(1) INTRODUCING THE STEWED TOMATOES.

     Starting in the 60s, we four friends— Connie, Sally, Jean and I (on left) -- used to play bridge once a week.


I SET THE TIMER ON MY CAMERA, THEN RUSHED TO JOIN THE OTHER TOMATOES.

      We’d take turns picking up lobster sandwiches at Hugo’s Shack, a dollar each in those days (before most of you were born, no doubt), and the hostess would supply wine. One day we were so engrossed in our bridge and having such a good time that it got to be very late in the afternoon. Very late.     
      Tom Sears, Jean’s husband blew in, stamping snow off his boots, and looking at us with his hair turned white and an odd expression on his face. He asked if we had any idea what it was like outside. It seemed the biggest blizzard in Massachusetts history had developed behind our backs, blanketing everything in sight including our cars and Jean's husband.
      Noting our surprise and empty wine glasses, Tom announced, as he got out a shovel and a broom, that thenceforth our foursome would be known as The Stewed Tomatoes.
      Two of us have gone on to that great bridge tournament in the sky, but we survivors still reminisce about The Blizzard of 1968 and the Oblivious Stewed Tomatoes.

(2) MY PARTNER SAID ICILY, "I DON'T BELIEVE THIS!"

January 12, 1993
     I did something this weekend I've never done before. I attended a bridge competition at the Marriott Hotel in Newton with partner Helen Gillis.  We soon learned that entering an individuals’ tournament is like entering a den of lions. Some of the creatures remember their manners, but others snarl and claw when they are displeased. Fortunately you play only two hands with each lion, so if you get mauled, you lick your wounds and hope for better luck at the next table.
     My most wounding experience occurred toward the end of the session. My partner was declarer, and when I put down my hand, he didn't roar but did something even more disconcerting. He stared at the dummy and said icily, "I don't believe this!"
     Befuddled and embarrassed, I muttered to myself, "I guess I should have rebid my clubs. . . or maybe three no trump would have been better. Or . . .."
     "Shh," said the opponent on my right, conveying the authorized information that my whimperings were distracting my already distraught partner. If I hadn't taken the hint, I expect they would have called the director, who would have cited the Shut-Up Rule and expelled me from the lions' den.
     By the second round, I was so addled I couldn't tell a diamond from a spade and again ruined the score of the expert across from me. He didn't utter a word of criticism, but if looks meant anything, they'd have called for a stretcher instead of the director. When I escaped to the next table, I told the woman sitting there that I had just played opposite the rudest man I had ever met.
     “He’s my husband,” said my new partner.
     That was all I needed to botch the two hands I partnered with Mr. Rude's wife. She patiently explained how I should have played them, and when I thanked her for being so helpful, she said, "I really don't think people should do their learning at a tournament like this. I've had nothing but low scores because I've been stuck with one rotten partner after another.”
     A perfectly matched pair of lions. I hope I never see them again and have a feeling the hope is mutual.

October 15, 1993
     I played bridge yesterday with seven other women at the home of Mary Ann Ward, whom I know through golf. I was substituting for someone who was away and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. You bring your own sandwich for the lunch break at noon, and the hostess supplies coffee and dessert.
     During lunch I heard a story told by Millie Mitman. Her mother, in her mid-eighties, was invited to a relative's wedding. She was very excited about the event, wore a pretty new dress, and happily greeted everyone from her wheelchair.
     Then someone pointed out to Millie that her mother was slumped in her chair, with her head rolled over on her shoulder. Millie thought she'd had a stroke and called for an ambulance. She had the presence of mind to ask that the driver refrain from sounding the siren, so the wedding guests wouldn't be upset.
     The ambulance arrived quietly, and Millie's mother was rushed to the hospital. Shortly afterward, a phone call came from the emergency room. "Your mother has no problem," said the doctor, "except that she's drunk. She'll be fine in the morning."
     Every relative who stopped to greet the dear soul had brought her another Old Fashioned. Her son had been careful in recent years to water down her favorite cocktail, but this wasn't the case at the reception. The next day Millie's mother asked her a lot of questions about the wedding. For some reason she couldn't remember very much about what went on.

