2008-2019 Partners at the Hartford Bridge Club Part 1

Posted on December 1, 2021 by Mike

Regular partners at the HBC. Continue reading →

Preparation: For several years I have maintained a spreadsheet that contained one line per bridge partner. I only kept track of ones with whom I had played at least one complete session at a sanctioned game. I also had bookmarked the ACBL’s web page that contained the records of club games. However, when I started working on this entry, I was disappointed to discover that the link no longer worked. So, I have needed to rely on my memory more than I hoped.

This document contains stories about partnered with whom I played several times. Part 2 (posted here) describes the ones that I met through the mentoring program or the High-Low game on Sundays and people that I only played with once or twice.

The HBC: The Hartford Bridge Club (HBC) was founded in 1931. It is the oldest continuously operating bridge club in North America. Its headquarters since October 1995 has been at 19A Andover Drive in West Hartford. I played my first game at the club and became a member on January 1, 2008. My partner that afternoon was Dick Benedict (introduced here), with whom I had been playing on Wednesday evenings at the Simsbury Bridge Club (SBC) for several years. At the time the club was charging $30 for a membership. The table fee was $5 for members and $6 for others. At the time I had only been playing in Simsbury. I joined the HBC because I had been asked to play in the games it ran on Tuesday evenings and Saturday afternoons. So, I figured that if I kept to that schedule all year¹, it would be a good dealT

The person who asked me to play was Tom Gerchman. In preparation for playing with him I taught myself thirteen conventions that I had found in a book by William S. Root and Richard Pavlicek. I also bought Michael Lawrence’s CD about 2/1 (pronounced “two over one”), the set of bidding principles used by most players at the HBC and at tournaments. He had played 2/1 with his previous partner, Mary Witt², and I eventually persuaded him to play it with me as well. At this point I knew enough conventions to be comfortable playing with nearly any new partner.

Tom drove a red BMW convertible. Between 2008 and 2023 he has purchased several new cars. Each one was a red BMW convertible. The license plate was GERCH. On trips he liked to drive, but the back seat was uninhabitable. If we were playing in a team game, the BMW was not big enough to hold four people. He borrowed his mother’s car.

I soon discovered that Tom wanted to play with me because Mary had resigned from their partnership. She wasn’t angry at him; she just did not like sitting across the table from him. I learned this when Tom and I played in a knockout with Mary and Ruth Tucker³ as teammates in the regional tournament in Danbury, CT. We made it to the semifinals of our bracket. After we had been eliminated Tom kept telling Ruth, “I got you gold!”

That evening the four of us went out for supper. I learned at that meal that Ruth had been a small child in Nazi Germany during the Kristallnacht in 1938. She was surprised that I knew quite a bit about the event. I had read about it when I had researched the backgrounds of two popes⁴, Pius XI and Pius XII, who had both been in Germany during Hitler’s rise to power. Tom had never heard of it.

For quite some time I enjoyed playing with Tom for several reasons. The first was that he liked to go to tournaments, and so did I. In addition, he was still working⁵, which meant that he could only play in evening games, and on weekends and holidays. That schedule conformed to mine. However, he was an avid golfer. So, in nicer weather he played less bridge. I also like the fact that he was not averse to learning new conventions. Bidding has always been my favorite aspect of the game.

At the SBC Tom occasionally played with his mother, Sue. He was sometimes pretty hard on her when she made mistakes. Wen she died in 2012 (obituary here) I was still playing regularly with Tom, and I went to her wake. I was the only bridge player who attended, but a number of Tom’s golf buddies were there.

After the evening games Tom and a small group of the other players went to the Corner Pug in West Hartford to discuss the hands and drink. Tom might have eaten a very late supper. I don’t think that he cooked, and he was not married.

It took me a while to realize it, but Tom definitely was obsessive-compulsive in some ways. For example we played together on two separate days at the NABC held in Boston in 2008. I discovered that he had memorized in terms of minutes how long it took to get to the site of the tournament from several spots on the route. Furthermore, on the day that I drove I let him off to register us while I parked the car. He insisted that I must park in precisely the same spot that he had used on the previous day. Just to be peevish I parked in the same spot, but one floor lower.

On that occasion we played in an Open Swiss with a pair from the partnership desk. We won our first round against a team from Connecticut. After that it was one humiliating defeat after another. Our teammates were upset at us. We beat a hasty retreat after the last round.

I heard from Mary Witt that Tom read the Hartford Courant every morning and always started with the obituaries. She also said that he had a huge stack of old newspapers in his house. I never went to his house, and so I cannot verify this.

Tom was much more obsessed with the scores than I was. He was pretty hard on me at club games, but he very seldom talked during rounds at tournaments. He also stayed after club games and audited the scores. He once told me that he loved to check calculations. He confided once that he should have been an auditor.

