But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him, and his righteousness to children’s children, to those who keep his covenant and remember to do his commandments.
Psalm 103:17-18
Psalm 103:17-18
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| The Card Players Paul Cezanne 1892-6 |
There are certain activities that draw families together in a way that simply spending time in the same dwelling never will. Therapists, counselors, and just ordinary people tend to agree that these family building activities are irreplaceable. At the top of the list of these activities is going camping together or some other form of get away where the distractions of the world are left behind. Another is family games like board games and card games. It gives everyone the opportunity to get involved and participate. In our family that game was Rook.
Rook is a game that I have never actually seen anyone else play, and I have never been able to find the particular rules (or lack thereof) that we adhere to documented anywhere. For us, this is a case of tribal wisdom; if you are part of the tribe the secrets of the game are shared with you. When I have browsed through the various official rules for Rook it appears that we have adopted the portions of those rules that suited us, ignored the ones that don’t, and made other stuff up as we went along. However, it works for us.
My earliest memories certainly involve card tables being out for various family functions. Usually, the card tables would be out specifically for people to be able to eat, but they were not going to be wasted the rest of the time they were up. Papaw always took a seat at one of these tables and out came the Rook cards.
I both loved and dreaded being Papaw’s partner, especially in his later years. He was never a card shark or even one who was moderately good at playing cards. He just played because he loved doing it. When he held his cards they were not in the neatly splayed fan that is typical of most card players, and nor were his cards sorted in any kind of logical manner. Instead, his hand was nothing short of a hot mess. Cards were barely holding on in his hand, while others were hidden behind other cards. In the end, he had no idea what was in his hand, but the rest of us sitting at the table could get a pretty good idea due to his lack of discipline in how he held his hand.
Typically, when playing any card game where the suits are important each player will prepare their hand at the beginning of that round to ensure they grouped the cards from a particular suit together. This practice also ensured that the player knew what cards they have in each suit. Papaw did none of that.
He often did muss about with his cards in his hand, but no one is very sure what organizational pattern he was following. Yet, despite his disorganization he was actually able to do relatively well, but it required a lot of patience and forgiveness by everyone at the table.
When playing Rook it is important to follow the suit led for each trick with the same suit; you cannot play off-suit unless you do not have any cards of the suit that was led. This is where it is critical that you are organized in your thoughts, and where Papaw experienced the greatest challenges. If, for instance, black was named as trumps but green was led for that trick you must play green if you have it; you cannot play any other color, including trumps, unless you do not have green. Inevitably, however, Papaw would have one of those green cards tucked in behind another card because of the way he held his hand and would not know it, so he would throw down a trump card to take the trick. As his partner, this excited me; we took a trick. Of course, he would lead off the next trick with the green card he had just missed having in his hand much to everyone’s consternation.
Papaw and either shuffling or dealing was always exciting to witness. The older he got the more arthritis crept into his reality and the harder it was for him to be able to successfully manipulate the cards, but even much younger there was no doubt that he was not a card shark. More or less, the cards would get shuffled, and more or less, they would also get dealt. Cards would be in random directions with very random results. Some players may have different numbers of cards and the same with the kitty. We would often resolve this by not even looking at the cards he was dealing until he was done so that we could count the cards and sort out any shortfalls in advance.
Later on, Papaw would graciously allow one of us to shuffle the cards for him, which actually turned out relatively well. We would shuffle and hand the cards back to him, and as long as we did not distract him the cards more or less ended up where they were supposed to.
Whenever Mamaw was watching us we definitely took things to another level. A cruel reality for many men and women of a certain age is the challenges of bladder control. A cruel reality of grandchildren is the challenge as they see it of causing their grandparent to lose bladder control by the laughter that would be generated in their vicinity. Mamaw was one of those whose bladder control was a challenge that we heartily took that challenge on.
When Mamaw watched, the hijinks at and around the table increased exponentially; of course, it was already pretty high. We played with joy and enthusiasm and made sure that we poked enough fun at one another that Mamaw would begin to laugh, and she loved to laugh. The goofier and weirder we were the more she laughed, and the more she laughed the more often she was dashing for the rest room. She would come back a couple of minutes later with, “Now y’all stop that,” laughing again even as she spoke.
No matter which Connolly household you visit, laughter is a significant component of our family life. Normally, this is well-received and appreciated; unless, of course, you just had abdominal surgery.
As my sister-in-law discovered, our home was a comfortable place to recover from surgery as long as no laughter ensued. That proved to be a challenge far too great, and she didn’t help her cause much either because she provided plenty of laughable material herself.
After her surgery when she was released from the hospital she came to live with us for a couple of weeks. We always enjoy having her in our home, and she gets swept up into the normal laughter and banter around our home. Usually, it was just a chuckle here or there but on one particular occasion it was laughter that was epic in proportion, and, of course that coincided with abdominal surgery.
Out of a sense of self-preservation, Lizzy stayed down stairs in our home. Doing this she had her own bedroom, bathroom, and sitting area. She also had free access to the wood burning stove, and since it was over the Christmas break this was a highly coveted position. Although she could traverse the stairs she rarely did because it was simply too painful at first.
During one of our family meals my wife, daughter and I were sitting at the table and my wife thought she heard her sister and wanted to go check on her to ensure she was OK. Emma began to descend the stairs, but did not quite make it all the way down before I saw her running back up the stairs with her hand over her mouth. I wasn’t sure of what was going on, and didn’t know if something had gone horribly wrong. I quickly realized that the tears streaming down her face were tears of laughter, the hand over her mouth was to suppress the snorts of laughter, and she ran to the back of the house to compose herself out of earshot of her sister. Meanwhile, Lizzy was trying to regain her composure as well so that she could breathe again because of her own laughter.