(3) I TRY NOT TO EMBARRASS MY FAMILY.

Circa 1992
     I've joined Anne Bell's duplicate bridge group at the Hingham Community Center. She offers free mini lessons for those who arrive half an hour early. She is such an excellent teacher, my interest is aroused all over again after years of no bridge at all. I commented to a woman named Winston, who must have been close to eighty, "You're pretty sharp at this game."
     She said, "I should be, I play bridge every day of the week."
     I hope my brain cells are functioning half as well as hers when I'm her age, which will be too damn soon. When I turned 70 last August, not a thing changed, at least not on the inside. I still feel as frisky as I did in my 50s, still think sex is a funny-ha-ha way to make babies, still appreciate colorful off-color jokes, and try not to embarrass my family, which I probably just did. 
Fast forward to 2011 . . .

     Get a load of these grannies! The Ladies of Linden Ponds - ages 63 to 97 - took it off and posed for a 2011 calendar to raise some money for charity and prove women of any age can be sexy.

     “I never told my kids about this, and when they get their Christmas present they’re gonna be going, ‘Oh, Ma, I can’t believe you did this!’ ” laughed Laura Morris, aka Miss January, who poses with a giant glass of champagne, a “Happy New Year” sign and a big fan of feathers covering her naughty bits.

     Barbara Perry, Miss December, said she couldn’t believe it when they asked her to pose topless inside a big Christmas box -- outside in the snow!

     “I said, ‘Oh, no.’ But it was fun, we were laughing, we were hysterical,” she said.

     Carol Oliver, a resident of Linden Ponds, a 62-plus retirement community in Hingham, came up with the idea. She said she was inspired by the group of women in England who created a similar calendar and have raised more than 2 million pounds for leukemia research in that country. (They were also the subject of the 2003 comedy “Calendar Girls.”)

     Sale of The Ladies of Linden Ponds calendar will benefit the community’s Benevolent Care Fund, which provides assistance to residents facing financial hardship, and its Student Scholarship Fund.

     “I saw the calendar that the women in England did and I was fascinated by it,” said Oliver. “It showed that an older person can look quite beautiful, and it’s a way to make money for a fund we believed in.”

     Some of the other photos include Miss February, Lillian Awde, who poses with a bouquet of roses in front of her bare chest; Kay Nelligan, who posed in the Linden Ponds library with a book covering her bosom and Dottie Joyce, Miss March, who posed in a leprechaun hat and bow tie with a pot o’ gold hiding her (treasure) chest. The oldest model is 97-year-old Winston Hall, who has a pool table behind her, a card table in front of her and a bunch of oversized playing cards covering her up.  She said she didn’t have any problem with agreeing to the pose.

WINSTON HALL, DUPLICATE BRIDGE PLAYER, HINGHAM MASSACHUSETTS

(4) I SLAPPED HIS BIG IRISH MITT.