I was still playing with Tom at the time of my Life Master parties at the HBC and the SBC in early 2010. I remember that he gave a little speech at the HBC in which he talked about my habit of sending him emails about what I thought we could have done to do better in the previous game. In my acceptance speech I thanked every single partner that I had had at that point. I thanked Tom for teaching me “that in a six-team Howell, you don’t play against the pair that you follow and the pair that follows you.”

I don’t have any great memories of playing with Tom. We did not do very well at most tournaments. Eventually, I stopped playing with him. I just could not stand the fact that he said and did the same things over and over and over and over. He also talked about the hands too much in club games while we were still playing. I found myself pounding the steering wheel while driving home after playing with him. Fifteen years later I still react negatively to the sound of his voice.

Actually, I quit twice. After the first time he persuaded me to try again. It took me very little time to realize that he was never going to change. I quit again.

I still teamed up occasionally with him for team games. We had much better results when I did not have to sit across from him.

Tom invited me and Sue to the party that he threw for himself on his sixtieth birthday. It was at a restaurant on the west side of town. He was celebrating the fact that he had survived that long. Apparently both his only brother and his father had died from heart attacks when they were in their fifties.

After my partnership with Tom was dissolved, on most Tuesday evenings I played with Michael Dworetsky. He had been playing for quite a while before I returned to the world of bridge, but he had only occasionally played in tournaments. I never was quite sure why he had avoided tournaments before I began playing as his partner.

I have several vivid memories of playing with Michael. We drove to a sectional in Johnston, RI, and did well enough to finish first in the C Flight in the afternoon session of the Open Pairs. As the director read the results, I said to Michael, “Let’s see how he does with our last names.” He butchered both of them.

The most catastrophic mistake of my bridge career occurred in the penultimate round of the Flight C qualifying tournament for the Grand National Teams (GNT). We were definitely in contention when Michael made a Help Suit Game try by bidding 3♣. I needed to bid 4♠ if I thought that we could take ten of the thirteen tricks or 3♠ if not. I considered all that I knew about the hand and finally decided that we probably did not have enough. Unfortunately, I did not bid 3♠, I mistakenly passed, leaving Michael in a ludicrous club contract.

I played with Michael when he made Life Master in a sectional in Westchester County. He drove us into New York City to a deli to celebrate. I had a Reuben sandwich; he had pastrami. We had a great time, but it cost him a fortune to park the car.

He almost always drove us to tournaments. On one occasion I spilled some coffee on the rug in his car. He did not yell at me, but I knew he was upset. He had a very nice car. It was the first that I had ever been in that had a both a built-in GPS and a hand-free telephone.

One of the best calls that I ever made in bridge was when Michael and I played against two ladies, one of whom needed to win the match in order to make Life Master. I opened 1♠, the lady overcalled 2♥, Michael doubled, indicating that he had a pretty good hand with clubs and diamonds. I had six spades, five hearts that included two honors, a club, and a diamond. I passed. We took the first nine tricks. She was down four for 1100 points. She did not make Life Master that afternoon.

I gave a little speech at Michael’s Life Master party. It might have been the best speech that I ever gave. It was not as effective as Urban II’s call for a crusade in 1096, but mine got more laughs. I began by claiming that Michael was a founding member of the club in 1931. I also mentioned the hole in the sole of one of his shoes.

Michael and I played together at the NABC in the summer of 2013. I posted my recollections of this adventure here. We also flew down to the Gatlinburg Regional Tournament in Tennessee in 2013. I took notes and posted them here. We won a knockout and a lot of masterpoints there.

The house in Bloomfield in which Michael lived with his wife Ellen was struck by lightning. Eventually they moved to Palm Beach Gardens, FL, but I have seen Michael at bridge tournaments in New England a few times. He usually was playing with a teaching pro named Bob Lavin.

The nicest person whom I ever met was Dave Landsberg. When I started playing on Tuesday evenings, Dave was playing regularly with Dan Koepf. I invited them to team up with Jerry Hirsch and me in Flight C of the GNT event one year. They accepted, and we did quite well. I then wrote to both of them to ask if either one wanted to play in a tournament with me. Dave responded positively, and we were partners and good friends right up until his death (obituary here) in 2016. In fact, he was planning on playing with me in the Cape Cod Senior Regional the week that he died. I wrote up my experiences at that tournament, including my thoughts about Dave, and posted them here.

Dave was on the HBC’s Board of Trustees, and I was not. I once asked him what the BoT meetings were like. He told me that at that time there was a big controversy over toilet paper. He said that the women on the board were complaining that the toilet paper in the ladies’ room was too flimsy. Dave informed me that his position was that we should give them better paper, but it was only fair that they should agree to pay higher table fees. I laughed for several minutes.

Dave and I won a couple of events together. The most memorable one was in Cromwell, CT, when Dave played with Kay Hill, and I played with Ginny Iannini (introduced here). I posted a photo⁶ of us on the District 25 website, NEBridge.org, as I did the winners of all events at D25’s regionals. When Dave’s wife Jackie saw the photo of Dave and Ginny side-by-side, she told him that he could not play with her again. When Dave told me this, we both broke out laughing. However, it made me wonder why Sue never complained about me playing with Ginny.

