My mother's book Singing to the Cows is now available on Amazon. It's a collection of funny, touching, fascinating stories from her long life. She blogged for years and I tried to take the best blogs and combine them, and the result is Singing to the Cows.
Amazon didn't post a way to See Inside This Book, so I published an excerpt, below.
Bridge
When I was an undergrad, some of the other coeds at the University of Georgia played a card game called Bridge. Often, a game seemed to go on forever in the dorms, or so it seemed to me as I walked past their doors. I did not play and had no time to learn, anyway. I carried a full schedule, plus I was often pulled out of class for some kind of testing project. Also, I was on music scholarship so when someone needed solos sung, I was elected. At a large university, there was always some kind of meeting or seminar that needed luncheon entertainment. Mostly, I enjoyed this and got a free meal too.
Bridge didn’t come into my life much at all until I married. We lived in an apartment complex with lots of other young couples who were also paying off college loans etc. on starter salaries and had little money. So what they did for entertainment was play bridge. My husband had played all his life with his parents. They enjoyed playing so taught their three sons to play, at an early age. My parents played also but did not teach their kids to play. There was nothing to do but our neighbors decided to teach me to play. Wives were delegated to teach me in the daytime and I tried to explain that game playing and I don’t get along well, especially card games. Poor things! They were also trying to teach me to cook. It’s a wonder they could stand me but they taught me a lot, like how to make casseroles with mostly just noodles, and other ways to stretch a buck. I was such an awful bridge player that they took turns being my partner so no one got stuck with me too long.
We played Friday night bridge for the next 14 years but we narrowed it down to once a month, finally. People moved around, others joined the group.
When I was expecting my son, he was one of those babies that kicked constantly, turned somersaults, and just generally raised a fuss. Once that started, the guys at the bridge table would stand up and lift the table away from me because the table bouncing around was eerie!
One night when the temperature that day had hit 100 degrees and our house was really hot, no AC, I fixed a lovely big, raw vegetable salad for dinner. It had all kinds of veggies and homemade Thousand Island dressing. We also had grilled cheese sandwiches and iced tea. When we arrived at our friends ’house to play cards, I noticed that Tony was eating all the nuts and little goodies sitting around - I mean ALL of them. Finally, one of the men asked him if he was hungry. Starved, he said, he hadn’t had any dinner! Everyone looked at me. I could have killed him! By that time, I had learned to be a good cook but a sandwich, and no meat, was just a snack to him.
We most often vacationed at Kiawah Island , S.C. with my husband’s two brothers and their families. One afternoon, the guys decided they wanted to play bridge but their wives refused to play. I was the youngest and had never played with the three of them before. The oldest brother was so proficient, no one else wanted to partner with him. I explained how awful I was so he and I played partners all the rainy afternoon. Don’t remember who won but our resident bridge grump never said a cross word to me.
One Friday night, trying to explain to the group why I was kind of sad, I explained that I’d had to paddle one of my students that day and I hated doing that. Someone said, “But lots of those boys are bigger than you are, so how do you manage that?” “Oh”, I said,” I just grab them kind of roughly by the front of their jeans and they don’t move a muscle.” Several of the guys said, “Yep, that would make me stand Very still!” We lost a few minutes of playing time until they could stop snickering.
Playing correctly involves hundreds of rules and Conventions, or so it seems to me. Also, they change from time to time. Serious players demand utter silence except when discussing the game or bidding. Both my dad and husband were good bridge players but both thought all the contrived conventions were nonsense, so they didn’t bother with them. This did not set well with the persnickety players, especially when they got whooped! I can remember my parents returning from playing bridge and Dad saying,” That Mrs. Smith Jones has a right sharp tongue on her.” And Mother tearing her hair saying, “She just wants you to play by the rules.” Then Dad retorted, “This is a game, not life or death, so I have a little fun with it.” Other than Mrs. Smith Jones, he was generally a very popular person.
When we moved To Knoxville, I told people I did not play bridge and never did again. If I got the urge, I’d just pound my thumb with a hammer until I remembered how little I enjoyed it.
