Have you ever wondered what life would be like without tradition? Some traditions go back centuries, Church, Christmas, Passover, birthdays, Independence day at the same time each of us develop our own, watching Christmas vacation on thanksgiving night, Final 4 basketball brackets, drinking a shot of Jack on March 15^th, and of course our trips to Kiawah. What really make a tradition are the events which repetitiously occur within the tradition, for example Fireworks, baking and also frying a turkey, gallons of lighter fluid to start the barbecue, and poker.   Traditions are as diverse as the day is long and range from the secular to religious to personal, but they all have one thing in common “Family”.

As I always start out.. A couple of years ago, after an exhilarating day of sun/water/sand, recovering from the gourmet dinner we just in hailed, suggestions were made to play poker! Our group ranges from expert to novice.  So in order level the playing field we had to get the novices up to the level of the experts. This was going to be our first challenge, with our second being finding the tools of the trade: cards and chips. We soon located a deck of cards, believe it or not it had the correct number of cards (47) but in both condos, there were no poker chips to be found. What is the sense of playing poker without knowing who are the winners or losers?  I suggested that we have family time and play fish or hearts or something like that, as one could imagine, I was pelted with a hand full of door-eats, as they cascaded from my body a brilliant member of our clan, said “why don’t we use the door-eats as the chip”! Now we had our official deck of cards and regulation poker chip this enabled us to commence our training of the novices. Our training regiment began by playing several hands while explaining the finer points of poker, eventually the novices felt comfortable, we opened a bag, grabbed the beverage of choice and the game began. The game progressed very well, the chips were moving around the table as one would expect, and some individual’s piles grew, while the others reduced. It became difficult over time to make a judgment as to why some piles were getting smaller. Could it have been that the person was losing, or hungry?  Everyone was starting to relax and really act like they were enjoying, as I glanced around the table, over the POP cans I became very concerned. One of our players only had one chip remaining! There were several consequences of one player loosing that final chip and not one of them being acceptable. Were they going to be told that they loose and now they would have to leave the table? Or would they have to get down on their knees and beg someone for a loan? Or would this disaster just end the game.  What an intriguing dilemma! As I was contemplating this dilemma, the last chip was bet and subsequently lost the fear of what do was now a reality! My heart skip a beat as suddenly there was an authoritative pound on the table, as if someone was infuriated, was there cheating, or afraid to be labeled a “looser”, or upset with the conversation? Oh!  To the contrary, the dilemma was resolved with one crushing blow! One chip was now twenty chips. The game continued, as the mounds of POP cans became mountains, just as those with capable vision were borrowing reading glasses in order to manage their chips. We continued for what seemed like hours and finally the game came to its demise. Today I am not sure who calls an end to the game, or why, all I can do is speculate that either the chips are too small or the mountain of cans is too high. As we play the game our conversations have a tendency to splinter in every direction which at times results in disagreement, but after a long night we all agree on one thing we are all winners, for we are many with one heart. Except for the poor sap that has to clean up all the chips/ cans/glasses before they enjoy the sun/water/sand.

Words of wisdom: 

When the chips are down remember that you can always turn to family to get you back in the game.