I was playing with Dave and three other people when I set the world standard for captaining a five-person team in a sectional Swiss in Auburn, MA. We were playing with Pat Fliakos,⁷ one of Dave’s regular partners, and a pair that we picked up at the partnership desk, Charlie Curley (introduced here) and Mike Colburn. Since Mike and Charlie were regular partners, I assigned them to play all eight rounds. Pat and Dave would play six rounds, four together and two each with me. I would play the middle four rounds. This would allow me to leave early and mow the lawn, which needed it badly. When I departed, our team’s score was slightly above average, but in my absence my four teammates won both of the last two rounds, defeating the best team in attendance in the last round. We finished third overall and first in B and C.

The accident occurred between Worcester and Springfield.

The grass did not get mowed. On the trip home my 2007 Honda was rear-ended on the Mass Pike by someone driving a rental car. I did not yet have a cellphone, but he did. He did not speak English very well, but I did. So I called 911 on his phone. After about twenty minutes a state trooper appeared. After a few minutes he told me that he had given the other man a ticket for following too closely. I already had his insurance information; he had Progressive. So, I just drove home.

A few days later a Progressive adjuster examined my car and assessed the cost to fix a small dent on one bumper at $1500. I later was contacted by someone from Avis, who had rented the car to the other driver. They said that they would accept Progressive’s assessment and asked me to settle for $2,000. I spelled my name for them, and gave them my address. The check arrived a few weeks later. Four or five years later I traded in the car. I never considered getting it fixed.

Dave’s Life Master party at the HBC was shared with Sue Rudd (introduced here). I told the above story (minus the car crash and insurance). I balanced it with the tale of the first sectional in Hamden, CT, in which Dave and I competed as partners. We finished dead last in both the morning and afternoon session. I have never heard of anyone who could match that performance.

The best time that I spent with Dave was when the two of us dined at an Italian restaurant in Hyannis, MA. I recall that I ordered the Bolognese and a glass of wine. The food was good, and the conversation was better. For some reason it was very easy to talk to and to listen to Dave. By the time that we left, we had solved the most serious of the world’s problems.

I went to Dave’s wake and the ceremony for him at Wesleyan, where he had worked. When I met Jackie, I told her that Dave really loved her. I was certain of this because he never rolled his eyes when he talked about her. I really miss him.

A photo of Dave is in the Felix Springer section of this entry.

Peter Katz and I started playing together on Saturdays and Tuesday evenings after I stopped playing with Tom Gerchman. In 2023 I still played with him whenever the HBC had a game on Saturday. We had one great showing in August of 2023, which I have documented here.

Earlier in our partnership Peter and I played together in a few sectionals that were held in the Hartford area. At one of them we happened to have the last sitout in the afternoon session, which meant that we could go home early. Before we left we picked up hand records for that session. It did not take us long to realize that some of the hands that we played did not correspond to the ones on the printout. We reported this to the director, Tim Hill. He did not tear his hair out, but I am pretty sure that I saw his bow tie spinning around.

How could this have happened? Some directors like to play “web movements” when an awkward number of pairs are playing. If, for example, thirty-eight pairs are playing, the standard way to play it would be to have two sections, one with ten tables and one with nine. Both sections would be playing nine three-board matches. Each pair would only play against nine of the other thirty-seven pairs. A web movement would allow for one very large section playing fourteen two-board rounds. This requires two identical sets of boards, and they must be handled precisely correctly, but the directors who do this are very reliable about setting them up correctly.

In this case, however, the directors were not at fault. The two sets of boards were NOT identical. I don’t know how they were able to score this, but they eventually did. The directors definitely earned their salary that day.

When I first began playing with Peter he was something of a local celebrity. He and his wife (whom I never met) attended all of the home games of the Hartford University men’s and women’s basketball teams. Peter wore outrageous wigs to the games. I never met his wife, and I only saw photos of him in his super-fan getup.

At some point in the teens the couple got divorced, and Peter stopped attending the games. The marriage must have been stressful on him. He mellowed out quite a bit after the divorce.

At first Peter and I played a version of 2/1 that was not much different from what I had played with Tom Gerchman. At some point Peter began playing on Tuesdays with one of the best players at the club, Tom Joyce. They played a version of the Kaplan-Sheinwold weak 1NT system. I agreed to learn this and play it on Saturdays with Peter. That was what we employed in our big game.

Peter served as webmaster for the HBC. In 2023 I began working with him on posting the club’s monthly calendars.

Before the Pandemic I played regularly with Felix Springer. In fact we played together (and won!) in the very last game on March 15, 2020, before the HBC closed its doors for over a year. We also played together at a few tournaments, including a week at the Fall NABC in San Francisco in 2019. We also played together on a large number of very successful teams, but I usually paired with someone else.