February 4, 1962
     Ed and I haven't had a squabble in ages, but we had a good one in front of the Brewers. Typically, Sally couldn't think in terms of anything except slams. As she does with uncanny regularity, she was drawing hands of 17 to 22 points, while I was having my usual paltry holdings.
     My partner bid and lost two slams in a row, both of which I had to play, after mentioning a suit to keep the bidding open. While Ed joyfully marked down the second profit, Sally said she thought I would surely make that one.
     "I probably didn't play it very well," I murmured insincerely.
     "Yes you did, dear," Ed chortled. "It's just that Whitey and I play better."
     "Never mind, Barbara," Sally said, sorting her cards. "We've got 'em this time."
     She opened with a heart, I ventured two clubs and bang, we were in Blackwood again.
     "Five diamonds," I sighed. (One ace.)
     "Five no trump."
     I tried to pass, but no one would let me. "You can't pass," Whitey said. "It's a criminal offense."
     "All right. Six diamonds." (One king.)
     "Seven clubs," said Sally.
     Ed doubled. Sally looked up to see if he was serious, examined her hand again, then redoubled . Ed led, and my slam‑happy partner put down her cards. I didn't see how I could avoid losing at least two tricks. I took the first trick in the dummy, then studied my predicament. What did Sally think I was going to do about the missing ace? I started to draw a card from my hand, and Ed said, "From the dummy, please." There was something about his tone of voice that made me want to call my lawyer.
     "Why do you say it like that?"
     "I'm merely pointing out that you were about to lead from the wrong hand."
     "But why do you have to be so mean about it? Why didn't you say it nicely, like I think you're in the dummy, honey." From the corner of my eye I could see Sally looking at Whitey.
     "Because I don't feel nice; I'm in trouble."
     "You're in trouble! You mean, you're afraid I might make this? Well, cheer up, you have nothing to worry about."
     Perhaps I would be down only one if the kings were in the right place. Whitey hadn't said anything except "pass." Ed had doubled, and moreover, he was worried. I would finesse toward the dummy and hope he held the two missing kings.
     I led a small diamond, Ed played low, and Whitey blandly covered my queen with his king. Down one.
     "Good for you, Whitey!" Ed said. "Now if you just make the right lead -- "
     The big cheater was like a kid with a lollipop, lapping away in front of a kid who didn't have one.
     Whitey led a spade, Ed took it with his ace and led a low heart. I had no choice but to try the finesse, and again Whitey gave my queen the axe. Down three.
     "Attaboy!" Ed crowed.
     Bridge can do strange things to a sweet and gentle nature. As Ed was gleefully raking in the third trick, I smacked his big Irish mitt. A shocking way to behave, especially in front of company, but it would have been a lot more shocking if I'd shot him. Sally would still be on the telephone, and I'd be in jail, playing solitaire.
     "What was that for?" Ed asked.
     "That was for being such a mean, gloaty winner!"
     "He's not gloating," Sally said. "He's just a little bit pleased‑‑who wouldn't be?"
     "Not gloating? Look at his face! Look at that smile!"
     Ed hastily tried to arrange his features into something less incriminating. "Just look at him," I said. "If that isn't gloating, what is it?"
     "Now, Barbara," Whitey said, peering at me through his horn-rimmed spectacles, "you don't want to spoil the evening for the rest of us, do you?"
     "No," I said, blushing. "I'm sorry, I'll be good."
     But of course, this wasn’t the only occasion when I felt Ed needed some comeuppance. There was, for example, the time I pushed him off a dock. (See blog's Ed Boatguy, Part 4)

http://tearsandlaughterat90.blogspot.com 

(5) THE HEALTH BENEFITS OF SWEAR WORDS

November 1, 2010

     My daughter Kathie sent me an article about the health benefits of using swear words.  Caldwell-Harris noted that people are more comfortable swearing in another language.

     An example of this is "merde," which I learned to my surprise, decades after seeing it regularly in novels, is the French word for shit.  I had assumed it was like saying "Murder!"  It sounded harmless enough, but when I subsequently asked a French woman in our duplicate bridge group if "merde" meant "shit," she flinched noticeably, and it wasn't because I had used the word shit.

     There are things that happen in our lives that can have no other response, in my view.  Like when I dropped a large glass jar of dill pickles on my kitchen floor.  I'm still picking up shards of glass that exploded as far as my carpeted hall.  However, another bridge friend, Lucille, said she would never use such an ugly word, no matter what happened in her kitchen.  I asked her how she felt about "merde," and she didn't flinch.

     Other friends admit they have to curb their tongues when declarer does something outrageous, such as trumping their lead of an Ace.  Club rules about appropriate behavior don't take into account what propriety may be doing to the blood pressure of their members. 

