Throughout the twenty-first century my most prevalent dream1 has been of being in a city with which I was somewhat familiar. However, I generally have trouble finding the exact location that was required for something—an appointment, a round in a debate tournament, or even a flight booked on an airline or hotel room. In general something about the location had changed radically from what I remembered. During my quest I often have lost valuable items such as my camera, my suitcase, my briefcase, my wallet, my car, or even my pants.
Lately, the location has often bid Ann Arbor, MI, or more specifically the east side of town, which is the location of the University of Michigan. On occasion I have been impeded from reaching my destination by newly constructed buildings, rerouted highways, a railroad yard, and even a gigantic canyon.
This is being written on July 3, 2025. Last night’s dream was set in Ann Arbor, but its contents had no relation to either the city or the university. I know that it was Ann Arbor because in the earliest part of the dream I and a few companions were walking east toward South University St.
There was a short period of confused travel that quickly reached a place that bore no relationship to Ann Arbor. Instead, there were three small very small peninsulas2 that each contained five black objects in a line down the middle of the peninsula. They all appeared to be metallic. The three closest to the mainland looked like large crosses. There were figures on them, but they were not being crucified exactly. The other objects had no noticeable definition. They might have been carved, but they might just have been rocks. There might have been some of one and some of the other. The dream must have been in color because the land around the rocks was a field of green and brown.
A ceremony of some sort was in process. It wasn’t religious, but several dozen people were in attendance. The fifteen monoliths were intended to commemorate or honor something. I was somehow responsible. I as on the outside (or above?) looking on. I worried about one of the crosses being out of place. I wanted to rearrange the black objects, but I don’t know why. There was, however, not enough time.
Afterwards a woman—the only things that I remember about her appearance were her big black eyes—needed to borrow my car. She got into some kind of trouble with it, but I woke up before it was resolved.
I went to school at U-M for ten and a half adventure-filled years. It was not surprising that I had strong memories off it. The two main streets on the central campus were State Street and S. University. I spent many hours on the former and very little time on or around the latter.
The thoughts about the ceremony might have been triggered by the last episode of The Man in the High Castle that I watched on the previous evening. Featured was a tribute to a young man who turned himself in to the Nazis for extermination because he knew he had muscular dystrophy.
The only woman I have ever encountered with big black eyes was Betty Boop.
1. For three decades after I graduated from U-M my most prevalent dream involved the discovery that I had missed a test or a deadline for a paper. Almost as often the dreams involved the discovery that I had registered for a class that I had intended to take but neglected to attend.
2. Ann Arbor does not abut a body of water. The material surrounding the three strips of land might not have been water. In fact, it might not have even been liquid.
I received my driver’s license on August 17, 1964, my sixteenth birthday. From then until May of 2025 I was involved as the driver in nine accidents. One accident occurred when the car was unoccupied.
I was somewhat shocked when I constructed the list that the number was so large. Have I been a terrible driver? I have never thought so. The total damage from the accidents was not very great. I have never received a ticket from the police for any kind of moving violation. No one was ever injured in any of them. Furthermore, I have driven a large number of miles in rental cars throughout the country, and I never had an accident in any of them.
The first accident on the list occurred within the first month or so of my legal driving. My mother let me take her white Oldsmobile 88 to a dental appointment. I don’t know what she was thinking. The office was about two miles from our house, but I was probably the youngest legal driver in the county, and I had no experience at entering and exiting narrow parking spaces. While I was maneuvering the Olds from the parking space its right bumper scraped the car in the adjoining space and caused a little damage to the other car but none on the Olds.
I drove very little for the next eight years. I did not have a car of my own, and I seldom borrowed my mother’s car. After I got out of the army in April of 1972 I purchased a Datsun 1200 that I called Greenie. I drove it to Connecticut.
I had two accidents with Greenie. The first one happened with my dad in the car a month or two after I arrived in Connecticut. I had stopped at a gasoline station in East Hartford. As Greenie pulled out of the station it ran into a car that I did not see. There was a little damage to both cars. Although I was clearly at fault, the policeman declined to give me a ticket. The damage was repaired, but the paint never quite matched, and the repairman did not notice that the tie rod on one wheel had been bent. That prevented Greenie from passing the safety inspection until a different repairman had bent it back while I waited as the only other person in the shop in the late hours of Christmas eve.
The other accident was a spinout in the snow on I-91 just south of the I-84 interchange in Hartford in the winter of 1972. Sue was in Greenie with me when I lost control of the vehicle. Its progress was terminated when it struck a guide rail. The guide rail had a small dent, but Greenie was not damaged. This was the scariest of all of the accidents.
Greenie later executed an impromptu 180-degree turn on an ice sheet on what was subsequently labeled I-384. On that occasion the car came to rest in the breakdown lane facing the wrong direction. Fortunately there was little traffic, and Greenie boasted a very tight turning radius.
There was only one accident during the time that we lived in Michigan. After Greenie and Sue’s Dodge Colt expired, Sue purchased a Plymouth Duster that was nearly as large as Greenie and the Colt put together. I called it “the tank”. We shared it until the early eighties.
The accident occurred on New Year’s morning, within an hour of midnight. The tank was parked directly outside of our house in Detroit. Sue and I were watching television. The people on TV were getting prepared to celebrate with Midwesterners when we heard a loud crash coming from the street. We hurried to the door and went outside. The young man who lived across the street also heard the crash. He identified a car slowly heading east on Chelsea as the culprit.
We found the Duster undamaged in some bushes in our neighbor’s front yard. I jogged after it and took note of its license plate number and the house into which the occupants had entered.
We called the police of course. The officer who responded to the call eventually went to the house that I identified. When he came back he told us that they had told him that our car had jumped out in front of them while they were peacefully driving on Chelsea. This was, of course, complete bullsh*t, and he knew it. However, although most of the people in the house were inebriated, but he said that he could not tell who was driving. This was typical of our encounters with the Detroit Police Department.
