Thank You, Partner
Connie Nelson continues to deliver lovely news and stories about our unusual bridge world in 2020. We are SO grateful for all that she does!
In the meantime, however, the powers of the universe are scrambling some of our data and photos. So please accept my apologies for less than perfection with this post. Enjoy the happy faces, the years of enjoying bridge and remember that nothing (yes, not even bridge!) can be perfect.
But pretty good - YES!
On July 12, my husband Jim Schnepf and I celebrated our 40th wedding anniversary. Roger and Sue Knauss were nice enough to invite us over to share steaks on the grill and a bottle of wine.
Sue and Roger Knauss – Married 46 Years
The four of us play bridge together at the St Cloud Club, playing as couples. We commented that the old adage that married couples should not play bridge together doesn’t seem to apply to our Club. We counted twenty couples who play with differing frequency. Here are ten who recently answered an emailed survey from me:
- Rick and Kathleen Bredlie – who play at our Club in summers, but live in Arizona
- Tom and Pat Buttweiller
- Sue and Roger Knauss
- Greg and Darlene Nastrom
- Mary and Rick Olson – who play at our Club in summers, but live in Colorado
- Paul and Sue Olstad – who play at our Club in summers, but live in Texas
- Susan and Gene Peterson – who play at our Club in summers, but live in Arizona
- Scott and Shirley Richardson
- Nancy and George Schnepf
- And, Jim and me.
So, what’s it like to be partners in life as well as bridge? After all, every duplicate game you play is 3 ½ hours of uninterrupted time together, with some fairly high emotional stakes. Like a roller-coaster, partners can rocket up and down together from ‘euphoria’ to ‘you-idiot.’
In researching this article, I discovered a fun booklet called, How to play bridge with your spouse and survive. I didn’t read the whole thing, but I loved glancing through chapters with such intriguing titles as: Premarital Bridge, Bridge Orphan Children, and After the Break-Up. Fortunately, none of us have had to navigate the break-up phase - yet!
In fact, the average years of married life across the couples mentioned above is 43 years! Although when Tom Buttweiller answered me, “Pat and I have been married almost 20 years. Pat would be able to provide a more precise answer,” I wanted to caution him that this answer could get him in serious trouble! (Pat later clarified that they have been married 17 years.) The longest married couple were Gene and Susan Peterson who celebrated 62 years on August 2nd!
Susan and Gene Peterson – Married 62 years
The average number of years these same ten couples have played bridge together (counting social bridge) was 29 years. The Olstads have played together the longest. In fact, they’ve been married 51 years, and have played bridge together for…. 51 years! Sue says: “When I went looking for a husband, one of the prerequisites was that he played bridge!”
I asked, “Who taught whom, or did you learn together?” The majority responded that they either took lessons together, or each knew some bridge before meeting. For example, Sue and Roger Knauss learned at the same time from Sue’s parents, Del and Clara Henning. (Before her death, Clara Henning was a long-time player and director at our Club.) The Buttweillers, the Richardsons, and Jim and I were the exceptions, as in each case the husband taught the wife. In all three cases, the husbands are pretty laid-back and non-judgmental which seemed to be key. As the Richardsons recall: “Scott learned in his youth from his parents and started playing duplicate in high school. Shirley started playing when we were both about 22 when a neighbor couple wanted to give it a try. Like us, the husband was experienced and the wife was brand new at it. The neighbor wife had trouble catching on, and the husband had little patience. He tended to criticize, rather than focus on teachable moments. They soon fizzled out. Shirley, on the other hand, had a knack for it and worked systematically on bidding and play. Those early years set the tone for our pleasant experience together at the bridge table to this day.”
Scott and Shirley Richardson – Married 44 years
Last, I asked if the couples had one funny, or endearing, or maddening story to tell. Here are their answers:
- Nancy Schnepf – “On the endearing side, George’s mom and dad really looked forward to a weekend of bridge when we would visit them in Iowa. Even towards the end, we brought cards to the nursing home and played bridge. It is a very special memory for all of us. George’s mom and dad beat us one day, which I think was “meant to be” for that was George’s dad’s last bridge game.”
- Gene Peterson – “Playing in our retirement village club in Arizona we moved to the next table and discovered East’s cards were missing. After checking around and under the table, all 13 cards were finally found in the bidding box. It made me laugh. Getting older together is full of surprises!”
- Tom Buttweiller, always the jokester – “There is nothing funny or endearing about my behavior at the brIdge table. Pat may have observations about maddening behavior.”
- Sue Olstad – “Paul's a better player than I and he USED to criticize me at the table occasionally. I stopped that by saying in a loud voice one day: "Paul, you really have to stop critiquing my play. You are making our opponents uncomfortable."
- Sue Knauss – “Our “story” is that we both appreciate that bridge is a game we share, especially given the amount of time we spend at the tables. We like going to tournaments together - which also gets us to different areas of the country.”
- Rick Olson – “As we learned to enjoy the game, we would have other couples over for an evening of bridge. We did not realize this had an impact on our two children until one night when we were driving past a house with a large number of parked cars. Obviously, they were having a "party." Our oldest remarked, "They must be playing bridge!"
- Kathy Bredlie – “Playing Drury is a system that occurs when there are 3 passes and you bid one of a major. The way we play it, if partner has 10 or 11 points and 3 card support, he will bid 2 clubs. Rick forgot Drury and passed two clubs leaving us in a lovely 3 /2 fit. The net result was plenty of frowns and raised eyebrows -- and a zero on the board! (And it didn’t happen only once.)”
- Scott Richardson – “At our first tournament together, Shirley and I were a bit on edge. Just to keep from embarrassing ourselves, we nervously focused on following suit and bidding in tempo. How we scored was less important than avoiding censure for gaffes. So it was a comfort at one point to come across an old fellow who was even greener than we were. When he sat down, he looked at us with some confusion and asked, “Do honors count?” Bless his heart, we were thinking, someone truly clueless whom we could help without making him feel bad. With some relief at being the experienced pair, we took turns explaining that honors don’t enter into the scoring at duplicate and why. There, we were helpful to someone less at ease in that room than we were. We didn’t need to fret about our inexperience after all. Just before leaving, we learned that this guy ran a Bridge club in Palo Alto, had 2000 points, and liked to kid his opponents!”
I know that anyone reading this far would feel cheated if I didn’t include one husband-wife “put down” joke. So here goes:
Two wives were discussing whose husband played worse. Wife A said it wasn't even close, hers did. Wife B didn't agree. Wife B said, “Listen to what my husband did last night. He was playing 7NT. He had 11 tricks outside of spades, and the dummy had the AQ of spades. He had plenty of entries to his hand to take the finesse which would have won, but instead he led the spade Queen from the dummy!”
"What's so bad about that?" said wife A. "Against my husband that play works."
Obviously, this story did not come from our Club. I think we “play nice” together. Hope you agree that we give new definition to the phrase “Thank you, Partner!”
Thank you, Connie - thank you bridge players throughout Minnesota - we so appreciate you playing, enjoying, learning and having fun at the table! Thank you ALL partners!