     Shouldn't a physician be on hand at all duplicate bridge games?   

(6) "OH GOD, WHAT AN ASSHOLE!" TIM SAID.

August 30 2002

      I was on my way to Kingston’s Beal House for a duplicate bridge game on a rainy morning, driving with particular care because of the wet roads.

     At about 11:00, the traffic slowed to five miles an hour, with frequent stops.  Ten minutes later I could see the flashing lights of a police car in the distance.  The traffic began to pick up speed, but I stayed behind the cars in the right lane, still driving conservatively.  As I neared the spot where I had seen the cruiser’s lights, I slowed down  in order to see what had held up traffic.  Off to the right of the breakdown lane I could see a car with the driver’s side somewhat damaged and a police car parked in back of it. 

       I proceeded cautiously at about 45 mph.  Within a few minutes I noticed a police car behind me,   its  tummy-alarming lights signaling that I should pull over.  Was I in trouble for driving too slowly?

      I pulled well off the road so the officer could approach my car without being endangered by passing traffic.  I rolled down my window and was confronted by a stony-faced man.
     "Your license and registration," he said, without so much as a please.   
     "What did I do?" I asked, but he left abruptly and was gone long enough for me to mull over a hand in the current Bridge Bulletin, which I'd brought with me to prime my deteriorating brain cells.  When Stony Face returned, he asked a bizarre question. “Have you been drinking that beer?”

      What beer?  I gaped at him, then saw him looking at the passenger side of my car.  I looked at the empty seat, then back at him.  He pointed to the floor.  There stood a medium-sized paper bag that contained a six-pack of empty beer bottles.   I'd been intending for several days to return the carton for a refund but kept forgetting. 

     I protested, “I have a beer about once a month.”

     Stony Face wasn't interested in my social life.  “I’m giving you a citation for almost hitting my cruiser,” he said curtly. “Someone did hit it a week ago, and I was nearly killed.  You were halfway into the breakdown lane.”

     I gaped at him again.  I was nowhere near his vehicle at the moment I slowed briefly at the scene of the accident.   If I had nearly hit him, wouldn’t I have known it?  Wouldn’t I have been in a state of guilty fear and agitation?  Would I have gone calmly on my way, oblivious to what was about to befall me?

     I read the citation and thought I had no choice.  Who would believe my side of the story?  I would have to pay the huge fine of $100, a lot of money for a woman living on a fixed income.  My “step 9” record with my insurance company would be ruined, and I didn’t have that many years left to restore my former money-saving status.  I dejectedly checked the statement on the citation that declared, “I wish to pay the citation.”  But now, after talking to my family and my insurance company, I have changed my mind and am requesting a court hearing.
         I expect no one in a position to help me will ever read the lengthy appeal I wrote, but  it’s always good therapy for me to write down the facts of an upsetting episode.  So here it is, Your Honor, the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the damn truth, so help me.

        The date of the hearing was Monday, October 21^st.   This meant I wouldn’t be able to play in the Cohasset duplicate bridge game, one of the high points in my week.  Already I was being punished for a crime I didn’t commit.                                                                      

     When younger son Tim heard about the officer’s question, “Have you been drinking that beer?” he made an observation that would warm any mother’s heart:  “Oh God, what an asshole!” 

     Tim and Ted thought I should delete at least half of the description I was planning to present to the magistrate.  Like the Rte 106 detour that almost made me late for my bridge game because I got lost and drove for miles in the wrong direction.  When I finally arrived at Beale House, I learned that the detour was caused by the funeral of a police officer at the next-door Shepherd Funeral Home.  Could it be that the deceased was a relative or friend of stony-faced Officer Doyle?  Was he under tremendous stress, and was this why he treated me so unfairly? 

      “Irrelevant,” said Ted and Tim.
      A couple of days before my courthouse appearance, I asked Ted if he thought I should bring my book.  He pondered a moment, then said, “Yes, I think it would give you credibility.” 