I also had a trivial accident while driving the tank across the Bulkeley (pronounced “Buckley” by the natives) Bridge after we moved back to Connecticut. In heavy traffic the Duster was stopped on the bridge. I felt a bump coming from the rear. I got out of the car and cautiously looked at the rear of my car. I told the other driver that there was no damage. Steam was pouring out of his vehicle’s engine, however. I just drove off and let him deal with it.
Sue and I were happy to replace the Duster with a pair of Toyota Celicas in the eighties. I did not trade blows with any other vehicles, but I did cause some damage to mine in a parking lot at Keiler Advertising in Farmington, CT. The incident has been described here.
In the nineties Sue and I traded in our Celicas for Saturns. I had an accident in mine in the parking lot of the Geissler’s grocery store in East Windsor, CT. Its current configuration is shown at the right.
The store is in the upper left corner of the image. I had finished shopping and was driving on the exit toward Bridge Street. Unbeknownst to me the lane in the lot that runs parallel to Bridge Street continued into the exit lane where it was later blocked by a tree. There should have at least been a stop sign there, but there wasn’t. I had been to Geissler’s many times; I had never seen anyone exit the parking lot from that lane. My attention was on the Bridge Street traffic, which sometimes makes the required left turn a little difficult.
On this occasion a Lincoln Continental suddenly appeared in front of me, and the front of my car struck its front panel. The driver was not injured, but his car definitely was. It was not drivable. Mine was not seriously damaged, but the hood was bent enough that it needed replacement. Once again the policeman opted not to give me a ticket. He said that there were often accidents at this spot because the visibility was not good, and there were no traffic signs.
In 2007 I “traded in” my Saturn for a gorgeous sapphire blue Honda Accord coupe. Like all my previous cars, except the Plymouth Duster, it had a four-speed manual transmission. Actually the only recompense that I got for the Saturn was a cassette tape player so that I could listen to Italian tapes while I was driving.
My all-time favorite bridge story involves the Honda on Mass Pike returning from a sectional tournament in Auburn, MA. It was the only time that I have played on a five-person team. My partners were Dave Landsberg and, for the first and only time, Pat Fliakos. The first part of the story, which describes how I set the gold standard for team captain, was recounted in my speech at Dave’s Life Master Party, which has been posted here.
Dave and Pat, who were regular partners played in six of the eight rounds. I played in two rounds with Pat and two with Dave. I sat out the first two rounds and the last two. The first two rounds I watched Dave and Pat play. The first two rounds I sat near Dave’s chair, and watched him play. This was not legal, but I didn’t know that, and the opponents did not object. The last two rounds I spent in my Honda. I wanted to get back to Enfield in time to mow the lawn.
I proceeded without incident until I was within a mile of what was then called Exit 9 on the Mass Pike, the intersection with I-84. At that point all three lanes abruptly came to a dead stop. I stopped without a problem, but the driver of the car behind me was unable to stop, and the front of his vehicle struck the Honda. I could see his car coming in the mirror.
Both of us moved the cars over to the breakdown lane. I was afraid to leave my car, but the other driver, who did not speak English very well, came over to converse about the accident. I did not have a cellphone, but he let me use his to call the police. We exchanged information about insurance companies. About 20 minutes later the trooper arrived, and he gave the other driver a ticket for following too closely.
A week or so later an employee of Progressive Insurance, the other driver’s company, came to my office in East Windsor and spent at least an hour examining the Honda, which had a small bump on the rear bumper. I later learned that the other fellow’s vehicle was actually a rental from Avis, and he had purchase the insurance option. So, Avis, not Progressive, was on the hook.
One day I received a call from a woman at Avis. She said that the company was accepting Progressive’s report on the damage, and she offered to send me a check for $2,000 instead of paying for the repair. I gleefully accepted the offer and provided her with my full name and address. Needless to say I never got it fixed.
I drove the Honda coupe for eleven years. In the tenth year the rear axle broke as I was turning from the I-84 exit onto Flatbush Avenue on my way to play bridge at the Hartford Bridge Club. I called the service lady at the Honda dealer. She diagnosed the problem and called a tow truck. When I picked the car up I asked if I could expect more problems like this. She said that the car was thoroughly inspected, but the rest of the car was just as old as the axle that broke. I started looking for a new car, by which I meant a new Honda Accord.
My dark grey 2018 Accord was not as nice-looking as the blue coupe, but it had a lot of very nice new features. I had had it before I got involved in a stupid accident on Elm Street at the stop light for Palomba Drive just north of the Honda dealership. My destination on this ill-starred journey was the Enfield Square mall. It was December, and there was quite a bit of traffic.
I was driving west on Elm Street (Route 220), which had two lanes on each side as it approached Palomba. A sign near the intersection indicated that there would be an additional lane for left turns, but this was not the case. I was in the left lane when the left turn arrow changed to solid green. Several cars were in front of me. The one at the head of the line had its left signal light on, but there was too much eastbound traffic. I grew impatient and tried to merge into the other lane. I thought that I had enough room, but the right front fender hit the side of another car.
Even though the other driver was very upset, the policeman did not give me a ticket. I don’t know why.
My right front fender had a small dent. I did not bother to get it fixed.
On May 23, 2025, I had been walking in the Enfield Square mall. This time I was eastbound on Elm Street about a mile east of where the previous accident occurred. I had stopped at the red light where Elm Street turns to the right, and 220 continues eastward as Shaker Road. I watched the cars in the westbound left turn land for a second or two when I felt or maybe just heard a bump from the rear.
