Pam and I went over to Mom and Dad’s for lunch, and stayed until 7 p.m. We spent several hours playing Rook–me and Dad against Mom and Pam.

Rook, for the unenlightened, is the “Christian” card game. The one we could all play with clear consciences at Huntington University back in the olden days. I remember playing into the early morning hours with Steve Barber, Brad Carpenter, Ray Faber, and other classmates.

As a young married couple in Huntington, Mom and Dad often played Rook with other young marrieds–Marvin and Grace Ann Price, Jim and Joyce Howald, Bob and Fran Myers, Bob and Agnes Baker, and others. Today, they reminisced about some of those games and who usually partnered with who. I realize that one of those “who”s shoulda been a “whom,” but this is Christmas, so be charitable.

We play to 500 points, and the maximum you can win in a hand is 180 points. Dad and I burst out of the gates with two 180-point hands. Got up to 470 points, and then let up, going set a few times. But we still prevailed, winning the first game.

But in the second game, Dad and I managed to lose a game to 500 points by 800 points. How is that possible? Mom and Pam ended with 635 points, while Dad and I were more than 200 in the hole.

Then Mom and Pam won game 3. And game 4. But Dad and I salvaged game 5, to end the night a respectable 2-3. Still losers, but at least it wasn’t 1-4. That would have been humiliating, as opposed to merely embarrassing.