Yet again, a marvelous article from Connie Nelson about July bridge in Minnesota! Thank you, Connie!
St. Cloud Club: Mid-Year Milestones
Rather than cancel more club play and tournaments, many bridge players I know would rather cancel the first half of 2020! But, alas - there’s no Director to call about this. So onward we go.
And actually, several St. Cloud Club members have not only persevered, but achieved new master point milestones during these first six months. Let’s celebrate them!
In January, before we went to on-line bridge, Joan Pickard became a Silver Life Master. Joan jokes that if she were to play on-line, she would go backward in Master Points! (Not true.)
Joan started playing bridge while a senior at the University of Minnesota. She thought the game was so much fun and played a lot! (Not sure when all these college-age St. Cloud club folks ever studied??) A highlight for her was being able to play with all her aunts and uncles during her family’s annual weeklong cabin gathering the following summer. She had arrived!
Joan continued to play as a young wife and mother. She organized several bridge groups, which she describes as “definitely party bridge.” Most players weren’t there for the bridge; they were there for each other. She continues to play with many of these friends to this day.
Around the turn of the millennium, Joan’s duplicate bridge life began when she decided to take lessons from Al Brink, a director of the St Cloud Club at the time. Joan remembers thinking, “This is a whole different level of bridge.” Al Brink encouraged the class to try the duplicate club. Joan remembers being so scared, but she and one other woman decided to go. Joan has never stopped coming. She enjoys both the people and the challenge. “I love learning to be better at something, and at the St Cloud Club, there are always people ready to help you with your game.” She’s a good “student”, as her Silver Life mastery attests. Congratulations, Joan!
In May, Wayne Reynolds became a Ruby Life Master. Wayne loves online bridge, but I miss him around the bridge table. Wayne is a natural teacher, charitably handing out tips after a hand’s play. (I’ve written about him previously as instrumental in starting up the St. Cloud club mentoring program.)
Wayne grew up playing cards, primarily whist. One winter, he and his three college roommates checked out a Goren book on bridge from the library. As Wayne tells it, it was SO COLD, and they lived across the river from their college. It was SO COLD, that none of the four went to class that week and learned to play bridge instead. After two weeks of playing bridge in their apartment, they went to the Labor Home to the duplicate club. (Apparently, it wasn’t SO COLD that they couldn’t get there.) The four of them had never seen a convention card, so they took home blank ones to fill out. As a gag, they made up their own conventions. They went back the following week with their cards all filled in neatly with such conventions as “Chinese Doubles.” This was in January, 1959.
Once Wayne married, he taught his wife to play bridge and the two of them taught his parents to play. Wayne says, “Most people think my parents taught me, but it was the other way around.” His parents became avid bridge players, and played party bridge up until his Dad’s death at the age of 93. Wayne and his wife spent many hours playing bridge with his folks and other friends. But Wayne didn’t play duplicate bridge for almost 30 years.
After Wayne retired, he mentioned to the brother of Paul Sitz that he’d be interested in playing duplicate again. Within two days Paul called, saying there was a Sectional that weekend. Want to play? This was about twelve years ago. They did fairly well at that Sectional, earning 6 or 7 Silver points. He was “hooked” once again. At that time, Wayne checked with ACBL and got credited with 35 Master points from his early days of playing.
Since then, he and Paul have been fairly regular partners. What I didn’t know until this article is they have known each other since the age of two, as their parents were friends. Wayne recalls one of their earliest hands together. He and Paul were playing for fun against Wayne’s brother Charles and another childhood friend, Bob Worrell (a regular partner of John Koch - small world). Charles and Bob were in 6 Spades, and Wayne was void in Hearts. He was using mental telepathy: “Lead a heart, Paul. Lead a heart.” Paul did lead a heart, which Wayne promptly ruffed! Paul said in his quiet voice, “The problem is partner, that’s my Ace you just ruffed!”
Wayne credits Paul with being a great mentor to him. He says Paul always has helpful advice, such as “If the opponents’ King is a singleton, don’t finesse!” Congratulations, Wayne!
Last, in June, during online play – a type of bridge play I had never done prior to COVID-19, I reached my 750th point to become Bronze Life Master. I’m not sure there’s anything I can bronze to acknowledge this milestone like when my parents had my baby shoes bronzed, but I am happy with the way I am “taking steps” along in my lifelong bridge learning adventure.
Hope the second half of 2020 brings many, many more milestones for all of us to celebrate.