The car behind me struck the Honda’s rear bumper. It was a white SUV towing a trailer filled with ten-foot long 2×4’s that stuck out the end. After we both stopped the driver told me that his vehicle had also been stopped when it was struck from behind by a black pickup truck with a commercial decal that I only vaguely recall.
A woman and an infant were also in the white vehicle. Two men rode in the truck. One did all the talking with the police. The other was very well built and had braided blonde hair down to his butt.
The policeman who came was a Black man, the first Black cop that I had ever seen in Enfield. I was impressed by the fact that he drove a gigantic black and white Ford SUV. He left his seat for only a short period. Then he returned and filled out forms by hand. Nest to him was an assault weapon—probably an M16 or an AR-15—with its butt on the floor and its muzzle an inch from the roof of the car. I am happy to say that he had no need of his rifle on this occasion.
Linda Kaple at Ohio Mutual me a text on June 18 with a link to an app that was designed to help me upload photos of the damage. I spent more than a half hour on June 23 trying to get it to work. I sent an email to Linda the next day asking if I could send photos by email.
1. The road after the turn is strangely called Elm Street for about a mile. At that point it makes a second right turn. The road, however, continues for some distance as Moody Road. Elm Street continues almost all the way to Enfield’s main East-West Street, Hazard Avenue (Route 190). The road continues to 190, but for the last twenty yards or so it is called North Street.
President Trump recently voiced his interest in becoming the next Supreme Pontiff. He even posted a picture of himself in papal garb. Since I know as much about the history of the papacy1 as just about anyone in the United States, I decided to write a blog entry that answers questions that people might have about the feasibility and details of a Trump pontificate.
Definition
Il Papa and Il Duce are seated.
Who is the pope? This is an easy one. The pope is—and has always been—the Bishop of Rome. He is also the ruler of the Papal State, the smallest country in the world, by virtue of a treaty signed by Pope Pius XI, Benito Mussolini, and others on February 11, 1929.
From the ninth century through 1870 the Papal States consisted of a band of land that stretched from Italy’s western coast all the way to the Adriatic Sea. The popes ruled that entire area even in the seventy years in the fourteenth century in which they resided in France.
So, the pope officially has three jobs—Bishop of Rome, monarch of the world’s smallest country, and Supreme Pontiff of the Christian Church2.
How many popes have there been? The first name on the official list is St. Peter the apostle. Francis was #266. However, only 264 men have been pope before the newly elected Leo XIV. Benedict IX, my favorite pope3, is on the list three times.
Men? I heard that there was a Pope Joan. Almost certainly not. The first stories of Pope Joan started appearing half a millennium after she supposedly had been elected pope. They are inconsistent with one another and contradicted by more reliable accounts.
Election
How is the pope elected? Since 1150 the popes have been elected by the Sacred College of Cardinals. Previously the rules were quite loose. Often the local clergy and other nobles voted for the new pope. Occasionally he was appointed by an emperor or other ruler. The method used to select most of the popes of the first few centuries is unknown. Since 1256 the elections have been held in a “conclave”, which means that they occurred in a locked room.
Up until the end of the nineteenth century powerful European monarchs were allowed to exercise unofficial veto power over the conclave. Even Hitler attempted this, but he was unable to prevent Pope Pius XII’s election.
A pope can change the rules for the next conclave. Pope John Paul II limited the right to vote to cardinals who were under 80 years old. That effectively eliminated almost everyone appointed by his predecessors.
Is the Holy Spirit involved? The cardinals pray that God (in the “person” of the Holy Spirit) will inspire them to select the best person as Supreme Pontiff. Since the beginning of the twentieth century the popes have been relatively competent and good-hearted. There have been crises, but they were not as serious as what faced the popes of previous centuries, and the Church adapted. No one considers most of the popes who lived from the dark ages through 1900 as saintly. Very few have been canonized.
How long does the election take? One was completed in a day. The longest conclave lasted for over two years.
Who appoints the cardinals? The pope, and there are no restrictions on the number of appointments. 133 participated in the election of Leo XIV.
What is the term of office for cardinals? No limit. Most died in office after many years. A few have been murdered, and a few have resigned.
The pope’s throne does not look comfortable.
Who is eligible for the election? In theory, anyone can be elected. However, every bishop, including the Bishop of Rome, must be ordained as a priest. President Trump, in my understanding, could be voted in as the pope, but he would then need to go through a number of ceremonies before he could sit on the Cathedra Petri. In the first place he would need to be baptized. Adult baptisms require classes to make sure that the convert understands the Church’s Creed. He would need to receive the Eucharist, and before that he would need to confess his sins (if any) and receive absolution from a priest. This could be problematic since, to my knowledge, he never has admitted a mistake or flaw of any kind, and the priest will demand both contrition and “a firm purpose of amendment”.
I don’t know if he would need to receive the sacrament of Confirmation. It entails a slap on the cheek by a bishop. He would definitely need to be ordained as a priest, a ceremony that requires a commitment to chastity and obedience to the clerical hierarchy.
Trump’s marriages should not be a problem They did not occur within the sacrament of matrimony and were therefore never sanctioned by the Church. He would be considered single.
If he had been married to Melania in the Church, it still might be all right. St Peter was married and, according to the Bible, had daughters. Pope Adrian II’s wife and daughter lived with him in the Lateran Palace. That setup may sound ideal for a situation comedy, but in fact both his wife and daughter were abducted and murdered. All of this happened in the ninth century, and it barely made the top ten list of bizarre happenings in the pontificates of that era.
As far as I know, the thirty-four felony convictions will not be held against him. Several popes had impressive rap sheets.
Powers
What would his powers be? Almost unlimited. He could appoint cardinals and other prelates. He could also direct the Church’s riches in any direction that he wanted. Pope John Paul II secretly sent tens of millions of dollars from the Vatican Bank to help finance Lech Wałęsa’s political campaign against the Communists.
