My son, an excellent bridge player, convinced me to compete with him in the Nationals bridge tournament, being held in San Francisco this week. We spent Sunday playing 48 hands of competitive bridge (at the lowest level), and for the last half, we competed as a team with a father and son we met and played against that morning. We won our section, which was terrific, all the more so because the son on the other team was 11 years old! To give you a sense of how intimidating this event was, here is one of two ballrooms full of competitors:
All in all it was an exhausting but exciting experience, capped with a small trophy for our win. And if that wasn’t enough, that night Larry and I went to hear Ramblin’ Jack Elliot at the Freight and Salvage. Ramblin’ Jack does ramble a bit, not just geographically, but story wise–still it’s great to hear a Brooklyn native who made himself into a itinerant cowboy folk guitarist after meeting Woddy Guthrie. Seems like he’s had a pretty interesting life, too.