A difficult week for our bridge community. One day prior to the loss of Loran Gruman, Harold Dodson passed away. Steve Gaynor remembers his long time friend.
Life did not deal Harold an opening hand, so he had to work harder to receive full value.
I first met Harold when I was a freshman at Oakland University in the fall of 1967. Harold was a year ahead of me, but we both frequented the Oakland Center student grill where card games of all sorts were played.
It did not take Harold long to develop an understanding of the deeper subtleties of duplicate bridge. Yet, he had a hard time recognizing his own talent and had to work on his patience with the rest of us who took longer to grasp the nuances that came so naturally to him. When we first played Duplicate Bridge in 1974, Harold was already known as a good player. He had developed his own system, ‘Dodson Standard’. It was well thought out and a lot of us still use the conventions and treatments.
Harold moved to Minnesota in 1981 and stayed with Dave Anderson for a while. I discovered him here when I got to town in 1983. I asked him if he ever wanted to move back to Detroit. Harold responded, “I was ‘Weird Harold’ there, but here they call me ‘the King’. What do you think?”
Harold was born on March 7, 1948 and lived longer than he or anyone expected. He was the master of finding minor suit slams and could declare a hand with the best. Once, Harold made 6D with AJ9x opposite Kx and the DQ was offside! Harold had a passion for the Detroit Tigers and wine from Michigan.
Harold’s passing is our bridge world's loss.
Submitted by Steven Gaynor
Thank you Steve! Very lovely tribute!
Posted by: Judy hansen | July 15, 2014 at 07:36 PM
Sorry to hear of Harold's passing. He had a dry sense of humor that I always enjoyed and was a fine player.
Posted by: Craig Satersmoen | August 02, 2014 at 11:00 PM
A man with a kind heart who taught all about patience !
Posted by: Denise E. Dodson | October 28, 2014 at 10:38 PM