The pope also has unrestricted use of the popemobile, but he does not have a sidekick, a papal utility belt, or any super powers.
Pope Urban II’s call for the First Crusade at Clermont was perhaps the most effective speech ever.
Isn’t there anything special that only the pope could do? Well, yes. He could call a crusade. That was very popular in the first few centuries of the second millennium. In those days the nobility who had standing armies could be persuaded to fight the pope’s battles, and hoi polloi were responsive to the promise of indulgences that could be transferred to relatives. Hundreds of thousands of people undertook the long journey from Europe to the Levant, mostly on foot. A high percentage never made it back. It is hard to imagine how any pontiff could pull that off again.
Nemesis of Innocent III and Robin Hood.
I thought of another power. In the thirteenth century Pope Innocent III5, who called a few of those crusades, put the entire nation of England and Wales under interdict for six years. At the time Britain was a Christian, country, but the pope’s actions meant that none of its residents were allowed to receive any sacraments during that period. They were effectively damned. The tactic did not work as hoped; King John seized seized Church property and income.
I suppose that a pope could reinstate the inquisition, but that would require a great deal of p.r. work. The historical one was somewhat effective because the civil governments agreed to enforce the sentences of the inquisition’s tribunals.
What about infallibility? Since the First Vatican Council in 1869-71 the pope has been considered infallible when he makes official statements concerning faith and morals. That authority has been used very seldom. Pope Pius IX used it to confirm the doctrine of the “immaculate conception”, which asserts that Mary the mother of Jesus was born without Original Sin. Pope Pius X used it to confirm that Mary did not die; instead she was “assumed” into heaven while still alive. So, if archeologists ever claimed to find Mary’s bones, no Catholic could believe them. Pope John XXIII said that he would never use this authority, and he never did.
Restrictions
Would he need to live in Rome? Absolutely not. He could stay in Mar-a-Lago, the White House, or anywhere else. For seventy years the popes all lived in Avignon in the Provence region of France. None of them ever set foot in Italy.
Would he need to wear a cassock, a miter, and all that other stuff? I doubt it. Who would make him do it?
Would there be a conflict of interest with his presidential responsibilities? Is this a trick question? He could probably even work the crossed keys into the presidential seal.
Removal
How can the pope be removed from office? A few councils of bishops and other high-ranking clergy have successfully declared popes as illegitimate, but that approach has not been tried for many centuries. A few popes were also violently removed from office, but that has also not been attempted in recent centuries. Basically, it’s a lifetime gig, but the movie Godfather III insisted that John Paul I, who reigned for only thirty-three days, was assassinated.
1. I even addressed the subject in a very long book entitled Stupid Pope Tricks: What Sr. Mary Immaculata Never Revealed About the Papacy. It has never been published per se, but I have posted it here.
2. The Orthodox Church has not recognized this last role since the Great Schism of 1054. Of course the various protestant sects also call themselves Christians, but they do not recognize the pope’s religious authority.
3. I also wrote a first-person historical novel that featured Benedict IX. Ben 9 is posted here.
4. Adrian V is on the current list, but he died before being ordained a priest. I have never seen an explanation of this anomaly. He only lived 38 days after being consecrated in July of 1276.
5. As far as I know, Innocent III is the only pope with an action figure. I own one.
Still under construction. The first event of 2025 was a five-day mishmash scheduled for Mansfield, MA, from Tuesday February 18 through Saturday February 22. It featured a limited regional for non-Life Masters and a contemporaneous open sectional. I was not … Continue reading →
Still under construction.
The first event of 2025 was a five-day mishmash scheduled for Mansfield, MA, from Tuesday February 18 through Saturday February 22. It featured a limited regional for non-Life Masters and a contemporaneous open sectional. I was not eligible for the former and was not interested in the latter because of the length of the drive, the cost and location of the hotel, had the lack of interesting events.
It also included qualifying tournaments for each of the four divisions of the Grand National Teams event. I definitely would have been interested in putting together a team for the GNT if I could play in Flight B, which had always been limited to players with less than 2,500 masterpoints. At the last Executive Committee meeting in the fall Mark Aquino, the Regional Director, had announced that the limit would be raised to 3,000, but he emphasized that it had not officially been changed yet, and there was some opposition. So, I used Google to find the official Conditions of Contest. That led me to this website1, which clearly stated on page 4 that the limit was still 2,500. A few weeks before the event I learned that the CofC was erroneous. Evidently whoever was responsible for posting it never bothered to fix it. When I mentioned this to Sally Kirtley, the tournament manager, she was concerned. She told me that whoever was managing the partnerships could probably find a partner for me. I said that it was too late to put a reasonably good team together. I had no intention of driving all the way to Manchester to play in a one-day Swiss2 in which I had no chance of doing well. The worst imaginable situation for me would have been to be part of a team that, even if it did well, the other members might have no interest in representing the district at the North American Bridge Championships in the summer.
So, since I was no longer on either the Executive Committee or the Board of Delegates, I had no reason to attend the event in Mansfield.
The district’s first real regional tournament was scheduled for the Wellsworth Hotel in Southbridge, MA, from Tuesday, April 22, through Sunday, April 27. The 35-mile drive was by far the easiest of all the tournaments for me, and the schedule included plenty of team games (except for on Saturday. I was therefore very interested in playing there.
I learned more than a month before the event that Jim Osofsky and Mike Heider wanted to team up with me on every day except Thursday. That sounded like an excellent plan. The endurance of the 76-year-old me was much less than it had been earlier. A day for napping in the middle would be greatly appreciated.