     Enough meandering.  It is October 21^st, the day of my 2:00 hearing at the Hingham District Court.   I check in at the clerk-magistrate’s office and am told to wait out in the hall.  My name will be called when it is time for me to appear in an area at the back of the office that doesn’t look big enough for a cloakroom, let alone a courtroom. 

     I sat on a bench in a hall twice as large as Judge Judy’s courtroom.  The temperature must have been 90 degrees because I could feel my complexion changing from white to rosy red, tra la.  I folded the two pages of my defense and fanned and fanned and fanned.  I didn’t want to look like Babsie the Boozer when I faced the magistrate.  I fanned some more.  I went to the Ladies’ Room and splashed my flushed face with cold water.  

    At 2:20 my name was called.  I walked through the office toward an open door and found myself in a cloakroom.  Really, it wasn’t much bigger than that.  The boyish-looking magistrate, who sat at the end of a large desk, introduced himself and the state police officer behind the desk.  Or maybe it was vice versa.  I remembered their names for zero seconds.  Their expressions were noncommittal.  I asked the uniform behind the desk if he would read the account I had written the day after the incident.  Looking  dubious, he mumbled the words rapidly, skipping here and there.  Meanwhile, I pushed Take My Ex across the desk to the other uniform.  He picked it up, began reading the flyleaf, and his expression changed to a broad grin.

        Now the magistrate read aloud the paragraphs that were amusing him.  He shook his head and whistled.  “My wife and I got divorced ten years ago and she still has a doll she’s sticking pins into.”  

      Then those two dear men did their duty and cautioned me about straying into breakdown lanes in the future.  The magistrate picked up the form in front of him and initialed NR under the Judgment column.  NR stands for not responsible.  Sometimes it is very, very good to be not responsible.  As I got up to leave, I fell over my chair, righted myself as gracefully and undrunkenly as possible, bumped into the next defendant coming through the door of the cloakroom, and drove home to tell everyone the good news.

(7) I EVEN LOOKED IN THE BIDDING BOX FOR THE MISSING DUMMY.

From Bridge Bulletin . . . .

(8) MEET THE ASTONISHING ATWOODS

AN UNCONVENTIONAL PAIR

October 2011
      My summer partner, Carol Atwood, spends her winters in Orlando.  Last June she arrived five minutes late for our first date of the season and took director Jenny Koenecke’s place across from me. 

     “I thought the game started at 1:00,” Carol explained.  “I was having lunch with my husband at The Mug and thought I had plenty of time.”

     “I’ll take you home,” I offered, arranging my hand.

     “I don’t need a ride,” she said, arranging hers.  “We bring both cars.”

     I stared at her in surprise but couldn’t delay the game any longer.  I learned further details during a sit-out.  Paul is retired and doesn’t like to have lunch alone.  He’s a member of the Cohasset Golf Club and could lunch with friends there, but that won’t do.  He prefers his wife’s company, cares not a whit about the high cost of gasoline, and thus it is that the Atwoods sally forth every Wednesday in their separate vehicles and meet at the restaurant. 

     If they’d been married just six months ago, I could understand it, but the fact is, they celebrated their 54^th anniversary in 2008.

      In an effort to understand the nature of this unusual husband, I Googled “infatuation” and saw “foolish, unreasoning or extravagant passion or attraction.”  That certainly didn’t fit.  Then I tried synonyms for “love,” and thesaurus.com came up with four different senses.  The editor slipped up or got lazy on numbers 1 and 3, repeating the synonym “love” for “love.”  The least indelicate fourth meaning was “roll in the hay,” also discarded.  I found the definition I was searching for in sense number 2:  love . . . enjoy . . . like.

     I lunched at The Mug with Paul and Carol before they left for Florida and asked how they would feel if I posted their story on my blog with names changed. Would they be uncomfortable?  They gave their assent, so kudos for this remarkable couple who exchanged their vows more than half a century ago, then forgot to return from their honeymoon.  

