed interesting, I just couldn’t get my brain around it. There are some card games I like to play, but others, like Bid 500, I can’t stand.
March 29, 2008 at 4:40 PM
Lemuel
Never played bridge or cribbage. In junior high I played a lot of canasta, but I’ve totally forgotten how to play now.
My parents had interesting attitude toward cards. They did not totally forbid them (as many in their circles believed) and I would find them playing solitaire now and again, but if we played we were not allowed to play for money and if tempers started flaring, my parents would swoop down and end the game then and there. As long as we played for fun and played congenially, we were fine.
March 29, 2008 at 5:01 PM
Mark H
Growing up we were allowed Pit….that was it. NO sinful “gambling” cards in the house. When I left all that, I was taught Gin, Solitaire, and finally HEARTS. Hearts is a fabulous fun game that does exactly what you’ve described: become a social cement. Every year when Rodger’s Aunt and Cousin come up, we traditionally spend our LAST evening together in a rousing lively Hearts Tournament! At the coast, by a fire, hearing the ocean breakers roll in, Card Games are fabulous. They ARE memorable evenings. Some of my best “social” memories involve these little “sinful” cards.
Urspo -playing cards I am told leads to social dancing.
March 29, 2008 at 8:38 PM
javabear
Your grandmother may well have been very wise to not teach you Bridge. My husband wasted many a credit-hour playing hearts in the student center at Georgia Tech in the early 1980s. If he’d put as much time and energy into classes as he put in cards and Dungeons & Dragons, he could have done soooooo much better in school!
I’m not fond of card games, or any games in general, although I enjoy playing some occasionally. It depends on the group, usually. My husband, however, LOVES card games. He’s very good at Bridge, I understand, and killer at hearts. He likes others as well, but I can’t remember which ones.
Fun post! Got my mind to wondering. And wandering.
March 29, 2008 at 10:17 PM
Pink
I spent my tween and teen years in Ontario. We played bridge and eucher. I can’t remember all the rules, but I loved cards. It was cards, chips and coca cola – later beer and just gabbing. I played it at friends houses with their family. My family never played, unfortunately.
Good memories and I was just thinking of getting a deck of cards when I go back to London 🙂
xx
pinks
March 30, 2008 at 2:19 AM
Doug
My bf Chris doesn’t like to play cards or board games or anything similar. So we don’t.
My parents had bridge groups, canasta friends, etc. Socializing in that way seems to be obsolete.
March 30, 2008 at 5:45 AM
Michael
Yes, social card playing is becoming an increasingly lost art. Just another example of how insular we’ve become as a society. (We’re all too busy texting to play cards!)
In my mother’s old cookbooks from when she got married, I remember whole chapters and recipes designed specifically for Bridge nights–, “bridge mixes”, little sandwiches or cookies shaped like hearts, clubs, diamonds or spades.
March 30, 2008 at 7:28 AM
Stuart
Our game growing up was Rook — and I did not meet another person who even knew what Rook was until I was in college. We would only play at my grandparent’s house, when all the cousins were there (there are 9 of us). My grandfather is a master at strategy, (to this day) you want him to pick you to be on his team!
I guess the thing I liked most about this game was that it forces you to think, and communicate with your partner (and your opponents, if they’re paying attention) through the choices you make. Many a late night was spent at the table…. All the cousins know how to play and we still talk about it. I guess it will live on.
March 30, 2008 at 2:07 PM
Lewis
So, do I get in any sort of trouble if I admit that I hate playing cards. Games too for that matter. Not competitive, hate strategy, hate thinking. Weird, I know, but horribly true. Never actually played an entire game of cards.
Urspo – I am sure you know some other games. 🙂
March 30, 2008 at 3:45 PM
johnmichael
I love card games too!! You learn a lot about the friends you play with during card games.
March 30, 2008 at 6:28 PM
Maddog
I grew up playing a lot of rummy. We were taught at a very young age and played with the grown ups a lot. But I haven’t played in years and I don’t know if I would remember how. I do know that last summer in Oklahoma there was a lot of time spent playing Eucher by the boys from Michigan.
March 31, 2008 at 3:47 AM
DougT
I used to play hearts in college. Plus a game called cardesse that one of the guys in my dorm had made up. Cardesse was a surprisingly good game given that it was just made up by somebody I knew. I wish I could remember the rules. More recently, my parents discovered a game called progressive rummy. We used to play it a lot when I’d go back to Massachusetts.
March 31, 2008 at 5:10 AM
tigeryogiji
I used to love to play Cribbage and in my college years I did learn how to play Bridge, but alas, I no longer remember the rules for Bridge and none of our friends play Cribbage either, so my Cribbage set sits in the closet.
Alone and unused… 😦
March 31, 2008 at 5:49 AM
"Jpe"
Ugh! I played Spades in college and always understood it as a poor-man’s bridge. Our family never played cards — just because we didn’t, no moral thing.
I’m with Lewis: not competitive, a strategist, or whathaveyou. However, a good game of Uno can be fun.
I’d love to learn poker so I could sit around with guys, drink, smoke cigars, and be forced to pay up!
March 31, 2008 at 10:55 AM
Greg
Growing up, my family spent every summer in a motorhome, driving about the country. One of my favorite books was Hoyle’s book on solitaire. I used to know how to play every single game in that book, and still enjoy quite a few of them when I have the time.
My Mother loves bridge and is involved with two or three different groups.
March 31, 2008 at 5:56 PM
rodger
I used to love playing canasta and cribbage and spent many nights playing gin with Mom. Now it’s the occasional game of hearts as Mark mentioned.
You’ve just inspired me to get a cribbage board. I used to have a number of them but that was long ago. Now I have something to new to teach Mark next time the power goes out and we’re snowed in for the evening.
April 1, 2008 at 12:41 PM
Steven
Cards were all the rage with my parents as well. There was always the card table with the flip top. Bridge and Euchre were the favorites with them. In my days of playing cards, Gin seemed to be the fun game; mostly because it wasn’t such a long-lasting game.
About 2 or 3 times a year our GLBT social organization will hold “card night” functions.