I quickly enlisted Eric Vogel as a partner. He committed to play on Tuesday and Wednesday, but he was not available on the weekend. He later needed to rescind his commitment. I was, fortunately, able to get Abhi Dutta to fill in. Mike Heider told me that Helen Benson3, with whom he sometimes played at the Newtown Bridge Club, might be available. I contacted her, and she agreed. She played a much simpler convention card than most that I was accustomed to, but after a fairly lengthy exchange of ideas by email, we agreed upon a very limited set of conventions.
On Monday evening I had purchased a Caesar salad and a chicken wrap at Big Y in Enfield. My recollection was that the hotel’s luncheon buffet was not that good, and I was not enthusiastic about standing in line. On Tuesday morning I left the house at about 8:10. I did not anticipate a lot of traffic, but I was ready to go, and so I left. I listened to Hector Berlioz’s epic opera, Les Troyens. As usual, I stopped at McDonald’s in West Stafford for a sausage biscuit with egg. It cost almost a dollar more than I paid in Hartford, but it was quick and tasty. I arrived at the Wellsworth a little after 9 o’clock. Jim, Mike, and Eric all arrived a few minutes later.
We were scheduled to play in the Open Swiss on both days. On Tuesday we had a very unfortunate draw in the morning. We began by playing against the wunderkinds, Eric and Jeff Xiao and their formidable partners, professional David Caprera4, and another fine player, Max Siline. We lost by 18 victory points, but it turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Our schedule in the rest of the matches was relatively easy. We did not face any of the other top teams, and in the last two rounds we even faced teams from Flight C. In the end we as a B team finished in second place behind only the Xiao team. We were award 6.3 gold points. I was in a good mood for the drive home, but I had started well at regional tournaments before and too often had seen poor results later.
The drive to Southbridge on Wednesday was nearly identical to the drive on Tuesday. The only difference was that I listened to the part of the opera set in Carthage, and it featured Dido rather than Cassandra.
Abhi arrived only a few minutes before nine, but we had played together enough that we only had to review a few items.
Because there were two Swiss events on Wednesday (Open and under 2500), I expected the number of teams in the Open event to be smaller than on Tuesday. I was wrong. There were seventeen, three more than on the previous day. The format was seven rounds of seven-board matches. We were in the lowest strat, which was labeled Y. We won our first match against an A team, but we then lost to Sheila Gabay’s team, but only by four imps. In the third round we tied a team that we had defeated on Tuesday. We had a win, a loss, and a tie, but our total victory points was above average.
We won the next three rounds. In the last round we played against two old friends of mine, Chris Apitz and Ellen Dilbert. We lost the match by 18, but it would have been a lot closer if I had not made a defensive error.on the second-to-last hand. Ellen was playing a doubled 5♦ contract. She had one trump and ♣9 on the board as well as some hearts and spades. Clubs had never been led. She led low to the 9. I had the ace and a small one. Thinking that my partner could beat the 9, I ducked, and it held the trick. We set them 500, but if it had been 800, we would have only lost the match by 4.
As it was we finished with the very respectable score of 74 victory points, which placed us third in X and second in Y. If I had played that ace, we would have finished second in X and first in Y. Still, we earned another 5.94 gold points.
The most amazing match of the event occurred in the seventh round. The Xiao team had lapped the field with an incredible total of 105 victory points (out of a possible 120) in the first six matches. However, in the last round they faced Sheila Gabay’s team. Sheila’s team won the last match by an astounding 42 imps and vaulted into second place.
On the way home I stopped at the Big Y near the McDonald’s in West Stafford to pick up a salad and a wrap for lunches on Friday and Saturday. I was shocked to discover that all of the other stores in that strip mall were unoccupied.
I stayed home on Thursday and took a few naps. I also walked four miles.
The only differences between the journey on Friday morning and the first two trips were the fact that Dido had stepped onto the pyre and I narrowly avoided having the torture of trailing a NETTS truck before it turned onto Route 83 in Somers.
Helen and her husband, who works in ecology.
I finally got to meet Helen Benson in the hotel’s ballroom. We had only a few items left to discuss before we got the horrendous news that we were in the top bracket of the knockout. Worse yet was the news that we were the lowest seeded of the seven teams, which necessitated that we play in three consecutive three-ways. We never even got to change tables. We sat at table C5 for the entire day.
In the last round we were forced to play Mark Aquino and Bill Braucher. It was more enjoyable to talk with them than to get pounded at the bridge table.
It was not a total loss. We won one match. It was against the Luo team that we had defeated once and tied once.
I went home discouraged, but I was hopeful about our chances in the Bracketed Pairs event on Friday. Surely we would not be in the top bracket. There were no other events scheduled that day.
The difference between Friday and Saturday was striking. Helen and I were East-West during both sessions, and we started at table 1 in both sessions. Our opponents on both occasion were Judy McNutt and Eli Jolley. The most amazing hand for me was Board #2 in the afternoon session.
We were bidding clubs, and they were bidding spades. We bid them all the way up to the five level before we gave up. After the hand I mentioned that the LAW of total Tricks predicted that we should be able to take ten tricks in clubs. If so, we should have bid 6♣. We would have only gone down two, and even if they doubled us, that would be better for us than the 650 that we lost for their vulnerable game.
However, it is quite obvious that East-West cannot come close to taking ten tricks with clubs as trumps. There is no way to avoid losing one spade, two hearts, and three diamonds. The LAW is off by three tricks! Eli said that the law tends to break down at the six level, but that has never been my experience. Furthermore, the East-West holdings do not seem to be exceptionally “impure”. It is true that the two honors in spades could just as well have been spot cards. Neither of South’s singletons produce any tricks on defense. Maybe the abundance of worthless shortness is the answer.
Helen did not participate in the discussion. I think that she might not be familiar with the workings of the LAW. She said that she had not read Larry Cohen’s classic book, To Bid or Not to Bid.
