Kia ora, all the fuss about Eleanor Catton’s words over the last week reminded me of when I learned to play cards.
I was about six. Mum taught the three of us to play poker using spent matches as chips. Her idea was to stop us making lots of noise inside on winter nights. This ploy failed – our shouts and screams became even louder and were sprinkled with outraged yells of ‘You cheated, ‘and ‘Did not’ – we didn’t dare swear, well not inside anyway.
We progressed from poker to Strip Jack Naked (yes, that was its name), crib, euchre, 500 and all the easier games. Adults played too and sometimes they’d drag one of us in to make up a four. Sometimes we had two games going.
Playing cards was very good for our brains. They taught us to play well but there were other spin-offs. At the same time as playing cards, learning the rules, the etiquette, how to lose and how to win, how to keep score, we also learned about people. We not only had to read the cards, work out where the high ones might be, what we could do (within the rules) to stymie our opponents’ winning streak; we had to learn to read people. Playing cards also allowed us to air our bad temper and indulge ourselves with a bit of drama.
We learned everyone has a particular weakness and everyone has a particular strength. We learned some of us are bad losers (me) and some of us are bad winners (not me) and we learned that playing with either is a pain in the bum. Mum got a angry very quickly if we were rude to anyone. Anyone adult, that is. Naturally they were allowed to say what they liked. So we learned to swallow our resentment – ‘He always gets the Joker, it’s not fair’ and our suspicions that it had to be because he was cheating. We’d look through the rules to see if having the Joker three times in a row was allowed.
I have seen huge rows erupt between people playing cards. Long ago hurts are aired and things like, ‘this is the last bloody time I ever play cards with you’ occurred regularly among the adults – they were allowed to swear.
Insults occurred frequently, ‘You’re a certifiable grade A idiot, why the hell didn’t you play your Ace?’
‘I was saving it.’
‘What for? The Second Coming?
They worked off their excess spleen and venom over cards and when we stopped playing it was all used up and everyone got on very well.
I wish commentators had played some games of Strip Jack Naked or Euchre before they fired off their vitriol at Eleanor Catton.
I thought good on her for having the guts to say what she thought. I don’t have to agree or disagree, it’s her view and it’s valid for her to have it. Just as I have a view and it’s valid for me to have it. We are such a thin-skinned bunch – when are we going to grow up?
Renée