It took some time for either of them to gather themselves up enough to convey what had happened, but it was nothing short of epic. When Emma descended the stairs she glimpsed upon a vision of her sister warming herself near the wood stove. Because of the many sutures she tended to be sparse with what she wore under her robe, but neatly kept her robe tucked around her to cover herself. However, she discovered that if she backed up to the stove she could lift the back of her robe and warm her bum in an ever so pleasant manner. Upon seeing this, and after having hung out around me for way too long, Emma’s thoughts immediately went to, “I hope she doesn’t fart.”
Lizzy is cut from the same fabric of DNA as Emma. Often, their thoughts are in synch with one another in a scary way; this was one of those occasions. No words were spoken. Only a glance was exchanged. Both were in hysterics.
So, the bottom line from all this is enjoy your family time, laughter is awesome and healing, and it is what is needed to share around the game table to build those bonds. However, if you have bladder control issues or you are recovering from abdominal surgery, don’t stay with a Connolly. Find the most boring person you can think of and stay there, but when you are ready for a good laugh, break out the Rook cards and take a seat with the Connolly’s; its healing in a whole new way.
The rules of Rook – the Connolly version:
·
Rook is a card game with 4 players, divided into
two teams. The partners for each team
should sit opposite to each other so that as you go around the table you would
have team 1 player 1, team 2 player 1, team 1 player 2, and team 2 player
2. How you choose your teams is your own
stinkin’ problem.
·
The deck of Rook cards is prepared by removing
the 2’s, 3’s, & 4’s from the deck.
Don’t ask; I don’t know why.
Certain things we just do them that way.
·
A dealer is chosen for the first hand, and then
subsequently rotates around the table to the dealer’s left for the next
dealer. How you choose the first one
again is your own stinkin’ problem.
There are no rules for this part; actually there may be but we simply
make it up as we go along.
·
The dealer will deal 10 cards to each player and
5 to the kitty in the center of the table.
Although strict adherence to good order and discipline to Rook
aficionados would dictate an orderly laying out of cards, in a clockwise order,
and every second round adding a card to the kitty that ain’t happening
here. Eventually, every player will have
their 10 cards, and eventually 5 will end up in the kitty – don’t get bound up
in proper card etiquette it will simply give you ulcers.
·
The last card laid down should be the final card
to the kitty. But, again, don’t get
wrapped up in it happening in just that way.
Also, in these rule it is allowed, and often expected, that the final
card on the kitty will be face up. It is
done for intrigue. It is done since most
everyone is pitiful at handling cards so by the time you get to the last card
all the other players have probably seen it anyway. It is done out of “Tradition! Tradition!”
(think “Fiddler on the Roof”)
·
Once all the cards are dealt the player to the
dealer’s left will make the opening bid, anywhere from “pass” to “Shoot the
Moon”. The maximum points available in a
hand is 180. Of course, you can lose
every trick and end up with zero.
Scoring will be discussed below, however, when you bid you do so with
enthusiasm, especially if you shoot the moon, and most especially if you have
an absolutely pitiful hand. To shoot the
moon means you will take every point available, all 180 points. You may find some sticklers for the rules who
insist that you must take every trick, but they are just boring and don’t know
how we do things. Of course, when you do
take the bid you are effectively writing a check that your partner has to
cash. All bids should be in increments
of multiples of 5 or 10.
·
Talking across the table is highly discouraged,
but tends to happen anyway – so again, get over yourself. No great state secrets are shared, but you
certainly figure out how to communicate with your partner as you talk about
farm machinery and the Braves. If you
need to ask which Braves or who the Braves are you probably don’t want to play
at our table; just sayin’.
·
The person who takes the bid has the option of
showing the kitty to the table; this really is our version of smack talk. Don’t even bother trying to find that in a
rule book – it ain’t there. They take
the five cards into their hand and discard any five cards they wish into the
hold cards; these are very important later on.
The strategy here is to make your hand as strong as possible and remove
any weaknesses. Since you get to name
the trump suit you probably want to have as many trump cards in your hand as
possible. The remaining cards should all
also be winners as much as possible.
·
Play begins with the person who took the bid,
and they also name the trump suit (green, black, red, or yellow). There are, of course, truly weird people who
may choose to name trumps as “no trump”, which means the only trump card is the
Rook card itself. The trump suit trumps
other cards played, and unless a higher value trump card is played by a
subsequent player then the player who played the trump card wins that
trick. The person who won the bid can
play any card in their hand they choose – it’s good to be the king. Subsequent players must play the same suit
that led unless they do not have any of that suit, in which case they are free
to play whatever they choose. What they
choose may be in an effort to add or deny points as a strategy, and that will
be discussed more below.
·
In each suit there are cards 1, and 5-14
(remember you took out 2-4). The highest
card in rank is 1, then 14 down. The one
exception to this is the Rook card itself; it is the highest card in the named
trump suit.
·
The points are as follows:
o
Rook = 20 points
o
1’s = 15 points
o
14’s and 10’s = 10 points
o
5’s = 5 points
·
One of the two players on each team should
collect the tricks won since you are functioning as a team after all. Obviously, your objective is to win every
trick, as a team. Part of winning is
getting points and you need to take as many points as possible. If your partner is winning a trick and you
can play cards with points into his / her trick – do it. At the end of each round of play you add up
the points in the tricks you have won.
The team who won the last trick gets whatever is in the hold cards that
the person who won the bid puts aside.
·
If you do not make your bid then you get
negative whatever points were bid.
Otherwise, you get the points that your team acquired during play.
·
The team who gets to 500 first wins. That is unless you make up the rules as you
go along like we do and that can be any number you choose.
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