We were the top East-West team in the morning and second in the afternoon. That was good, but it was not as good as the performance of Pete Matthews and his partner, who won the event while sitting North-South both sessions. Still, we won over 13 masterpoints.
Jim and Mike had a bad morning, but they improved in the afternoon. We were all in pretty good spirits about the last event of the tournament, the Bracketed Swiss on Sunday.
I was the captain of our team. We were in the second bracket, as I hoped, but I was quite surprised that six of the other seven teams had more points than we did. So, we could expect a lot of tough matches. The format was six rounds of eight-board matches. We would therefore not play one of the other teams.
We actually won four of our six matches. That would ordinarily be good enough to allow us to squeak into the overall awards, but these results were unusual. One team lost all its matches. Unfortunately we were beaten badly in the last match by a team that was well behind us. I was very tired at that point, and I struggled mightily to maintain my concentration. Jim and Mike said that six days of bridge—they did not take Thursday off—had taken the toll on them as well.
We ended up with 60 victory points—exactly average. I was surprised to discover that we had defeated both the first- and second-place teams. We were mired in the next group. It was small consolation that we won a slightly larger match award than any of them.
All in all, this was one of my most successful regional tournaments. I had a pretty good time. I would play with Helen again if I had the chance.
The Marriott Hotel in Newton.
I was not enthusiastic of playing in the regional in Newton, MA, that was scheduled for June 17-22 at the Marriott Hotel. The Individual Regional was formerly held there every January. I did not have many fond memories of that event.6 The drive there was sometimes difficult, especially in the vicinity of the hotel. I don’t think that I had ever stayed at the hotel, and I had no intention of paying Marriott prices this time.
Abhi asked me to play in the Bracketed Pairs scheduled for Saturday. Later Ann Hughes asked me if Eric and I would want to play with her and Bob in the Open Swiss on Wednesday. So, I sort of reluctantly agreed to commute twice.
Google Maps said that the drive to the hotel would take about ninety minutes. I planned to leave 7:45. However, My wife Sue heard something on the television about heavy fog. She advised me to leave earlier and expect visibility problems.
I left a little before 7:30. I had no problems at all with visibility. I saw remarkably little traffic on either 190 or I-84. The going was also pretty easy on the Mass Pike. I was on target for a 9:00 arrival when all of a sudden all three lanes were filled with cars as far as the eye could see, and they were all stationary. My Honda inched its way through a couple of miles of this.
I was not sure what the original cause of the bottleneck was. At one point a bevy of vehicles, most of which were displaying flashing red and blue lights, had made camp off the the right of the road. After that the driving was much easier, but there were still a few delays. I was near the hotel when I got a phone call from Eric. I returned his call after I parked my car in the huge lot at 9:45. It was a good thing that I left fifteen minutes early.
I eventually found all three teammates. By the time that I grabbed a cup of coffee and made my way to table A6 I was quite frazzled. I went over my cheat sheet for Eric for a minute or two. I felt fairly comfortable with what we were playing, but in no way did I feel ready to play bridge.
There were three boards on our table, an indication that we would be playing eight matches with six boards each. The director announced that there were fifteen teams, which meant that teams 13, 14, and 15 played three-way matches in the first two rounds.
Our first opponents were Paul Simon (really!) and a woman whom I did not know. On the first hand Eric opened 1♣. I had a really weak hand with four spades and six diamonds headed by the KQ. I bid a spade. I hoped that Eric bid 1NT. We had an easy way for me to sign off in 2♦. If he raised my spades, I would pass. Unfortunately, what he did bid was 2♥, a reverse that indicated that he had a strong hand with more clubs than hearts.
Our card said that we played lebensohl when a reverse is initiated. I wanted to sign of in diamonds at the lowest possible level. To accomplish this I first bid 2NT. Eric was required to bid 3♣, but he forgot about lebensohl. Instead he bid 3NT. I understood the situation, but I decided to pass for two reasons. In the first place there was no guarantee that Eric would pass if I bid 4♦. The second one involved the First Rule of Holes: When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.
I got to play this horrible 3NT contract. It was worse than I even imagined Eric’s points were concentrated in the red suits. We had no stopper in either clubs or spades. The opponents took the first nine tricks. We were down five for a 500-point penalty. What a terrible start!.
After that Paul, sitting in the East chair, declared the other five hands. That meant that I had to find the lead on five consecutive hands. During one of those less memorable hands a brouhaha ensued at table A2, which was quite close to ours. Elayne Kadis, who was playing with her husband, Ken, complained loudly about something. The director immediately came to the table and warned her about Zero Tolerance violations. She continued talking and the director assigned some sort of punishment.
I was severely distracted by this. I recognized Elayne, or rather her voice8. Despite the distraction, things seemed to go better for us after the first hand. Nevertheless, I did not think that we had a prayer of winning the match.
However, when Bob and Ann returned to our table to compare scores, we were shocked when they announced +500 for hand #13, our first hand. It turned out that North had opened 1NT, which Eric and I never do with a five-card major, and his partner had responded 2NT, which was intended as a transfer to diamonds. North, however, forgot the convention and bid 3NT. So, South had to play the same horrible contract that I did. We ended up winning the match by eleven points.
In the second match two amazing coincidences happened. East played the first two hand, which made seven hands in a row that I had to make the opening lead. The other was that on the following hand I played another horrendous 3NT contract. In hearts Eric held Kx; I had Ax. We had good clubs and diamonds, but we were missing three aces. I went down four. Once again, the opponents at the other table were in the same contract, but our teammates’ failure to lead a heart at trick one gave them enough tempo to take nine tricks.
So, after nine hands West and North (Eric) had played no hands, East had played seven with mixed results, and I had played two for a total of nine undertricks!
