Thirteen years ago, my husband and I retired and moved to Mechanicsburg, Pa. We reside at Bethany Village and went to a “Meet you neighbor” dinner. We sat beside Judy and Tim Trissler, and the topic of bridge came up. With much prodding, Barry and I enrolled into the Bridge Basics classes, taught by Mary Ann Prior. We had classes in the basement, of the Harrisburg Bridge club, and were encouraged to venture “upstairs”(eek) and play. A sweet lady, I cannot remember her name, talked me into it, and I shook like a leaf. LO, we got some points!

I continued playing and learning at HBC, but caught wind of another teacher in York, Ed Scanlon. He taught 1 thing each Monday morning, and then we played a short game that was relevant to the lesson. That was such fun.

A friend, Linda Johnson, was a dare devil, and talked me into going to Baltimore to play in a regional K/O game. She was bold, and asked two veteran players to be on our team, Sandy Berg and Judy Groenenboom.

It was a late night game, and around 11 at night we were in the finals. After playing the required number of boards, we were tied with the other team. We were told we would do a play off with 4 boards. At the end of 3 boards, we were still tied. Last board, each e/w team bid and went down 1, BUT—our team doubled them, so we won!! It was 1:00 in the morning and we still had to drive home. But we earned 9 Gold points. I was hooked, this was easy—right?

I have recognized that God uses everything to teach us lessons too. I learned that:

Don’t cheat, ever!
Be nice
Don’ criticize or judge (control your tongue)
Don’t gossip
You can’t do “it” alone
Obey the rules, respect authority
Don’t let feelings determine what you do
Any given day, someone is a champion
It is better to encourage than to tear down
There is always more to learn
Sometimes things are out of our control.
Prayer helps.

So, the fun and challenge is to keep learning, change my ways, make new friends, be kind, and thank God for all the blessings