With the theme of “Free Space” for this week’s 52 Ancestors Challenge, I can’t help but think of bingo. Bingo was a big part of my mother’s side of the family. Moreover, bingo is one of the many games that are a huge part of both sides of my family.
Cards were, and remain, a huge part of our extended family’s gaming traditions. As you may recall if you have been with this blog since the beginning, part of the inspiration for its name was my family’s affinity for cards.
My maternal grandmother, Helen Lerner, and her mother, Emelia Anton, were both bridge players. Into her 90s, my great grandmother took great pride in the fact she still had the mental acuity for the game, but complained that her peers were getting too slow for her. Bridge is the one card game that has eluded me. I just never developed an interest in it and, despite my familiarity with many other card games, it still strikes me as unnecessarily convoluted.
However, there were a myriad of other card games that always seemed to be at play. Canasta, Oh Hell, Smear, and Hearts were frequent games of choice on my mother’s side of the family, while huge group games of Crazy 8s were popular with my paternal grandparents and my father’s siblings. Most Christmases, my siblings and I usually converge at my parents. In addition to the extended family who drop in during the holidays, our spouses have also become part of the card-playing tradition. Almost every evening there is a card game that goes into the wee hours of the night.
The king of games with my maternal grandfather, Leo Burgess, was cribbage. When I was little, I was mesmerized by the cadence of the game and the cryptic chanting involving the counting of fifteens. My grandfather and my father taught me how to play when I was seven or eight, and I still play to this day.
My grandfather was a real stickler for the way people played cards. There were all sorts of arcane rules, traditions, and habits that had to be followed. Heaven help you if you cut the deck the wrong way. I still wince whenever one of his customs are breached, despite the fact my grandfather died over 25 years ago. Even worse was if you dared take “his” trick or – god forbid – you beat him at a game. In my case, there was little risk of that happening. I happen to be a good crib player, but my grandfather often seemed unbeatable.
The last day I spent with my grandfather, about a month before he passed away, was spent playing crib and watching The Price is Right. It was clear my grandfather’s advancing age and deteriorating health was starting to affect him, because out of the score of games we played that day, I managed to beat him twice. My grandfather was such an avid card player that – don’t tell anyone – my mother and uncle slipped a fresh deck of cards in the pocket of the suit he was buried in.
Board games were – and remain – popular as well. One of my uncles had a collection of now-obscure games that we nibblings enjoyed playing, even though we didn’t know the rules or have all the pieces. Nothing made us feel more like a big kid when our parents invited us to play a board game, such as Stock Ticker, with them. Board games were a common birthday and Christmas gift. With five kids in my family, we had a lot of Board games! I still have some of them, although it seems one of my brothers absconded with a lot of them.
Our sons are also very keen on board games, and do well with games that one might think are well above their age level. Hardly a weekend goes by in our house without several games being played. It is also common for us to play on some weeknights as well.
Before ending this examination of our family’s tradition of game play, I return to the game of bingo. It was extremely popular on my mother’s side of the family. My mother’s parents, aunts, and grandmother were all devoted bingo players. I remember the first time I got to go to bingo with my mother, two of her aunts, and my grandmother. My great grandmother might have been there that same evening. As I was in my teens, I definitely threw off the demographic curve of the crowd in the bingo hall. While the majority of the crowd in attendance that night struck me as rather old, they were amazingly spritely and quick with their cards. The speed at which my great aunts and grandmother marked the many cards they each were playing at one time. I found it difficult enough to keep up with the few cards I was playing each time.
My maternal grandfather also loved playing bingo and often went with my grandmother. My grandmother passed away in her early 60s, so after she died my grandfather would often go with my great grandmother. The two of them seemed to squabble quite often and my grandfather once complained about being in his 70s but still having mother-in-law problems. Nevertheless, he and my great grandmother shared their love of bingo. In fact, my grandfather passed away while doing something he loved, while out one night playing bingo with his younger brother.
With a long weekend coming up, I expect that we will be playing a lot of board games over the next many days!
Addendum: Clearly I’ve generated a lot of content in 35 weeks that I’ve already forgotten about. A week after posting this, I discovered I had already written about this on Week 18 (Social), albeit in less detail. C’est la vie!
Further Addendum: Every week, Amy Crow Johnson sends an email summarizing two or three items that have caught her eye, along with a description of the next week’s 52 Ancestors theme. In her email looking back at Week 35, Amy highlighted this post, saying “Sean shared how much his family has enjoyed card games and board games over the years. (I have to admit that I was secretly hoping someone would write about bingo. My mom used to be an avid player, and my family has a Christmas bingo party every year!)”
A Deck of Ancestors 