At the lunch break we were 2-2. I overheard someone say that it was necessary to pay for parking at the hotel’s front desk. I had left my ticket in the car, and so I retrieved it at lunch and paid it. On my way back to the playing area I passed the area where Elayne was entertaining some other people with the story about her (not their) financial adviser reporting that she and her husband had too much money.
I spent most of the break by myself eating my roast beef sandwich, grapes, and potato chips. Eric joined me for a few minutes. I am not sure what Ann and Bob did.
We won the first two matches after lunch by two points each. We then lost to the best team by ten, and I guess it was my fault. Eric preempted 3♣. The opponents bid to 4♣. No one was vulnerable. I held QTx of clubs and not much else. I figured that we had ten clubs and they had ten spades. If so, 5♣ was safe. Unfortunately, Eric preempted with a weak hand and only six trumps. He went down five, and we lost the match by 10 IMPs.
We won the last match by 10, but it was not enough. we won five matches, but we just missed making the overalls.
The drive back was very slow for the first ten or fifteen miles, but it picked up after that. I was thankful for the weather—cloudy but no rain. A thunderstorm had been predicted, but it never materialized. This was definitely a blessing. The lines for the lanes on the Mass Pike—where they existed at all—were best described as light grey on medium grey. I would have had a very difficult time discerning them if they were wet.9
The drive on Saturday was not nearly as bad. I arose from bed at 5:00, which was certainly too early. I left the house at about 7:15, fifteen minutes earlier than on Wednesday. The weather was fine, and the traffic was much lighter than on Wednesday. The only problem that I encountered was in obtaining my breakfast. When I stopped at McDonald’s in West Stafford, I was shocked to hear they they had no meat products. The employee tried to interest me in something without me, but I had a two-word answer: “No score!”
I considered stopping in Sturbridge or the Burger King. I rejected the former because I reckoned that it would add fifteen minutes to my trip, and I had not liked the BK breakfasts the one time that I tried them. Instead, I decided to stop at the first rest area on the Mass Pike in Charlton. I had a vague recollection that the drive-through entrance for McD’s was in the southwest corner of the parking lot. I therefore steered the Honda in that direction and into the long approach to the first window—there was nothing like the ordering stations that were prevalent in other McD’s locations.
However, when I got to the first window, no one was in attendance. Likewise, the second window was not populated. I therefore drove the car to the small parking lot on the east side of the gas station and walked into the building. There was only one couple in line at McD’s, but they had apparently never been to such a place. They spent several minutes discussing what they wanted. They then placed their orders one at a time. The man, who went second, had a difficult time deciding after his wife had placed her order. In short, they did not behave like typical fast-food devotees.
I finally got my sandwich and consumed it while I was driving on the Pike. It was very tasty, but it cost nearly $1 more than what was charged in West Stafford, which in turn was $1 higher than what I was accustomed to paying in Hartford.
I arrived at the hotel parking lot at the ridiculous time of 8:43. It was easy to find a “pull-through” parking space that I could exit by driving forward.
The hotel staff had just put out the free coffee and breakfast treats. I got a cup of the former and took a seat inside the huge ballroom. I was confused about the event that Abhi and I would be playing in. I thought that we were playing in the Bracketed Pairs, whereas his email clearly mentioned that a “good pair” had asked him to play with them. So, I spent more than an hour on the lookout for him in the wrong area.9 At 9:50 I called Abhi, but his phone must have been turned off. A minute or so later he located me and directed me to the back room—the same area in which the Open Swiss had been held on Wednesday.
I gave Abhi my credit card, and he bought our entry. We were team #13 out of 16, one more than on Wednesday. Abhi introduced me to our teammates Stan Tuhrim and Betty Mintz. They were from New York City, but apparently they also had a residence in Pittsfield, MA. They were not very talkative.
In the first round we had the misfortune of playing against the team of four Chinese guys who ended up winning the event. I did not know who they were, but one of them recognized my name. He thought that I had been president of the district. I told him that I only sent out the emails. We lost that match by 18 IMPs. We lost thee second match to Don Caplin’s team by 21 IMPs. Betty was upset at Don’s behavior during the round; I don’t know the specifics.
I expected easy competition in the third round, but we actually faced two good players, Paul Harris and Peter Clay. Their teammates were also pretty good, but we prevailed by 3 IMPs.
Our worst round was the fourth one. We lost to a team that included Charlotte Bailey by one lousy IMP. I was surprised by the results. I played both of the hands that generated our 18 IMPs in the + column..
As usual, all of my teammates disappeared during the lunch break. I spent most of my time with Charlotte Bailey and her husband, Alan Godes. They did not have much to say. They both had cans of Diet Coke. I knew that I would need a caffeine boost for the afternoon. I asked Alan where they got the drinks. He said that they got them from home. I asked him if he would mind going home to get me one. For some reason that notion did not appeal to him.
The friendliest round that we had was the first after lunch. We played against Shirley Wagner and another woman from Central Mass. I assured Shirley that she was Sue’s favorite person in the world. We won, but only by 3 imps. In the sixth round we played against Dottie Kelleher and Dan Morgenstern. I thought that we held our own except on one hand in which I went down in a 3NT contract sitting South. The contract is unbeatable if North plays it. I still could have made it if I had played dummy’s ♥K on the first trick. Even so we would have lost the match, but by 7 IMPs, not 18.
This hand merits a little more analysis. I opened 1♦. Abhi raised to 2, a strong bid. I bid 2♠, which shows a stopper in spade but nothing in hearts. Abhi, with a game-forcing hand, a good club stopper and Kx in hearts could have (and probably should have) bid 3NT. Instead he showed the club stopper. I could have (and probably should have) bid 3♦ , but I had a minimal hand, and I certainly did not want him to bid 5♦. So, I bid 3NT myself and hoped for the best.