Felix shared his Life Master party with Ken Leopold (introduced here). They asked Dave Landsberg and me to be their teammates. Before the play started, Dave turned to me and said, “Did you read their background stories? Why are they playing with us?”

I don’t know, but it was a good idea. We won our first four rounds. In the fifth round, we faced the other unbeaten team. They had at least five times as many points as we did. It was a very close match that turned on one hand. Laurie Robbins, an excellent bridge player, and I were both West holding the same cards. We each had to make a decision similar to the catastrophic one that I had made in the GNT with Michael Dworetsky. Laurie chose to try for game and went down. I settled for the partial.

Donna Feir, the longtime club manager, said that it was the only time that she could remember that the honorees won such a game, and also the only time that they were undefeated.

Felix, as president of the HBC, guided the club through the perilous times of the Pandemic. The club had almost no income, and it still had considerable expenses. He kept everyone involved with periodic newsletter, analysis of playing bridge with robots, and walks in the park. Donna confided to me that without Felix the club probably would not have survived.

In 2022 Felix did something that I never would have expected him to do, and it hurt me deeply. The story is related here.

Ann Hudson lived across the river form Enfield in Suffield, CT, with her husband, Randy Johnson. I thoroughly enjoyed playing with both of them. The card that they played was very sophisticated. I must admit that I had a difficult time to remember the modified Manfield responses to an opponents takeout double.

For a few years Ann and I were rather regular partners for the half of the year that Ann and Randy spent in New England. The other half of the year they lived in South Carolina. In 2022 they moved from Suffield to Hadley, MA.

The only times that I got to play at the HBC with Randy were when Ann had to cancel at the last minute. It only happened a few times. He was an exceptionally good player. We played together in the open pairs in the sectional in Great Barrington, MA, one year and won the afternoon session.

I met Ann while I was working at the partnership desk at the NABC in Providence in 2014. After that we played together pretty regularly at sectional, regional, and NABC tournaments and occasionally at the HBC if she could get away from her chores on their mini-farm.

I usually stopped at the McDonald’s on the south side of Hazard Ave. on the way to either their house in Suffield or at the Hampton Inn that was about halfway between us. On one occasion I was sitting in my blue 2007 Honda in the parking lot while I ate my sausage biscuit with egg. I had turned off the Honda’s engine while I ate. I could not get the car to start, and I did not have a cellphone yet. I had to go in to McDonald’s to use someone’s phone to call Sue, and I had to cancel my game with Ann. If was embarrassing. The best thing about Hondas is their reliability. Mine was telling me that it was time for a trade-in, and I listened.

Ann had actually been born in China. Both of her parents were university professors. They brought her to the U.S. when Ann was very young.

In 2015 my wife Sue and I decided to fly to Denver to play in the Fall NABC. Randy and Ann also planned to attend. Ann and I decided to play in two NABC events: the 0-10,000 Swiss and the 5K Blue Ribbon Pairs.

Before those events started I picked up a partner for the evening side game, Kathy Rolfe. I had met her at a previous NABC when we were both playing in the lowest level of the Life Masters Event. When we came to her table she asked me if I was related to Vic Wavada in Kansas City, and—get this—she pronounced my name correctly. It turned out that Kathy knew Vic’s wife Theresa very well, and she had mentioned that I played bridge.

Kathy and I finished near the middle in the side game. We probably should have done a little better.

I had arranged to play in the 10,000 Swiss with a woman from Arkansas named Ti Davis.⁸ I told her that I was 6-feet tall, grey-haired, and skinny, and I would have on my red and blue Barça hat. She was playing with an Asian woman whom she met at the partnership desk. Unfortunately, we were overmatched in the event and only won one or two rounds.

On the next day Ann and I teamed up with Randy and one of his regular partners to play in an Open Swiss event. In the second round we played against Leonardo Cima and Valerio Giubilo, famous players from Rome. We had a little time to talk with them before the match. They told me that they were both from Roma. I told them that it was “la mia città preferita in Italia.”

In the match Giubilo made an incorrect bid on an important hand causing them to miss a slam. Cima gave him a severe dressing-down. During the rest of the match they both spoke impeccable English, but during this post mortem Cima filled the air with Italian curse words.

We won the match, but we did not do well in the event. Giubilo and Cima won over 100 points in the tournament.

In the Mini-Blue Ribbon Pairs Ann and I played as well as we have ever played. I was very excited when we made it to the second day. We played pretty well then as well, but not quite well enough.

I was too intense for Ann in the Super Senior Pairs and Mini-Blue Ribbon Pairs at the NABC in Honolulu, as described here. She was not angry at me; I think that she felt sorry for me more than anything. After the tournament she drove to the airport and drove Sue and me to Enfield. Ann and I have played together in less stressful situations a few times since then.

