TOD: I'm pretty sure my first card games were "Old Maid" and "Go Fish". I soon learned to play "War"....and there were a few stabs at "Rook" with cousins who loved the game but had no interest in making sure I learned it well enough to be competitive with them.
In college, I learned to play "Canasta" and really enjoyed it a lot. In the late 1970s, as an instructor at the DoD Defense Information School at Fort Benjamin Harrison, IN, I started learning how to play "Pinochle" when I was living in the barracks there. This was before I found an apartment. In my workplace, I began "kibbitzing" a lunch-hour "Bridge" game several instructors and staff would play each day.
They were gracious enough to allow me to ask questions. One gave me a crib sheet about bidding and what it all means. Another loaned me a book on how to play. I'd get "asides" on how to determine who held what cards based upon the bidding....and then I was off and running and "filling in" whenever one of them could not play. I later played "Bridge" on the USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70) in the Chief's Mess and had a great time. I also played every time I visited my folks in Virginia (when they lived there before moving to South Carolina). All the Pulliam family will drop everything for a few sets of "Bridge". They'll drive 50 miles to do it, too!
Up until three years ago, I played "Bridge" at least two or three times when I was home at Christmas. It takes four, however, to play "Bridge"...and many folks either go away for the holidays or have too many other things going on to take the time. And, sadly, many folks I've played with in the past have either aged too much or have died, or they have moved away from my mother's small town of Johnston.
Ah, me.....
