Kona Bridge Club

By Aileen Newman

File written by Adobe PhotoshopÆ 4.0

In 1977, we arrived and instantly joined the Kona Bridge Club, then meeting Wednesday evenings at Hale Halewai. One game weekly, directed by Chuck Watson or George Morisson. Marion Durant and Lillian Bailey were part of that group. One game was not enough. We soon drove to Hilo on occasional Sundays for an afternoon game at the 'Y', and then for a sometimes evening game, leaving in daylight but coming back at 10:00pm over the Saddle Road, often in heavy fog dependant on the tail lights of any car in front of you. All this for 24 hands of bridge. Bridge players and golfers, right?

Somewhere along the way, we expanded to 2 weekly games with the sometime addition of Hilo players - - always when we had special points games. And the Hilo players always won them. They played better than we did. We complained to Chuck, who as always was sympathetic and reasonable. 'Learn to play better, then go win their points!', he said. And he started a series of classes in his home on a free evening - - lots of us took it, and we did learn and we did win some precious points from them. How sweet it was.

We had refreshments midway through the games - - always an assigned provider. The biggest games I recall ran 9 tables, the smallest, 1 1/2, with the individual scoring. Sometimes exciting - - we had a key to the office and from time to time called the police to cruise with a squad car. Of course the 'bad guys' would disappear when the police showed up, return when they left.

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