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Play Your Cards Right

y

ou could be a winner
if you play your cards
right. This advice
applies not only to life in gen-
eral, but to the actual playing of
card games.
There is an upsurge in the
interest in cards lately, which one
can see by the proliferation of
poker-related events. A IN staff
writer, Harry Kirsbaum, wrote
a cover story on poker players
in the metro area. The reality
show on Vegas poker games has
quite a,following. Shop-by-mail
catalogues feature special chips,
table tops, etc., that can be pur-
chased to enhance your Saturday
night rivalries.
Even my grandson Jake had a
poker party for his last birthday;
it's an in thing with 10-year-olds.
I recall many card games that
were popular when I was a lad.
Needless to say, I was never very

good at any of them. I
always got stuck with the
Old Maid. My hand got
welts from losing at Slap
Jack. Somehow, I always
managed to give away
all the good cards at Go
Fish. .
When I was older, I
found that I just did not
have a mind for cards.
Narishkeit — foolish-
ness — I could remem-
ber, but what cards were played?
Never.
Friends gave up trying to
teach me to play bridge the fiest
time I asked, "Are these funny
little things the Clubs?" Cribbage
meant that you had to be able to
count; that left me out from the .
get-go.
I recall liking Canasta, until I
found that my mother liked to
make up her own rules as the

This Week

game progressed
and it was virtu-
ally impossible to
follow them and
play meaningfully.
did manage to
do fairly well at
Concentration
and I only fell for
playing 52 Pick
Up twice. (I told
you I was slow on
the uptake.)
The history of playing cards
has some interesting side notes.
Supposedly the king of hearts
'represented Charlemagne; the
king of diamonds was Julius
Caesar; the king of clubs,
Alexander the Great; the king of
spades, the Bible's King David.
These designations, according to
the United States Playing Card
Company, were bestowed by the
French. These folks also gave us

Horsing Around

Emmy Bound?

T

he Friends of Camp Mak-A-Dreain, Michigan Chapter, want
you to go to the Emmy Awards on Aug. 7 in Los Angeles.
Each raffle ticket you buy increases your chances and also
helps more children and young adults with cancer attend Camp Mak-
A-Dream, a cost-free camp in Montana on land donated by Harry
and Sylvia Granader of Beverly Hills. Last summer, 67 campers from
Michigan attended the camp in Montana.
The raffle's grand prize is two tickets to the Emmy Awards, two
roundtrip tickets to Los
Angeles, two. nights at
the Park Hyatt Hotel
and a three-day car
rental; second prize is
a $500 Best Buy ift
card; third prize is a
$100 Blockbuster gift
card. Tickets are $25
each, with a limit of
2,000 tickets to be sold.
Winners, who' must be
at least age 18, will be
selected June 16 and
notified by mail.
To purchase tickets,
contact Lauren Altman,
Friends of Camp .Mak-A-
Dream, (248) 539-9970
or at friendsofcamp@
msn.com .

— Keri Guten Cohen, story development editor

the suits we currently use.
Americans began making
their own cards around 1800
and refined them to introduce
double headed court cards to
avoid the nuisance of turning
the figure upright, varnished
surfaces for durability and
smoothness in shuffling and
rounded corners to avid the
wear that players inflict on
square corners.
Card games can be used to
teach counting and concentra-
tion and interaction. They do
'not have to involvethe "evils" of
gambling. Cards can be a lot of
fun.
I recall being told once that
I was a card — and should be
dealt with. See, they can also be
a source of humor — such as it
is.

Summer Fun

Planning a vacation? You'll
want to check out our "Summer
Fun" special section. It's chock
full of trip ideas in and around
Michigan.

Just visit JNonline.
us and click on the
Summer Fun button on
the right.

Gas Pump Blues

With gas prices climbing near
$3 a gallon, it's painful to pull in
for a fill-up. How are you deal-
ing with the situation? Want to
find the best gas prices?

Visit JNonline.us and
click on the "Gas Pump
Blues" button to share
your strategies and find
the best deals at the
pump.

Your Ticket
To Win

Win 2 _free passes to
Emagine Theatre in Novi.
Last week's winner was Anita* .
Resnick of Farmington Hills. You
can win, tool

Enter to win by visit-
ing JNonline.us and
click on the "Win 2 Free
Tickets..." button on the
right.

You Voted

Elizabeth and William Shatner chat with Israel's Minister of

Tourism Isaac Herzog about therapeutic horse-riding pro-

grams in Israel.

Who do you think should have
won American Idol?
Katharine McPhee - 31%
Taylor .Hick - 46%
Neither - 23%

This week's question: Do you

•

ctor William Shatner, famous as Capt. James T.
Kirk of television's Star Trek and more recently
as a quirky attorney on Boston Legal, showed up
in Israel recently with his wife, Elizabeth, to promote Jewish
National Fund's Therapeutic Riding Consortium Endowment
that benefits 30 Israeli therapeutic riding centers that treat
children with disabilities and help them to recuperate physi-
cally and mentally: He hopes to raise $30 million for the pro-
grams. Shatner has long been a breeder of quarter horses.
Israel's Minister of Tourism Isaac Herzog hosted the
Shatners at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem. This is their
second trip to Israel.

support Ehud Olmert's pull-out
plan for the West Bank?

Visit the JTonline.us
homepage to cast your
vote.

June i - 2006

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