July 4, 2012

     Three other people have come upon my blog by typing something that made it pop up.  The most recent was a fellow from Ireland who was 85 years old and had always loved a poem called “The Tippler," which a girl read to him when he was fifteen. Jack Quinn could never find out who the poet was until a few weeks ago when he searched the title on Google.  Up came my blog.  

     Then there was Grace Lawrence, who illustrated the activity book I compiled for children, Poetry with a Purpose, based on my mother's poems.  Grace’s grandson, Justin Glennon, tried typing her name on Google and he, too, discovered my blog. He contacted me, and I sent him Rhyme Time, also illustrated by his grandmother, plus the original artwork itself, which he had framed for his daughter’s bedroom.

     I formed a lasting friendship with another blogger, whom a mutual friend found online.  Paige had loved The Laughing Willow as a child and had kept a copy into adulthood.  She was wondering if it would be all right to publish it on her blog http://rhapsodyenbleuclair.blogspot.com

     Of course I was happy to say yes, absolutely.  Since then she has posted many of Ernestine’s verses, such as Birthington’s Washday, which used to appear in Child Life every February.

                                                   
                                                THE LAUGHING WILLOW

                                                 Beside a pool within a wood

                                                 A family of willows stood.

                                                 All they did was weep and weep.

                                                 Indeed, they wept, this leafy clan,

                                                 As they have wept since time began.

                                    

                                                Imagine, then, the pain and grief

                                                That shocked the willows, root and leaf,

                                                When suddenly beside the pool

                                                The Youngest Willow broke the rule!

                                               A woodsy laughter, small and thinned,

                                               Fell lightly on the summer wind.                   

                                               "Weep!" exclaimed the willow crowd.

                                  "To laugh is simply not allowed!"                       

                                    

                                   But though they showed him what to do

                                               And gave him Sobbing Lessons, too . . .

                                               "It's hard," explained the little tree

                                               In shy and shamed apology,

                                                "It's hard to act forlorn and sad

                                               When one is feeling young and glad!"

                                               The others wept; but small and daft,

                                              The Youngest Willow laughed and laughed!
                                                                       

               

                                                                                 Grace Lawrence

                                     

(9) THE JANITOR STARED AT ME IN SHOCK AND DISBELIEF.

April 7, 1995
      I've been taking bridge lessons from Anne Bell two nights a week, Mondays at Milton High School and Tuesdays at the Hingham Community Center. This week we had our last class on Wednesday night at the school to make up for the one we would miss on Easter Monday. My friend Mary and I were late, so we didn't have time to go to the Ladies' Room after our long drive. That was okay, one could always seize the opportunity when one was Dummy.
     The school's disagreeable janitor appeared in the doorway of our class, wanting to know what we were doing there. He acted skeptical of Anne's answer that she had notified the appropriate authorities. Scowling, he slouched away. I never thought to call after him, "Are the Rest Rooms open?" I should have remembered that we'd had this problem with him the first couple of sessions. He seemed to begrudge us the use of the school's facilities and the imposition on his time.
      In the middle of our first round, my bladder informed me it was time to go. I sat tight until I was Dummy, then hurried down the long corridors leading to the Rest Rooms. I thought to myself, I'll bet they're locked. If so, I had a contingency plan I'd thought of as I passed the trash barrels.
     Both Rest Rooms were indeed locked, so I rushed back to the barrel that was on the further side of a narrow partition with a window in it. I grabbed the large plastic liner and retreated behind the partition, where I trusted I would be unseen if anyone came out of Anne's class.
     I was flooding the bag’s interior, when I looked up. A few feet away stood the school's other janitor, a chap with thinning reddish hair, who was staring at me in shock and disbelief. I stared back at him with the same expression. As I yanked up my clothes, I dithered an explanation of my bizarre behavior. Then I carefully folded down the top of the plastic bag and handed him my specimen.
      "Perhaps you could take care of this," I suggested. He accepted my gift and walked toward the Rest Rooms without going downstairs for the key. I think he didn't believe they were locked. He thought I was the kind of nut who always pees in trash barrels. Talk about your bag ladies.
      I took Anne aside to tell her what had happened. She got hysterical. I told Agnes, my bridge partner. She got hysterical and said I'd have to write about it. So here it is, my latest Most Embarrassing Experience.
      "I'm glad this is the last class," I said to Anne. "They're never going see my face or any other feature again."
      I'll close now -- gotta go to the trash barrel.