I played with Michael Varhalamas a few times at the Saturday game at the HBC. I also played with him at least once in a Swiss in a sectional somewhere in Westchester County. I remember that he drove us there in his truck. Our teammates were two women from, I think, New Jersey. I don’t remember their names. Michael made the arrangements.

Twice during the game he bid dicey grand slams that I had to play. I made the first one without too much difficulty. The second one, however, was in the last round and required a squeeze—not my specialty. However, I pulled it off, and we ended up with a very good score.

Michael and his wife eventually moved to Saint Petersburg. Sue and I went to a bridge game there, and my partner, Chris Person, and I played against him in the first round of a pairs game at the local club. On one hand Chris opened 1[Suit x=”C”]. I passed with three or four points and only one or two clubs. Chris had only three clubs; it was a bloodbath. Michael recommended bidding in that situation, but only over 1[Suit x=”C”], not over any other opening bid.

Before the Pandemic I played fairly regularly at the HBC with Connie Dube ( pronounced DOO bee). I met her when she and Myrna Butler agreed to be teammates with Ken Leopold and me at a regional tournament. They were late for the first round. Helen Pawlowski and Sally Kirtley sat in for them for one or two hands. In case you are wondering, this was definitely not legal. Since Helen told me that Myrna was always late, I did not hold it against Connie.

Connie and I played at a few sectional tournaments. Her availability was quite limited because her husband was suffering from severe chronic illnesses. As of 2023 she has not resumed playing after the Pandemic.

At the HBC I have played with Joan Brault quite a few times when one of her regular partners, Mike (really Michele) Raviele or Aldona Siuta, could not play. We have never set the world on fire, but we have played together a few times in 2023.

Paul Pearson and I teamed up with Mike and Joan at a sectional Swiss in the Hartford area. I think that we did pretty well.

She was a very talented artist. She also had a grandson who was a pitcher/outfielder for the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Over the years I have played with Mary Eisenberg both at the HBC and at a few tournaments. She asked her to help her to get her Life Master designation at an upcoming regional tournament in Danbury, CT. We played together in club games at least twice so that we could accustom ourselves to each other’s styles. One of those was a STaC (Sectional Tournament at Clubs) game that we somehow won. We earned a lot of silver points for that, but Mary still needed a small fraction of a gold point.

Mary asked me to drive us to the tournament. She had apparently been in an automotive accident a few months earlier, and she was still shaky about driving, especially at night. I picked her up at a parking lot at a supermarket near her home. I never did understand why this arrangement was necessary, but I did not question it.

We played in the Golden Opportunity Pairs at the tournament. It was a two-session event limited to players with less than 750 masterpoints. At the time I was within a few points of the limit. So, I was not afraid of any of our competitors. It was safe to say that I had more tournament experience than any of them. Gold points were awarded to players who had a good combined score (known as “overalls”) for the two sessions, but a smaller amount of gold was also awarded to the pairs that finished first (both North-South and East-West) out of the ten in each section of ten tables for each session.

We did very badly in the morning. I remember interfering against a team playing Precision. The player with the strong hand doubled my bid, and it resulted in a four-digit score in the minus column. Mary did not play very well either. Our score was bad enough that we had very little chance of getting one of the overall awards. Mary was very disappointed. She asked me if I wanted to go home. Go home? I hadn’t driven all this way when there was still a chance of achieving the objective. I said that we just had to win our section in the afternoon session, and that was (at least from my perspective) a reasonable goal. If we played as well as well as we had in the STaC game, we would prevail easily.

We did much better in the afternoon. I have always had a pretty good feel for anticipating results. I reckoned that there was a pretty good chance that we might have won. You never knew for certain; someone may have received a lot of “gifts” from their opponents.

During the last round they posted the standings after the penultimate round. We checked it when we finished playing the last round. We were in first in our section, but only by one point. I thought back on the last round. On the first hand one of our opponents had made a grievous error that should have given us a good score. On the second hand we bid to the best contract, but Mary made some mistakes in the play. The third hand was mediocre, but we did avoid possible errors.

It took the directors nearly half an hour to post the final scores. Mary was beside herself with worry. They finally posted the scores. We tied for first place, and so we had to split the gold award with the other pair. Fortunately, that was just enough for Mary to become a Life Master.

On a good day the drive the hotel to Hartford took an hour.

The trip back to Hartford was in a downpour. However, my Honda had good tires, and so I was not much concerned with the water, and I still had pretty good vision for night driving. So, I was going the speed limit. I nonchalantly passed trucks that were going slower. Mary had to hide her face for most of the ride. She was terrified of another accident.

When we got to Hartford Mary could not remember how to get to the parking lot when coming from the west. We drove around for five or ten minutes before she got her bearings. Since I still had a half-hour drive to Enfield, I was annoyed by this.

