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THURSDAY. JUNE 3. 2021 PICKENS COUNTY PROGRESS PAGE 11A
Continued From 10A
Bridge
Ball and put it in a bag next
to the refreshment table at
one of the club’s cabin re
treats.
“It looked like a raccoon
and I turned it on as a joke
and just laughed because one
of the women jumped on a
table, another one went to the
fireplace to grab the tongs,
and another one said, ‘I’ve
got a gun in the car and I’m
going to get it,” Short re
called with delight. “The one
who grabbed the tongs was
ready to throw it off the deck
of the cabin.”
Going places
The bridge club’s pen
chant for travel has taken
them to Jamaica and Florida,
including trips to members’
cabins in the mountains and
to St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin
Islands and Eleuthera in the
Bahamas.
In 2006, the ladies were
reaching or exceeding 50
years of age and Proffitt was
concerned about staying
healthy after her doctor re
minded her that age is the
greatest risk factor for col
orectal cancer.
“I decided to issue a chal
lenge to my bridge buddies
that if we didn’t all have
colonoscopies we couldn’t
take our annual trip to
gether,” Proffitt said in an ar
ticle by Piedmont
Mountainside Hospital pub
lished in the May/June 2006
edition of Pickens Living
magazine. The challenge
met, the ladies headed for St.
Croix.
Such outings created time
and space for conversation
and nurturing relationships
and “massive amounts” of
bridge was played.
Lindsey’s husband, Tom,
joked about a members-only
trip to a mountaintop cabin in
Bent Tree Community. Prof
fitt won the weekend at the
Georgia Marble Festival and
decided to take the group.
In preparation for the
weekend. Mrs. Lindsey
grabbed the milk on her way
out of the house. Club mem
bers said when Mr. Lindsey
realized he’d have no milk
for his cereal he called “mad
as a hornet.”
“I was the one who stuck
my foot in my mouth on that
one,” Mr. Lindsey chuckled.
“I wasn’t mad at the trip, just
about the milk. They thought
it was crazy that I would ask
about milk and they are 30
minutes into the woods and I
am 30 seconds from the cor
ner store. I’ve had a hard
time living that one down.”
Jones doctored a group
picture of the women, giving
them all white mustaches and
writing “Got Milk?” along
the bottom and presented it to
Mr. Lindsey.
The families
Family involvement con
tributed to bridge club lore
over the decades.
“A lot of funny things
happened” over the years,
said Mr. Lindsey, who added
the ladies were friends before
they started playing in the
1970s, as were the husbands.
“The guys decided if they
were going to play bridge
every other Thursday then
the other Thursday we would
play poker at someone’s
house, normally in the base
ment. We lasted about two
months before something
else came up.”
Trips to Amicalola State
Park included bridge for the
women, poker for the men
and the kids “just ran wild.”
“The annual pilgrimage to
Amicalola Falls for a long
weekend was our favorite
thing we did,” said Proffitt’s
son Michael, who lives in Al
pharetta with wife, Leanne,
and three children ranging in
age from 11 to 17. He re
called moonlit hikes with
Elaine Landrum’s son, Phil,
to the bottom of the falls -
walks the boys took without
parental knowledge and
“bears and dragons to kill
us.”
It was a different time
“There was an organized
baseball game and that was
fun, but mostly it was playing
in the woods and the lake and
near the waterfalls hoping not
to fall off. We learned that
place like the back of our
hand.”
The families surrounding
the current club members in
clude 15 children, 26 grand
children and six great-grands,
along with husbands, sons-
and daughters-in-law, and
untold numbers of friends.
“Growing up as a child
under that umbrella of these
really great friends was phe
nomenal because there was
this support structure that
was almost like a parachute
for us kids,” Michael Proffitt
said. “If anything happened,
there was a little community
that was already plugged into
our lives. If I ever needed
anything from Shirley Pool
or Elaine Landrum, it’s like
they were a second mother.”
The future
Bridge’s popularity has
been declining for decades,
and members speak of it as a
dying game despite their fer
vor. Card playing, however,
is growing in popularity as
people look for more tradi
tional entertainment.
Grand View Research, a
global market research and
consulting company, fore
casted the global compound
annual growth rate for board
games and card playing
would exceed eight percent
between 2018 and 2025, cit
ing growing preference for
old school games that pro
mote team building.
The multigenerational ap
peal of card playing has
Lindsey dealing with grand
daughter Sophie Lindsey, 11.
Most recently the two played
Five Crowns, a five-suited
rummy style game intro
duced in the 1990s, as well as
bridge, which peaked in pop
ularity during the 1940s and
1950s.
“She’s got really good
card sense and I think she is
a smart little girl,” said Lind
sey. “I’m always saying I’m
playing bridge today, and a
lot of times I will pick her up
after school and she hears me
speak of it, that I like it and
have good friends I play
with.”
The two use cards when
Sophie, the daughter of
David and Marie Lindsey of
Jasper, visits. She has also
been introduced to playing
bridge online as she “loves
computers and tablets.”
“I’m so glad someone
coming along was inter
ested,” said the elder Lind
sey. “I don’t know that she
will have anyone to play with
but hopefully she will get
someone interested.”
Whatever your card game
of choice, women of this
bridge club said the way to
get started is by taking les
sons, either in person or on
line.
Bridge club players Susan Lindsey and Shirley Pool,
both of Jasper, pocketed at least $100 each when they won
the slam pot prize the last time before the pandemic. Photo
courtesy of Shirley Pool.
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