For Father's Day - #5 Good Mormons Don’t Gamble or Play Cards

Doral and Wyona in Malaysia
Doral was always fascinated with doing
something unusual, in this case, having
a visit with a monkey

I must have heard from the pulpit that good Mormons don’t gamble, or play cards, at least thry don’t play with face cards.

I came home from church and checked with Doral. He said what the speaker meant is that that pious Mormons don’t gamble or play cards.

When Doral said the word pious, he would take on a long face with no expression interlock his fingers and then roll his thumbs one around the other. I knew I didn’t want to be one of those, so it was OK to play cards.

That was fine.

I knew we could still be good Mormons and played cards and even gamble, afterall, Doral went to the horse races. He even owned race horses – remember Shuswap Sal, and going to the race track for the afternoon with Doral? That was all fun.

"Oh Hell" and "Who'se Got the Queen" were common group card games that we played at home. I don’t know what fun this could have been for Doral, playing with all of his teen-agers, but it was fun for him. Wyora would be putting little ones to bed, the older ones of us stayed up and played cards. She might join us later.

In fact, sometimes Doral and Wyora would have people over, large groups and the adults would play Rook and eat snacks long into the night. I know what I did the next morning. I would get up early to see if any Bridge Mix had been left in the candy dishes on the table. I usually found something there, as well as what might remain from a large chocolate bar on other nights. Thus, I learned to be the first one to make their bed. I grew up thinking all married couples had a chocolate bar under their pillows. At least I hoped that would be so.

Once I remember asking Doral, “Dad, do you know how to play poker?”

“Yes. I know how to play poker. Playing poker has a lot to do with reading other people’s faces and fooling them with your face. I will teach you how to play the game. I have to warn you that you have to be careful when you learn a game like poker. You will forget that time exists. Night can turn into day and back to night when you are playing poker. You can forget to eat.”

“You have to be kidding? Where did you learn?”

I can’t remember the where and when of the rest of his story. But I have stopped typing to go back and find out where he wrote that in his Life History. (p 41-42)

The one night of poker with dad in the our family kitchen was enough for me. I must have played all of my cards wrong, for I didn’t get a taste for that game.

On other games, Doral would tell me the secrete of how to win. He said that in cribbage, the chances are that both players will have even hands. How a person wins is by pegging, which is not so much a matter of chance but of being on the watch for your opponent to count their h and incorrectly.

We spent a lot of hours at home playing Rook – mostly five-handed with only two in the kitty. And we always showed the kitty, giving others the chance to see if there were counters there.

Wyona played a lot of bridge in Malaysia. When she came back and said she wanted to play that game, Doral was already good at it. In fact, that is the game that we played when he knew he was dying. Wyona and I would go over to Moiya’s and take all of our children. Then the woman who was the dummy would hurry around taking care of getting our combined children food or seeing that they had games to play. The dummy was no dummy. She jumped up and peeled vegetables, got soup going, punched down bread, changed diapers, gave drinks of water to toddles, found and filled lost bottles – the dummy, three generic dummies – no dummies at all.

(#5 of 15 - to be continued)

Arta