We finally got our machine in gear by defeating the team that finished last by 26 IMPs. Before the match they were ahead of us.
Our reward for the victory was to play Geof Bord and Alan Watson in the last round. There were two swing hands. On the first one Abhi went down in a 3NT contract that was made at the other table. On the other one Geof and Alan bid and made a slam using part of the Wolff Signoff convention that I was not familiar with. Alan’s second bid was 2NT. Geof initiated the convention with a bid of 3♣. Alan was required to bid 3♦. Usually, the next bid is a pass or a signoff. In this case, however, Geof bid 3NT, which indicated slam interest and support for opener’s minor suit. They ended up in 6♣. I was impressed.
I was also impressed by my play in the one hand that I declared. I was extremely tired, but I kept myself together enough to take twelve tricks in a notrump contract. My counterpart at the other table only took ten. So, we earned 2 imps on that hand. Overall, however, we lost by 27 IMPs, just short of a blitz.
So we won only three matches out of eight. I did not particularly like playing with our teammates. Perhaps they thought that we were not holding up our end. There were a lot of really good teams. I thought that our result was commensurate with our play.
I did not enjoy the experience. I did not get to know our teammates at all. Abhi, who is a deliberate player, and I spent a lot of time waiting for them to finish the hands. We got to talk with our opponents a lot more than we did with the teammates.
I was pulled over by a Massachusetts state cop on my way home. He said that my car nearly ran into his when I changed lanes. He must have been in the blind spot of my left mirror, but I am at a loss to explain how he got there without my noticing him. On the Interstates I usually keep a close watch on what is going on behind me. He only gave me a warning.
Warwick
Norwich
1. The erroneous CofC was still available through Google as of April of 2025.
2. Prior to 2020 the GNT Flight B qualifier always was spread over two days. The second day was a four-team knockout. There was no GNT in 2020. In 2021 through 2024 it had been held online using a format that I tolerated in 2021. I planned to play in 2022, but the pair that had agreed to play with Ken Leopold and me reneged on the agreement. I was not eligible for Flight B in 2023 and 2024.
3. She went by Helen, but her real name was Elena DiBissi Benson. She was born in the Abruzzo region of Italy. I told her that I had been there. It was true, but on the South Italy bus tour that Sue and I took in 2011 we only drove through the southern part of the region on our way from Tivoli to Vieste.
4. I happened to overhear David, while he was talking with Eric and Jeff about the card that they would be playing, mention that he was born and raised in Southbridge, and his father was the town attorney.
5. The last Individual Regional was held January 6-8, 2016. At that time I think that the hotel was a Holiday Inn. The district was the only district in North America that was still holding such an event. It was discontinued because the attendance at the two-session individual events (in which each player plays with a large number of different partners) had not been good in the previous few years. The event, which I heavily publicized in emails, drew over forty tables, much better than in previous years. In the last individual on Saturday, January 7, I was in first place out of the 160+ participants. I had played OK in the morning, but I had made one mistake that was so horrible that I had to apologize to my partner. Nevertheless, I somehow record a game of over 68 percent. In the afternoon I played even better, and one of my partners was a World Champion, Pat McDevitt. Nevertheless my score plummeted into the low forties, and I did not even make the overalls.
7. At one time the behavior on the bridge circuit was apparently disruptive before I began playing seriously. A “zero-tolerance” policy was implemented by the ACBL and enforced rather strictly. Behavior since that time has been exemplary for the most part.
8. I had a previous run-in with Elayne Kadis before the pandemic. It was an Open Swiss in, I believe, Nashua, NH. She was playing with exactly the same team—her husband, Steve Gladyszak, and Barbara Murphy.
The district had for a few years enforced a policy designed to speed up play in Swiss events: a player could decide not to play the last hand in a round if there was a danger of not being able to finish the hand and turn in results before time expired.
In the match against the Kadises Elayne, sitting South, had played the first five hands. I was West. My counterpart at the other table was Steve Gladyszak, a very fine play who also played very fast. I did not want to declare a hand with only a few minutes remaining when he might have declared it with plenty of time to think.
When I exercised my option not to continue Elayne loudly protested and then called the director, Marilyn Wells from New Jersey. She evidently did not know the district’s policy and ruled that we had to play the hand, and she penalized our team!
David Metcalf.
I later reported this to the head director, David Metcalf. He was very surprised that this happened. He also asked me who the director was.
Incidentally Ken Kadis was silent or at least soft-spoken during both of these incidents.
9. This was a reference to my cataracts. I had surgery scheduled for August and September.
10. It was not a complete waste of time. I was able to go over in my mind the convention card that I would be playing with Abhi, and I also had a few minutes to talk with Joe Brouillard, a good friend whom I had hardly talked with in the last five years.
The first year of my three-year term on the Hartford Bridge Club’s Board of Trustees has been posted here.
Ben Bishop.
The officers for fiscal 2023 were John Willoughby (president), Ben Bishop (vice-president), Eric Vogel (treasurer), and Ann Lohrand (secretary). The first three were new. The new trustees were Rob Stillman and Diane Tracy. The returning trustees were Nancy Calderbank, Carole Amaio, Bill Wininger, and myself.
I was unable to attend the first meeting on November 15, 2022, because I had committed to play in the first Spectacle Regional in Southbridge, MA, with Sally Kirtley. It was a pretty big mistake to schedule the meeting for the first day of the nearest regional tournament.
A new computer was purchased for the office. Ben installed it.
The mentoring program was again active. The Sunday High-Low game has been a successful adjunct to it.
The club decided to investigate holding a limited sectional in the Spring. Linda Starr was running it. I told her that I would help with publicity. The board also approved her idea for a game with a celebratory aspect on the afternoon of December 31.
December
1. My adventures at this tournament have been recorded here.
