Playing Hearts

No it is not the game of love.  *smile*  It is a card game with a few simple rules.

1.  Deal out the cards, 13 to each of four people.
2.  No partners it is every one for themselves.
3.  Each heart counts as 1 point and the queen of spades as 13.
4.  Pass three cards you don't want to the person on the left.
5.  You get one point for each heart and thirteen for the Queen of Spades you "win".
6.  However, if you get zero hearts or the queen you get to take twenty six from your score or put twenty six on every one else's score.

My brother and sister-in-law and myself and my (ex) wife would play for hours.  I wonder now how she put up with us. She was the only non-smoker at the table and the language was a little on the rough side.  And the competitiveness between myself and my brother was high.

7.  When someone reached 100 points the game was over and whomever had the lowest score won.

Since it was everyone for themselves, if you had the lowest score, you could be assured everyone else was going to try to 'feed' you hearts and the "bird" (biddy or bitch) as the queen was known.  Just so long as someone else took a heart.  If you thought someone else was running them you'd try to get just one heart to stop them.  The worst part was when someone got 13 hearts and the queen was there and you had to decide whether to 'eat' it or let the other person run the hand.

Since we passed to the left I always tried to sit to my brother's right as he enjoyed running the hand more than anyone else and I loved giving him twenty five points and taking the other one for myself. 

There was no rancor or anger involved but we both hated to lose with a passion.  I've mellowed as I've gotten older but I was that way for sure when I was younger in every endeavor.  I hated losing.  That was when the game (whatever it was) was going on.  Afterwards, it meant very little to me and everybody was friends again with not hard feelings.  At least, as far as I know.

There were three "big" card games when I was growing up and a young adult.  Rook, Rummy and Hearts. 

And there was one other game my brother and I (and later nephew Jimmy) played.  It had now name but it was seeing if you could catch the other person unaware and knock the bejesus out of him.  You should have seen us all in the same room.  *Laugh*  The three of us all with their back against a wall and head on a swivel making sure we knew where everyone else was at all times.

One time I nailed my brother up at my sister's trailer and he was waiting to ambush me by the fridge and Jimmy came bee-bopping around the corner and caught it head on.  And one time after he nailed me I caught him from behind and nailed him in the shoulder.  Sent us both to the doctor and I still have no knuckle on the little finger of my left hand where I smashed it on his shoulder.

Ah, those days gone by.  My sister has been gone for about thirty four years now and my brother just turned 71 this week.  I'm only  four months from 59 myself.  Somehow those days of being young and full of "piss and vinegar" seem like they happened to a different person.

I'd love to have a good marathon session of Rook or Hearts again with people I love.  Or, catching my brother or nephew unaware and nailing them good.  But time moves on and we grow old.