The Duplicate Group - Playing Bridge While Drunk

 

The Duplicate Group

Playing Bridge While Drunk

Vibrant, young and full of hope was the vibe that Sunnyvale gave out. Just like the people who were relocating there in the late 60’s. Orchards were giving up their shade and bounty to make way for miles of tract houses and schools. Actually, our tract was called Old Orchard and we actually had a cherry tree in our backyard, spared by the developer. Sunnyvale Newcomers was the group to join and a lot of us did.

Eight couples formed a dinner bridge group – not ordinary contract bridge, but duplicate bridge. Duplicate bridge is extremely competitive. All foursomes are dealt the same cards, so luck doesn’t enter into the results. Now I mentioned that this was a dinner bridge group and what kind of a dinner is it without cocktails? And………….wine with dinner and………...after dinner drinks. This was still the era of the 2 martini lunch, and most of us knew how to hold our liquor, at least we thought we did. And yet, we were able to play reasonably decent bridge, again we thought we did. Don’t ask about the driving!

The men were engineers and there was a CPA, and an HR guy, and my husband, the lawyer. One of the husbands was truly an entrepreneur. More about that on another blog. The women were all stay-at-home moms who made healthy lunches and so called gourmet dinners and…… joined Sunnyvale Newcomers! We played bridge, had luncheons, bowled and exchanged baby sitting.

All of our kids were around the same ages and went to the same school and all knew each other. We did family outings – the duplicate group goes to the beach, the duplicate group has a picnic, the duplicate group does a BBQ. It seemed as if it was always sunny in Sunnyvale and we were all happy and eager to make friends and on the way up in the beginning of Silicon Valley. Too good to be true? It seems it WAS too good to be true………… 4 couples of the group were divorced within a year and there was one suicide. All for different reasons.

Leo Tolstoy wrote the famous opening line of Anna Karenina. “All happy families are alike: each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

Henry’s assessment – Enough with the nostalgia! How about something hip and current – too difficult for the 90 year old?!