By Neal Wooten
One of Dad’s favorite things was playing cards with the family. It was quite common for us to clear the table after dinner and play until bedtime. If there were several people playing, the game was always Rummy.
If it was ever one-on-one, just my dad and I for example, it was always Tunk. A lot of people I met after going to college and living in other cities have never heard of this game. If Dad ever found himself trailing, he uttered his magic phrase: “This is where friendships cease in the middle of the west,” and oftentimes his luck changed. I still have no idea where that saying came from.
When there were three or four players, the game was Setback. Each player got six cards, always dealt three at a time, and bided on the six cards face down in the middle, called the Widow. You could score up to 12 points if you used the Jokers.
Of course Dad loved several Poker games too. And he could handle a deck of cards like a Vegas dealer and he would even sound off like a real dealer whenever we played his favorite: Seven-Card-Draw with deuces wild. “Another Jack for a pair, Eight-of-Clubs with a flush possible, and the Three-of-Hearts with no help. Jacks are high.”
When Dad taught you how to play something, you didn’t have the luxury of learning it willy-nilly. Take Blackjack for instance, if you made a bad call or bad bet, he would let you know – loudly. This paid off for me the first time I went to Biloxi and won $800 at the Blackjack tables.
I had never even heard of games like Hearts, Spades, Uno, and Rook until I went to college at Auburn. And when I would come home to visit, which was rare, as soon as I walked into the house, Dad’s eyes would lit up and he’s say, “Come on,” whereupon he’d grab a deck and sit at the kitchen table.
I guess the appeal was that it was very inexpensive entertainment. A deck is very cheap and you don’t have to drive anywhere. Looking back on it now, I realize that it was the one constant form of fun we had as a family. And yeah, what I wouldn’t give to set around the table with my entire family once again and play a game of cards.
I tried to get Maggie into it when we lived in Milwaukee but her heart wasn’t in it. She didn’t know how to play any of the games and quickly lost interest. But I often wonder in today’s technological society, do families even do this anymore?