YOU CALL IT

“YOU CALL IT”
Yesterday was an interesting and busy day. I played bocce ball in the morning (We lost 12-5!), and bridge in the afternoon! These folks take bocce ball seriously. They revel in protocol and rituals. As a newcomer, I feel that this leaves a little bit more to be desired in the game.
The game is started by the team captains flipping a coin to see which team rolls first. When I first started playing bocce ball, no one had a coin. Finally, someone donated a quarter to the cause. It was placed at the bottom of the ball carrier. Apparently, the coin walked off. Today, one of the captains had a penny. One flipped the coin, and the other called it. The only trouble was , the four elderly eyes of the two captains had difficulty determining whether the resting coin was a “head” or a “tail”.
At the end of the rolling of four red balls and four green balls, is the part that I enjoy - the awarding of points. There is a tape measure on each side of the court. The players use these to measure the distance of their rolled balls from the white pallino, to see which one is the closest (for a point). Usually, you can determine this by eye-balling the distances. But, when it is disputed by a team member, they go to measuring. An opposite team member is at each end of the tape measure. It gets interesting (and I think entertaining) when more than two balls are being contested. By the time that the measurers take the third measurement, they have forgotten what the first measurement was, and they start all over!
After our 0845 game, I was placing the balls (which we had just used) back in the wooden rack, to be ready for the 1000 o’clock start for the next two teams. Some “clown” waiting to play the next game told me not to put different colored balls in the same rack. (there are two racks - side by side). So, I handed him one of the balls. He gave me a “fishy-eyed look”, so I told him that “complainers can put the balls wherever they want.” He said, “I wasn’t complaining I was telling you what to do!”
At our game, Virginia, the captain of the other team said “Ray, I heard that you play bridge.” (Apparently, my daughter Sue told someone, when she was watching us play last week, and the word got around.) I told her that I did. She invited me to their bridge session starting at 1:00. I accepted. It was an interesting afternoon (three hours). I had never played with “unknowns’ before. While I looked forward to meeting new people, I was afraid that they might be of tournament caliber. I found later - after playing - that my fear was unfounded . They didn’t play any better than I did. Virginia (who invited me, and heads up the group) told me to sign in and give her a dollar. There were four tables (16 players), and we rotated to another table after three games, playing with a different partner. I still don’t know the process. I just followed instructions.
At the last table where I played, one of our opponents was “George”. He was an interesting player. He didn’t like “No Trump” bids, he liked to cross trump”. Consequently, there was some strange bidding going on. One of the ladies (there were 12 ladies and four men) gave me an early warning. She said “When you play with George, you never know what cards he holds by his bidding.”). While we were playing, there was a break in the action. One of the guys, playing at another table had gone “missing”. He apparently didn’t say anything - just left the table. Apparently, he has Alzheimer’s. Women were looking outside the room for him, one was calling his home phone, but got no answer. George volunteered that “it didn’t mean anything, because he never answers his phone anyway.” While the women were scurrying around looking for him, (they should have peeked into the Mens Room), the guys kept hollering “Let’s play bridge.” About 15 minutes later, the guy strolled in, and all the ladies hollered in unison, ”What happened to you?” He replied, with a smirk,, “I was sitting on the pot”! Bridge continued. Such moments make it easier for me to cope with old age.
About four o’clock I was finished playing and was about to take off, when Virginia looked at my score and suggested that I stick around until the last table finished. “You might have won something”. So, I waited until they finished and Virginia gave me back my $1. I still don’t know what that meant.
I signed the log book agreeing to show up Monday at 1:00, for another bridge session.
RCL - 7/16/09.