December 2019 - 8

Letters to the Editor

to play with a total stranger. We earned
points in both games, which was an
added plus.
To say I have always depended on the
kindness of strangers is not a cliche in
this context.
LINDA EINHORN-IHDE
New York NY

Bridge is life

The year was 2005. My mother,
who was 89, was in a nursing home in
Toronto and doing reasonably well. She
was a lifelong bridge aficionado, and
played twice a week with three other
women on the same floor of the home
as her. But then things started to go
downhill. She was deteriorating very
quickly, and the bridge games came
to an end, with the last game having
been played probably a week before her
decline became obvious. She fell into a
semicoma, and did not open her eyes or
eat or talk for three days. Upon visiting
the home one day during this period,
I was approached by one of the three
women that she played with. After
some formalities asking how Mum
was doing, she cut to the chase: Would
I fill in as a fourth in my mother's
absence? I told her I had played only
twice in my life, and to put it lightly, my
knowledge was rudimentary. She was
not deterred, and she basically said
that they just needed a body, and that
anybody would do. So I agreed to meet
them that night to play for a couple of
hours and have the usual break with
some sweets (my Mum's favorite).
So I innocently went back to my
Mum's room to tell my brother what
was happening. To our amazement, my
mother came out of her coma. I cannot
impress upon you how out of it she had
been. My brother and I were in shock,
but before we could say a word - you
know what's coming - she said that
she wanted to play that night. We tried

8 Bridge Bulletin December 2019

to explain to her that she hadn't been
awake or eaten for three days, but she
would have no part of it. We tried to
placate her by saying things such as,
"Why don't we see how things go in the
next few hours?" But she got outright
belligerent and said, "You don't understand: I'm playing tonight!"
So we made her some tea and toast
with jam and told the girls what happened. That night, I literally dragged
her across the hall to their place. She
was staggering while I held on to her
for dear life.
Here's where things got crazy. After
exchanging pleasantries for about a
nanosecond, my mother said, "Deal!"
in a firm voice. At that point, the cards
were dealt out and, to my amazement,
my mother squared, sorted, re-squared
and fanned the cards with a new-found
dexterity. The woman to my mother's
right, the dealer, took an extra couple
of seconds thinking about what to
open, and my mother barked, "Hurry!"
She did so, and the game was on. My
mother played great, as good as ever.
Soon the night was over. The next
day, my mother was moved into palliative care and died two days later.
BB BERNAMOFF
Victoria BC

Memories

Michael asked me to duplicate bridge
on our second date. It was a debacle,
but he married me anyway. We played
at the Ann Arbor Bridge Club and
got killed on a regular basis. Brooks
Hughes was the director; Chuck Said
was one of the regulars. It was 1963.
At our first novice tournament, a
hand came up where we had all of the
aces and kings. I could see three of the
queens, so I bid 7NT. Nope. Only those
11 tricks made. I was ruined forever.
We went to a big regional in Houston
in 1969. It was a giant venue, like an

airplane hangar, and it looked like
there were a thousand tables. Sam
Stayman and John Gerber were
walking around with name tags. Wow.
In our section was one table with lots
of people sitting around it. We climbed
over them, played two partscores,
noted that we didn't understand the
bidding, and moved on. Turns out the
players everyone was kibitzing were
Jim and Oswald Jacoby. They were
trying out Jacoby transfers, but there
were no Alerts back then!
In the early 1980s, we lived in
England. David Bird played with us at
the Southampton Club. We would go
to congresses that were not flighted.
We would play against Terence Reese,
Boris Shapiro and Nicola Gardner.
Nervous breakdown.
We went with some friends to a
regional in Canada to play in the Swiss
teams. I came around a corner and
ran smack into Barry Crane. I nearly
fainted. We were worried that we
would have to play Barry Crane's team
(no strats, no brackets). Wrong. We had
to play the team that beat Crane's team.
Of course, we lost.
In 1987, we finally made Life Master
playing in Flight B of the Port Chester
Regional. I am so proud of the moment
where I went up with the ♥A and
dropped the king offside and gave us all
our gold points. No one took our picture and we didn't get a prize, but the
heat was off and I could breathe again.
So now, it's been 56 years of bridge
together and we have not gotten divorced. I have directed my club for 27
years, and my online bridge friends are
all convinced I knew Charlie Goren
himself.
Oh yeah, we still play four-card majors. Really.
BJ and MICHAEL MOORE
Florham Park NJ
December 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of December 2019
