It wasn’t unexpected. Eight or ten nearby neighbors in Alexandria Township, all close friends enjoying a night of cards. Raucous? Absolutely! The festivities accompanied by intermittent cocktails, almost needless to say. Great dinner prepared by the hosts.

We do this intermittently, as long as we’ve been able to recover from the gut-splitting laughter of the occasion before this one. Yes, there are some funny things said, nothing off-color, of course.

The hosts house is charming, surreal at the same time. Constructed in +-1830, one immediately would love to eavesdrop on the domestic conversation of the day. What might they have been talking about? There are clues.

The fireplace, large enough for a standing crouch, has a swinging bracket upon which hangs a huge iron cooking pot. If the cook of the house couldn’t get a stew going in there, where would he.

Or, maybe they talked politics in the house. Andrew Jackson had just been elected President. Major General Jackson was a divisive character. Owner of multiple slaves, he survived an impeachment trial, but the Senate didn’t convict him. At least he provided plenty of juicy controversy for folks to banter about.

I can’t help the effects that a house like this has on me. How can one avoid imaginings of those times. Here’s hoping that mine are reasonably accurate.

But I digress. We were there to play cards, a game called Pass the Ace. The Ace is the anathema to your hand. Be rid of it, no matter the cost.

Minimal money is won or lost in the game, that is the way we play it. Sufficient only to hear the occasional comment from one of the players, wondering how they will now feed their family, what with the pummeling they just took !