Historical November–December 2009 article. Dates, prices, services and contacts describe the source period; current availability has not been established.
I have tried to read Herman Melville’s Moby Dick twice and even saw the Gregory Peck movie and have come to the conclusion that it really isn’t about whaling.
In the same way, our poker club isn’t about poker; it’s about a lot more important things. First of all, it has always been about cheap entertainment.
When we started the Gambles would bring their daughters over and play with our girls and we could forego the cost of a babysitter. And, while the cost of movie tickets and popcorn have soared in the last 25 years, we kept our betting limits constant, nickel, dime, quarter games.
I doubt that anyone has ever lost, or won, the amount of money it would have cost to take their mate to the movies.
It has also been about the food.
When we first started you made a point to eat before the game but we quickly evolved from the typical fare of chips and dips, peanuts and pretzels to the point where we wouldn’t think of eating beforehand because we know we will have a great meal; no fried foods, it makes the cards hard to shuffle and deal. Three of us studied for the ministry but we seldom indulge in theological discourse. Our prayerfulness is usually confined to invoking the card gods when drawing to an inside straight or blaspheming when that fifth card is a heart and the other four are diamonds.
With two closet conservatives and an occasional third we have had some robust, even heated, discussions about politics, politicians and current events but neighborhood news, especially gossip, always trumps whatever is happening in Washington or City Hall.
The club has been a support group in dealing with issues our parents have faced in their health, their living arrangements and some of their deaths. And it has also been about other funerals, tragedies and too many friends and neighbors burying their children before their appointed time. And of course it has been about our own attempts to age gracefully and deal with our own frailties. Jim Gamble is our OEM, the original equipment man. Of the eight of us, he is only one with all of the parts God gave him, the rest of us have all had something removed or replaced.
Most importantly, the club has been about our children.
We take a tribal approach to our children.
When Pat discovered that one of the surgery residents she knows from the hospital was dating Genevieve Gamble she let him know, in no uncertain terms, that he better treat Genevieve right or she could make his life miserable. At last word, they are still dating.
We have watched our children grow up, graduate from their various schools, establish careers, develop relationships , marry, and, for the more fortunate of us, deliver grandchildren. No, the poker club has never been about gambling.
It simply provided the structure for living life at its best-all the highs, all the lows and all the humdrum in between.
I don’t know how much longer it will continue.
I hope it will reach the point where we all need a cheat sheet to remind us that, no, a straight does not beat a flush but if it gets to the point where we all have to re-introduce ourselves on the second Friday of the month, it will be time to quit.
Original photograph caption
From left, Sue Gamble, Cal Stuart, Jim Gamble, Roy Bell, Gee Stuart, Pat Mc Lafferty, Claudia and Jerry Lawrenz. Photographer not credited.
Originally published in The Times of Skinker-DeBaliviere, November–December 2009.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Original source: SD_Times2009_11.pdf, printed page(s) 4; PDF page(s) 4.