Some months later the club sponsored a Life Master party for Mary. I gave a short speech that highlighted two aspects of her activities. At the time she often brought baked goods or other goodies to the club. She also cooked professionally. She even cooked for the Archbishop of Hartford for a while!

The other aspect was her fear of driving. I claimed that she had taken up racing on the Formula 1 circuit, and I held up a large picture of her alleged Ferrari. This reference went right over (or maybe under) Mary’s head, but a few people in the audience understood what I was talking about.

I may have played with Eric Vogel at the HBC more often than any other player. He started playing a few years after I did, and he amassed a terrific record. After I played with him a while I realized that he shared my interest in conventions. Together we put together a good card.

We also have played together in tournaments. We won one session of the open pairs at a sectional in Connecticut. That story has been told here. At the Presidential Regional in Southbridge, MA, in 2023 we played in Bracket 2 of the knockout. We won the qualifying Swiss very easily but only finished a very disappointing fourth. That tale of woe can be read here.

Eric is another talented artist. He also became the club’s treasurer in 2022. He has not had an easy time with accrual accounting.

Eric unobtrusively became a vegetarian at some point during our partnership. He certainly was one in 2023, but I remember that he complimented me on my chili at one of the pot-luck lunches at the HBC.

Eric’s daughter died in 2022. I went to the service at his church. His wife gave a very nice tribute.

Prior to the Pandemic I was playing at the HBC nearly every Tuesday with Partab Makhijani. I expected to resume playing with him when the club reopened, but he did not return to play. I think that he, like many others, might have health issues.

His LinkedIn page (here) said that he was on the adjunct faculty at the University of Hartford.

I met Buz Kohn (LinkedIn page here) when he was playing with his mother Joan occasionally on Tuesday evenings. We have played together several times at the HBC both before and after the club closed for the Pandemic.

Although Buz was as good at playing the cards as anyone he was not very tolerant of conventions. I had trouble getting him to even use a convention card.

Buz was still playing at the HBC in 2023, but I think that he also had a house in Florida.

Sonja Smith was Steve’s mother, and she also had triplet girls. When I began playing at the SBC in 2004, Sonja played there regularly with a partner who subsequently moved away.

We played together at the HBC several time before the Pandemic and once or twice afterwards—including one of the sectionals in 2022—before she and her family moved to the South.

Sonja attended the 2018 NABC in Honolulu. Afterwards she and her husband Chris spent a few days in Maui, as did my wife Sue and I. Sonja, who was staying at a resort hotel a few miles north of our base of Lahaina, invited us to join them on Monday, December 3, for an expensive sunset cruise of Maui’s west coast. I described it in detail here. It turned out to be a booze cruise with very loud music. I did not enjoy it at all.

Jeanne Striefler and her husband Fred invited Sue and me to their house in West Simsbury several times before the Pandemic. Jeanne and I also played together at the HBC several times and played at teams events at nearby sectionals and regionals. She was part of our ill-fated team at the Presidential Regional described in Eric Vogel’s section. She served as the club’s secretary for many years.

Jeanne also played regularly at the SBC both before and after the closure for the Pandemic.

Jeanne was from Omaha, Nebraska. She grew up closer to my old stomping grounds than anyone else in the HBC.

Ron Talbot, who attended Notre Dame, was the president of the HBC for two years. Before the Pandemic I played with him fairly often at the HBC as well as at a few sectionals in Rhode Island. If his partner was male. he wore a baseball cap while he was playing. If female, he was bareheaded.

Ron told me that he walked three miles every morning. I much preferred to do my walking in the evening. He also walked fifty miles in three days on the Appalachian Trail with his children and/or grandchildren. I don’t know if I could have done that.

Ron moved to Naples, FL, before the Pandemic. He has returned to the HBC once or twice.

Trevor Reeves served as president and then treasurer of the HBC. He implemented the budgeting system that was instrumental in helping to get the HBC through the Pandemic.

I played with him a few times at the club and at tournaments, including an open pairs game at the Summer NABC in Toronto in 2017 in which we were first in our section in the evening session.

Trevor was involved in the GNT difficulty that I described at the end of Felix Springer’s section.

The player with whom I have played for the longest time is my wife Sue. W have played together at the SBC, the HBC, at tournaments, on cruises, and clubs while we were traveling.

Sue had never played bridge when we met in 1972, but she had played a lot of setback, a much simpler trick-taking game, with friends and family members. She had no trouble learning the rules of bridge, but she had a difficult time understanding even the basics of the strategic principles concerning bidding and play.

I vividly remember one of the first times that we played as partners. It was at the house in Wethersfield of friends of ours, Jim and Ann Cochran, who were introduced here. I may have had a gin and tonic or two. It was a friendly game of rubber bridge. Nothing was at stake.

Sue and I got the bid in a suit contract, and Sue had to play it. The hand was not very challenging; all she had to do was to lead a few rounds of trump and then take her winners. Unfortunately, she neglected to take out the trumps before taking her high cards. So, the Cochrans were able to ruff several of her winners, and the contract went down.

