Like many of my bridge friends, I was born at an early age, naked and a bridge orphan.

My first words were double and redouble; this lucidity made my father very proud.

I’m not sure, but I think I knew the names and order of the suits before I knew the names and order of days in a week. And why not, there are only four suits but there are seven days in a week.

By the time I was in high school, it was clear that if I wanted to talk to my parents, I had to be East or West. Dad was always North. I would also have to bring up things like what college I had chosen in between the bidding and play of hands.

When I left for college, I swore I would never pick up another deck of cards. That lasted the entire length of the trip to Florida State University where I majored in Math Education.

As it turned out, my entire dorm floor played Hearts. Being able to count cards was a very useful skill and I was playing cards as much as attending classes.

Upon graduating I thought I might not pick up a deck of cards ever again! I went to work as a Math Teacher and wouldn’t you know it, they played bridge in the teacher’s lounge. I was asked if I wanted to join in. It was a rhetorical question. By now I was hooked!

I find the game fascinating, frustrating, challenging, fun, and not fun. And I find it an important part of my life. Through bridge, I make friends, travel, think and think and think!

As a youth I was a bridge orphan. I had wonderful parents who played bridge often. I didn’t understand why. I do now. Bridge has brought me fun, greatly entertained me and introduced me to some of my best friends. I wish I could thank my parents for sharing their love of the game and teaching me not to trump their aces.

While becoming a Ruby Master brought me great pride, it does not approach the thrill I had going over 1388.43 master points. That was the number of points my father had. I won my first points with him in high school at the age of 16. At 71 I won a local tournament and crossed over that magic number. It had been a 55-year chase. I am proud of my relationship with my wife, I am proud of my children, proud of my PhD and proud of many things. But on the lists of accomplishments, I must tell you I hold 1388.43 as a special number. And now I will add being a Ruby Master to my list of proud achievements.

My next goal is to win 2776.86 master points!

When I came to this country, June of 1956 after I married my husband, who was a Naval Officer, in Hong Kong, I had to learn how to play rubber Bridge because all my husband’s family played Bridge. In fact my husband’s aunt Jayne Rogge (from St.Louis) was a lifetime master player.

My first experience with duplicate Bridge was in 1962 in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. A man asked me to be his partner at a tournament and I gained 3 master points, but I was not a member of ACBL then. I did not play bridge again for 40 odd years. Then I started to sub a few times in 2008 in party Bridge and played with a group of ladies for seven years before moving to Lancaster in 2016. My husband and I started playing duplicate with the Maple Grove group in July, 2016.

I learned a lot from reading the ACBL bulletin and from the daily Bridge column by Philip Alden in the Lancaster newspaper. Also my Thursday partner, Dottie Allen has helped me.

I shall be 80 years-old on October 22 and find it hard to believe I am becoming a Bridge master.

As many other people did at the time, I started playing bridge (too much) in college in the late 60’s. When I was young, single, and carefree, I played tournaments fairly frequently, but usually only travelling within driving distance from my home. I was privileged to play with some of the best players in District 4 on teams and as partners. I won most of my masterpoints during this period, from 1970 – 1989, enjoying particular success in Grand National Teams at the District level. (BTW Masterpoints were available in significantly smaller quantities then than they are now.)

In the early 1970’s I frequently played at the Harrisburg Bridge Club, which was about an hour’s drive from my home (until I moved to Camp Hill to be closer to it), because it had the biggest and best games around. Many players there liked to play Brozel (which I repeatedly declined to play) and there were several pairs that played weak NT’s. I thought (and still do) that giving up a defensive double to show power in favor of showing a 1-suiter was unacceptably inferior, especially against weak NT’s. So, I persuaded one of my partners to play my “modified Brozel”, using double as the traditional power showing call, 2C as a 1-suiter and 2D as hearts and a minor, covering both the Brozel 2D bid and the 2C bid that had been redefined.

Sometime in 1974 (the year I made Life Master), I was playing in a social knockout match against a team including a late well known expert from the Washington, DC area at the home of a mutual acquaintance, who was an occasional teammate of mine. When I partnered with the host, he wanted to play Brozel, but I declined, describing my modification, and also volunteering that the 2D and 2H bids could be interchanged so that 2H and 2S would have similar meanings. My partner consented to the minimum modification. Mike, the expert, who overheard our discussion, said “I like that”.

When I got married in 1990 and subsequently raised a family, I went into semi-retirement from bridge, playing only occasionally and usually only when an old partner would ask me to play. During this period (1990 – 2010) I never won more than 100 MP’s in a year, only in single digits in several years, winning a total of less than 500 MP’s during that 20 year period. .

When I retired in 2011 and with my children now grown, I again started to play a lot of bridge, mostly club games and some local tournaments.

In my early active period, bridge proved extremely valuable to me, not only as a direct source of enjoyment, but also, as I discovered, as an excellent way to establish and maintain social relationships. I expected that it would again provide these benefits after I retired and am pleased that it has done so.