My Favourite Childhood Game

Some of my fondest memories of late childhood are of playing cards with my family.

That makes it sound like my upbringing was largely an unpleasant or unforgiving experience.  Far from it.  In fact so far from either extreme as to be mundane.  We fought over absurdities, then made up; we broke precious mementos, and were punished; we rebelled in due course, and were welcomed back into the fold.  Median and suburban.

But I digress.  Cards.  Most notably, a game called euchre.  A simple four-player, 24-card deck, trick taking game.  Score was kept using the 5 and 6 cards as counters (first pair to win eleven hands takes the game).  My father, mother, brother and I would play for hours.  Foregoing even the seduction of the tele for the evening.  The light-headedness, that squeal of delight when you flushed out the only card from an opponent that could possibly have offered a threat, thus paving the way to taking all five tricks in a hand was intoxicating.  Rare, but intoxicating.  I thrilled with vindication when proven correct about my suspicions of with whom the power lie.

Some years later, I taught several friends to play, in an attempt to wile away many more hours.  Most struggled to get their heads around the strategy of it all, and quickly grew disenchanted.

I was interested to see, however, that one partner had obviously experienced a similar upbringing.  She knew the golden rule about the scoring cards: never place the 6 card on top of the 5 card; its too heavy.