Ann helpfully provided Sue with a way of remembering the importance of drawing trumps before attacking side suits. She taught her the old adage, “Get the children off the street!”

A few hands later Sue played another suit contract. She once again forgot about her opponents’ children, and they once again made enough mischief to set the contract.

On the third hand that I witnessed from across the table in my role of dummy, Sue’s failure to draw trumps led to another failed contract, I lost my temper, slammed my fist down, and broke the card table. I would have offered to buy them a new one, but at the time we were, as the British say, skint.

Nearly forty years passed before Sue and I played together at a sanctioned game. She joined the ACBL in 2011, seven years after I did. By the time that she started to play, I was already a Life Master. She blamed me for not warning her that the ACBL had changed the requirements for that rank on January 1 of 2011. The organization increased the number of required points, but they also made available new opportunities for obtaining them.

Over the years Sue and I played together at a few NABC tournaments, two bridge cruises, and at a few clubs in New England and Florida. At first I tried to get her to go over the hands with me after a session of bridge, but she really hated to do so. Our games together did not improve much over the years.

Sue has a lot of trouble with time, and in competitive bridge only seven minutes are ordinarily allotted for each hand. Contributing to this difficult are the facts that she plays—and does every other thing—rather slowly, keeps a very detailed score, and insists on playing North, the position that maintains the official results.

I remember one Sunday in which we played in the High-Low game at the HBC. By chance I declared more than my usual share of contracts. We finished first! I cannot remember any other occasion on which we enjoyed even a modicum of success.

Sue would like to do better, but she does not have the drive that I have always had to improve one’s game. In short, she never reads books or bridge articles. She sometimes goes over a result sheet, but never with a critical eye.

She participated in the mentoring program once. Her mentor, an experienced player named Mary Petit, offered her some tips. Later Mary asked me why Sue did not use any of them. I knew the answer, but I could not explain it in a way that anyone else could understand. So, I just said, “That’s the way that Sue is.”

Document here are more of my partnerships at North America’s oldest bridge club before it closed for the Pandemic . Partnerships after the reopening are described here.

1. I naturally thought that I had twelve months of play. In fact, however, the year started on October 1 at the HBC. So, I needed to play 25 times in nine months, which I did.

2. I never got a chance to play with Mary Witt before she moved to Cary, NC. I have occasionally communicated with her by email.

3. Several years later Ruth asked me to play with her at the HBC. I remember that I made a mistake of some kind on one hand that prevented us from getting any points. She mentioned that she knew that I was going to do that. Ruth was a good player, but she never made Life Master because she did not like tournaments. She died in 2020 at the age of 86. Here obituary can be found here. Her parents brought her to the United States in 1940.

4. An abbreviated recounting of my long obsession with papal history has been posted here. The chapter of my book about papal history that makes reference to Nazi Germany is posted here.

5. Tom was an actuary, but he never made FSA. In 2023 he was still working part-time at a pension consulting firm called PCI.

6. This photo was unfortunately lost when the server on which NEBridge.org ran had a catastrophic system failure in 2015. I also had a copy of the photo, but I cannot find it.

7. Pat still plays bridge, but she moved to Charlottesville, VA.

8. As it happened, we played against Ti’s team in the semifinals of the Summer NABC in Washington in 2016. Her team won the match and the event. I did not play against her. She and her partner played the same direction as Felix and me.

1974-1977 Living in Plymouth, MI

Posted on March 10, 2021 by Mike

Life outside of U-M, in Plymouth and beyond. Continue reading →

I can remember a lot about the three years that Sue and I lived in our apartment on Sheldon Rd. in Plymouth, but in some cases the chronology is a little fuzzy. I have consulted with Sue on many of these items, but grey areas persist.

The area north of 845 Sheldon Rd. has greatly changed since we left. The train tracks were, I think, near what is now called Beech St. The houses on that road and the large cul-de-sac on the left did not exist when we lived there.

One strange and memorable aspect of life in that apartment concerned light bulbs. The train tracks just to the north of the house were, in those years, quite active. Long freight trains rumbled through at a rapid pace day and night. Whenever a train passed, the entire building shook as if in a mild earthquake. Nothing was ever damaged except our incandescent light bulbs. We did not have a great number of lamps, but we routinely needed to replace bulbs at least monthly.

Fortunately, our electric company, Detroit Edison, had a policy of providing free light bulbs¹ to its customers. So, we would just pick up a couple at their local store every time that we were in the vicinity.

Pets: We brought Puca, Sue’s boa constrictor, to Plymouth from Connecticut. He lived in his cage in the bookshelves in the living room throughout our time in Plymouth.

Having a snake means that one must also have a supply of animals to feed it. We fed Puca mice. We found a very nice pet store in Northville, the town immediately north of Plymouth. It was only a ten-minute drive unless, of course, a train was coming through.

