Drive - A Memoir 21th Installment
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your points, see, the Ace is four points the two Kings at three
points each is six and the Queen is two points and the two Jacks are
two points, that totals 14 points which is weak bid, but you have the
Ace, Queen, Jack in clubs so you can bid clubs once.” By the time
she finished explaining, the auction was back to me with Phil bidding
three clubs to shut me off. “I pass!” I stated quickly. Whew, I
became the dummy hand and laid out my cards. I
wanted to be the dummy every time,
and then I could
just sit and watch.
We
played quite a few hands and were finishing our second rubber.
I had won the bid so I was playing out the hand and Phil was the
dummy hand. I figured I was going to lose by one trick unless I
attempted to win a trick with a card that is not a certain winner and
pull off a 'finesse' as the declarer. I finessed with a six of
diamonds.
I thought I knew how, I didn’t.
I
lead wrong and Phil immediately said, “Why did you lead with your
six? If you had lead the jack
of diamonds,
the finesse would have worked! Now we lose this hand.”
“How
does Phil know I had a jack and the other cards that are in my hand
or anyone’s hand?”
My mind was racing. Phil was that smart in cards and had a killer
memory. He knew what was in his partner’s hand and his opponents’
cards were by the way each person bid during the auction and by the
cards played in the first couple of tricks. He knew the suit, face
value and who had the remaining cards.
Actually,
I liked to play most of the time. I decided playing card games and
board games was teaching us, making us smart, and improving our
chances of succeeding in the ruthless world (work and play are the
same). Besides, what else could we do in the winter? The chores in
the winter were feeding all the various animals, milking the cows and
fighting the cold.
Chapter
3
Russ
and I rumbled down the wood stairs to the mostly unfinished basement.
There was the well pump and pressure tank, the storage shelves six
rows high and 20 feet long holding the entire garden vegetables
processed into jars; our food for the year along with the beef, hog,
chickens and the wild game in the freezer and the dairy and eggs in
the kitchen fridge, all from our farm. All we needed were matches,
salt and sugar, and we were self sufficient.
There
was a partition in the corner and another along the stairs, and we
had a bedroom with a bunk bed and a dresser for our underwear and
socks.
We
climbed into bed – Russ on the top bunk with his boots and I
underneath. Russ would loft
500 more words tomorrow
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