Some Bridge Memories

[silverscreenselect]

Bob's report on his current play in the bridge Nationals brought back some memories for me, some good and some not so good.

I started playing tournament bridge when I was a student at Georgia Tech. I saw a few people playing regularly in the student union and started watching, then got interested and read a couple of books to learn the basics. I started playing in the weekly duplicate game on campus, then at some of the local nightly games around town, and from there started playing in the tournaments. I got to be slightly better than an average tournament player, able to place in the overall money a few times but nothing spectacular. Playing bridge became a major social activity when I came back to Atlanta after law school. It can be very time consuming; a club game usually takes three hours or so and double that (or longer) for a day of tournament play. The national tournaments like Bob is playing in now go 10 days (there are three a year), and regional tournaments, which are the next step below can run the better part of a week. Then there are sectionals, which run three or four days, and club games in a big city like Atlanta nearly every night. I played two or three times a week and went to several tournaments a year.

The highlight of my bridge-playing career came at a national tournament in Atlanta. I was playing in an event when Barry Crane came into the room to talk to one of the officials. Barry Crane was the producer of Mission Impossible and other TV series and directed numerous TV episodes as well. Crane usually was at or near the top of the master point list every year. He wasn't the best player around, but he could afford to hire the best professionals to play with him and go to all the major events. When he walked by my table, I shouted in a voice loud enough for everyone in the room to hear, "Hey, Barry, you can come over and kibbitz me if you like." Needless to say, he did not take me up on my offer, instead, turning his head away and walking off with what I thought to be a snort. My partner looked suddenly very ill at what transpired, as did our two opponents at the table at that time.

Ironically and tragically, Crane wound up becoming one of Hollywood's great unsolved mysteries for many years. He was found beaten to death in 1985 in the garage of his apartment while he was in the middle of playing in a nearby tournament. (His team won his last event with a replacement for him.) There were no real leads at the time, until nearly 35 years later when fingerprints found at the scene were matched to a man in North Carolina who would have been in his late teens at the time of Crane's death. He eventually copped a plea in the case.

My bridge playing days ended when I married Mrs. SSS. She never said anything about quitting, but I didn't want to go off for the evening or on a weekend without her. I played one time after we got married, with a former occasional partner from Florida who was in Atlanta for business. I never regretted giving it up. I don't think anyone's ever said, "I wish I had spent more time playing bridge instead of being with my family." Mrs. SSS was all the social life I needed.

I stayed in touch with only a few of my bridge-playing acquaintances over the years and was only really friendly with one of them. Bill was one of the Tech crowd I learned the game from. He was a few years older than me, having started at Tech in the early 1960s. By his own admission, he didn't take his classes seriously and either flunked out or dropped out before flunking out. He wound up spending a year in Vietnam and came back again as fellow classmates with me and a few others. His health had declined in recent years, especially after his wife died, and he was in an assisted living home when one morning earlier this month they came in to wake him up and couldn't. His funeral has been postponed until next Monday so that the local bridge people can attend. I'm looking forward to seeing some of them again, but I wish it were under better circumstances. Mrs. SSS liked him a lot. When Georgia Tech beat then #1 Virginia in 1990 en route to our most recent national title, the three of us watched the game together in our condo and had a big celebratory dinner afterward. When Bill moved into the assisted living home a year or so ago, we helped gather up some of his belongings from his house and move them over. The three of us had a nice lunch together. Mrs. SSS won't be going to the funeral; I doubt she even remembers who Bill was any more. It's just one more reminder of getting older.

[Beebs52]

Lovely, sss.
You'll like this. Jeff was a bridge player in college, too. My mom was a serious player, remember bridge clubs?
When we were living in Rochester my mom, Jeff and bil, who were decent players tried to get me engaged in the game. I mean I had played spades which was similar.
Anyway, I think I pushed back and said nope, just because. I'll stick to blackjack and hearts.