(10) PRAISE FROM BRAD

Reply to Brad's message:  

Wow!  There is no other person whose praise I would value and appreciate more!!  Am so glad I had that wild impulse to share!!!

From Brad Seager (superdad)

Sent: Wednesday, November 09, 2016 8:14 AM
To: bbmalley@comcast.net
Subject: Re: bridge

Hilarious.   Thanks for sharing.  This is you at your best as a writer.

-----Original Message-----
From: Barbara Malley
To: gbsuperdad
Sent: Tue, Nov 8, 2016 7:13 pm
Subject: bridge 

Note to visitors.  It is now May 5, 2017, and I have no idea what hilarious message I shared with Brad.  It's out there somewhere, lost forever, probably shedding a few tears of frustration.

(11) COUGHING SIGNALS DUPLICATE BRIDGE

Submitted to Bridge Bulletin's Letters to the Editor
July 22, 2014 
     I have a question about bids exchanged by partner and me in yesterday's game.  

     My hand:  5 hearts to the ten, Qxx diamonds, and clubs KQJxx.

     Partner's hand:  hearts AKQx, diamonds AKx, clubs Axxxx , and 1 spade.

     He opened with a club, right hand opponent bid a spade.  If this bid had not been made, I would have cheerfully, without coughing, bid my dishonorable heart suit. 
     I paused for a long time, mentally chewing my nails, then bid a nervous 2 hearts with my 5 point high-card count. Partner jumped to 4 clubs.  Wow!  I asked for aces via Blackwood, settled on 6 clubs, making seven.  Our inexperienced opponents had a sure-fire spade slam they didn’t bid; all the other E-W pairs did.

     Post mortem:  Partner said I should have bid 6 hearts instead, but when I thought it over later, it seemed to me that he should have bid the heart slam.  I had no way of knowing his hearts were so solid, and he knew mine must be JXXXX at best. (Left-hand opponent’s opening lead was the singleton jack of hearts.)

     If I’m mistaken in my thinking, please let me know.

P. S. I read the article about the coughing signals in the June Bridge Bulletin.  That pair deserved the comeuppance and notoriety they received.

(12) BRIDGE GAMES ARE EARTH-SHAKINGLY IMPORTANT.

From: †|♡Pe [mailto:sainteriksrose@gmail.com]

Sent: Wednesday, May 03, 2017 9:02 PM
To: Barbara Malley
Subject: Re: Hi from Paige

Hi Barbara!
     Glad to hear that your Monday Duplicate Bridge can be lucrative as well as fun! 
     Your 96th coming up? Well, I haven't written in a while, so before I say Happy Birthday to you in August, let me catch up with Happy Thanksgiving, Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year!
Paige

From: Barbara Malley [mailto:bbmalley@comcast.net]
Sent: Wednesday, May 03, 2017 9:44 PM
To: '†|♡Pe'
Subject: RE: Hi from Paige

     Happy All Occasions to you, as well.  My bridge buddies would raise their collective eyebrows if I claimed the Monday games were lucrative.  It costs a dollar to play, so for a year I have shelled out $52 and recovered about $15.  We tell ourselves “It’s only a game, it’s only a game, it’s only a game," but we all know we’re just kidding ourselves.  Bridge games are earth-shakingly important.  Why else would Mrs. Bennett have shot her husband in a notorious case in 1929?

Barbara