In the 1960s, my parents went to Lycoming College in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, where they met each other and also met a couple, Susie and George, would who become their decades-long friends. Mom and Dad were married in
June 1969, and I came onto the scene
in December 1970, while Dad was stationed at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, near Oceanside, California. The three of us eventually made it back to Pennsylvania, settling in
Montoursville, a few miles east of Williamsport.
On Christmas Day of 1972, my parents sat down for a game of
contract bridge with Susie and George, and they decided to start a running tally.
1 That tally continued until October 10, 1992 — almost 20 years and one divorce later.
On that first day when a running score was kept, the names were listed as Alan (Dad's nickname), George, Iggy (Mom's nickname) and Susie. Susie edged out George for the most points that day.
The yearly breakdown of documented bridge sessions goes like this:
1972: 1 (Christmas Day)
1973: 5 (including Christmas Day)
1974: 2
1975: 9 (although three are grouped under one session)
1976: 4 (including New Year's Eve)
1977: 15 (bookended by January 1 and December 31)
1978: 10 (including January 1; one entry is for two dates)
1979: 3
1980: 3
1981: 4
1982: 8 (including Fourth of July & Thanksgiving)
1983: 0
1984: 0
1985: 4
1986: 0
1987: 0
1988: 0
1989: 0
1990: 0
1991: 0
1992: 2
The running scores over these many years were documented on just three sheets of paper — very efficient. When
Mom died, I inherited the black clipfolder that held the three scoresheets, along with a little card detailing how to score all the trumps, tricks and rubbers of bridge. (Full disclosure: I have only played a couple of times and don't really understand the game. It seems to involve some bluffing, though with very strict manners regarding how you may or may not bluff.)
During their peak bridge-playing years of the mid 1970s, there was, of course, much going on in the lives of these four adults. The husbands changed jobs. There were moves to other states. My sister Adriane joined our family. Susie and George welcomed son Chip into their family.
As the oldest of the three kids, I probably have the most memories of the bridge sessions. I remember lots of laughter, occasional outbursts, lots of cigarette smoking and, strangely,
Doo Dads snack mix. It was the only time I remember that food being available; I guess it was the official snack of Bridge Night™. These days, I like Chex Mix just fine, but I wish they still made Doo Dads.
2
Sometimes the group played at our house. Sometimes we took short vacations to Susie's and George's house. While the adults smoked and played bridge, we three young brats would try not to get into too much trouble, playing with Star Wars figures and Matchbox cars and View-Master and Six Million Dollar Man action figures before pretending to go to bed when the hour got late. I'm sure the adults had to discipline us for not playing nicely more often than they would have liked.
There are other memories of the seven of us doing things together, including hanging out at the Jersey Shore and another time at an amusement park that I believe was probably
Knoebels. There are beach pictures in one of my shoeboxes, but nothing from the bridge-playing sessions that were such a big part of their friendship. I guess there was just no one to take the photo; those are the kind of moments that we memorialize with a thousand smartphone pictures these days, but that no one thought to take a snapshot or Polaroid of back then.
In 1986, Mom and Dad got divorced and that was, of course, the end of the bridge sessions. For those two documented sessions in 1992, my grandmother,
Helen Chandler Adams Ingham, took Dad's spot. Mom then continued to play bridge with Helen and Helen's friends throughout the 1990s in Wallingford, Pennsylvania.
And the finally tally? After nearly 20 years of bridge sessions, it ended up like this, according to these three sheets:
1. Susie: 354,780 points
2. Iggy: 318,380 points
3. George: 291,260 points
4. Alan/Helen: 264,880 points
That's assuming there were no math errors along the way. I have the official documents, but I don't think I'm going to go back and check the work.
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Footnotes
1. The next morning (December 26), former President Harry S. Truman died, but that's just a piece of trivia that's not relevant to this tale.
2. Leigh Ann shared this recipe for homemade Doo Dads on her website, My Diary of Us, in 2013. I haven't tried it.
