Last night we celebrated the New Year. Gma brought her deck of cards to play Pinochle; ("Any card-game lover will agree that when it comes to the most challenging game, pinochle takes the cake, the baker and the bakery. But they will also agree that this fast-paced game is a complete entertainer and an addiction hard to give up. The game is complex, no doubt, and has several variations attached to it. Let’s take a look at what the game is all about." Taken from a googled site about Pinnochle.) a game stemming from the French word binocle meaning "glasses" but we Americans mispelled and mis- prounounced it when the Germans came over and shared it with us. So poor Mary Lu had to try and teach four of us how to play the "strategic, nuanced" game of: Pinochle. After doing her best to help those of us who offered to learn, it became apparant that we weren't gonna get it before 2011. My sister in law broke the news to her that maybe another night would be better cause she and The Torment were going home pretty quick. I asked: "So Gma, Would you rather Play the game 'Would You Rather' or play Pinochle?" "I'd rather play this, but not with you guys." !!!!!!!!!!! Ouch. When a woman with Parkinson's can play a game of cards and stay up later than you says that.... Instead of Blurt, Would You Rather or Apples to Apples, my family hones in on what the game we really excell at more than most: story telling, quoting movie lines, and raw jokes involving each other. This game usually takes turns, but if you dominate with say Ace Accusations or are the King of Comeback, you might not win. So in our defense, you gotta play this game a lot if you are gonna keep on your toes. Pinochle takes away from being in on this quick paced battle of wit. We all went into the living room, where the chiefs were sitting, and settled into a the continual round of 'The Game'. Sometimes real life, sad and devastating news of others is shared. The Torment retold a story of picking up a body when he worked for a local funeral home that was as haunting as Dickens' Christmas Carol. Mary Lu followed with a story that happened either at the end of the 1800's or early 1900's that topped the Torment's gruesome event. Off of Idaho State Route 34, in Franklin County, is the place of my Great Grandpa Ed's famous childhood stories. They (some local people around Cleveland) found a dead body that was frozen in the sitting up position. At the time there was only a post office, school, store and LDS church. So they placed the body by the pot bellied stove in the church put hot rocks on the body to keep it in a horizontal position and waited for it to "meld" (a Pinochle term but used differently here)into good burial position. For whatever reasons, they had a dance. When I asked Gma why, she said, probably to pass the time while they waited for the body to thaw. There wasn't much in the town so you can see that the church was useful for several reason. The teens didn't know about the dead body, laying there while they danced the night away, when they were rounded up for the party. Great thuds on the dance floor brought all of their attention to the silent wall flower by the stove. Needless to say all the party goers were shocked to see a "man slowly rising." As not to stay too long on the doom and gloom of death, Gma segued to another story her Daddy told her that his buddies played on him. It, too, involved a dead body. I didn't consider the easy access to dead bodies back then would be a card the youngsters would exploit, but have since learned a thing, or two. Not knowing the particulars other than Ed's pals asked the local store owner, housing a dead body in his cooler, if they could put a sheet on it and play a prank on their friend, Mary Lu recanted the old tale. Ed, followed his friends into the store, back to the cooler and obediently pulled back the white sheet. Falling to his knees he prayed outloud that the Lord would strike his friends dead. Never hearing this story or not filing it away into memory, I shrieked. After I'd covered my mouth for a second, looked at the calm collected chiefs as if nothing were spectacular, I asked: "Who were his friends?" Shaking her head she said: "I don't know, Mandy." lacing her trembling hands together to steady them, "All I know was that one of 'em was Ern Porter." Around that point Grandpa looked at his watch and said to his son next to him on the couch (Padre: "That heater of yours went damn near three minutes." So Grandma, won The Game, outbesting the clever quips of my brothers, who had stayed for awhile then left for their parties. Grandpa, the softy, stayed up til midnight with her, and had Gma come sit next to him as they watched the ball dropped. -At least that is what mom said he did cause I turned in a little after 10.