On our first visit we bought a few mice to feed to Puca. We needed a place to keep them; he never ate more than one. We bought a fish tank with a lid of wire mesh. We also needed some wood shavings for the floor, a water bottle, and some Purina Mouse Chow².

The athleticism of the mice amazed me. They looked fat and slow, but their appearance was deceptive. Any mouse could easily jump from the floor of the cage to the lid—a leap of about a foot. It could at the same time whip around and grab the lid with all four paws in one smooth motion. They appeared to just will themselves up.

When Puca was like this it was safe to feed him. Only the S-shaped coiled part strikes. In this position he could only strike something an inch or so away from his head.

Keeping a few mice around was acceptable as long as Puca was eating. However, he was unpredictable in that regard. We knew that boa constrictors generally hibernated in the winter. They drank a little water, but they were very lethargic. Puca’s cage had a heat lamp, but it seemed that he somehow knew when it was time to hibernate.

Snakes can unhinge their jaws. They can swallow animals that are much larger than one might expect.

We expected Puca to be hungry pretty much all of the time in the other three seasons, but that was not always the case. Fairly often he refused to eat.

The thing about mice is that if you have a male and a female, you almost always have quite a few more before you know it. Although they are born blind and hairless, mice nurse for only twenty days. They can be fertile at an age of four to six weeks. The gestation period is only twenty days. The litter size can be up to thirteen! Pregnant mice can barely walk on the last few days. One of our mice, named Mellow, had a litter of twelve, and all of the pups survived.

So, we soon needed more cages. We bought a twenty-gallon tank with a lid of wire mesh and a Deluxe Habitrail. We acquired a small wire cage that we used to isolate pregnant females. Fortunately it is easy to determine the sex of mice, and so I was generally able to keep the breeding down. However, over one winter our mouse population still rose to fifty-three.

I kept careful records of the mice. I was not doing research. I just likes to keep records. I assigned a name to each mouse and gave him/her a file card that documented date of birth or purchase, appearance (I tried to buy mice with interesting colors and patterns), parentage, and date fed to Puca (or other demise).

Occasionally a mouse escaped. I chased the each fugitive until I had it cornered. Then I picked it up by the tail. Their only weakness was their inability to hide their tails, and I never gave up.

Once a mouse on the lam ran—I swear that I saw this happen—through the wire cage that we used as a maternity ward. Less than a half inch separated the vertical bars on this cage, but the mouse did not even seem to slow down when he passed between them.

To feed Puca I would grab a mouse by the tail. I would wait for an occasion in which he seemed active but not on the prowl. He would almost always flick his tongue, his best sense, whenever I opened the door to the cage. If he was interested in eating he would slowly stalk the mouse. When he struck he seldom missed. He then squeezed the life out of the mouse and swallowed it head-first. If he was skinny (which he usually was), you could see the mouse move through his body.

Was I afraid of Puca? No, not at all. We sometimes took him out, but we never let him roam. He was too good at hiding, and once he got himself wrapped around something, it was very difficult to pry him loose. My biggest fear was that he would somehow get into our heater.

Actually, I was more afraid of the mice than Puca. Puca struck at my arm once. It felt like getting punched. His teeth also made small puncture wounds, but there was not a lot of pain. The wounds did not last long.

This is the recipe box that contained cards with the details for each mouse.

I was also bit by a mouse once, and it was MUCH worse. I was holding the little critter by the tail, as I had done dozens of times. This one must have had great abs because he whipped his head up to my hand and glommed onto the loose skin between my thumb and forefinger with all four of his oversized front teeth. The bite really hurt, and he would not let go no matter how much I shook my hand. I whacked my hand up against a wall three times before he let go. When he hit the floor he sped off, but eventually I caught him.

The area of the bite was sore for a few days, but there was no permanent damage.

Our Charlie was much better looking than Charlie Haggers.

Sue and I often drove to the pet store in Northville even when we had no need of mice. We looked at all the potential pets for sale there. In 1976 we decided to buy a guinea pig. We picked out a Peruvian (long hair) with a very interesting color that involved a mix of silver and light brown hair. We named him after the Charlie Haggers³ character on Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, which we watched every night in 1976-1977. The guinea pig’s full name was Carlos Cavia y Vega, but we called him Charlie.

In those days I loved to bake in the sun in the backyard of the apartment house. During the summer of 1976 I brought Charlie with me outside, where I would liked to read a book or work on something. I had removed the bottom and lid to a large cardboard box to provide Charlie with an open-air fenced in place to enjoy the outdoors. It may sound boring, but this array of fresh edible greens was like paradise to a guinea pig.

This photo of Charlie doesn’t do him justice. His coat was very nice when he was not all wet like this.

In the apartment we kept Charlie in a twenty-gallon fish tank for a while. I decided to build a cage for him and a potential family to fit on the barnboard shelves. It was a split-level, and it featured a ramp that, when lowered, let them roam in the living room and return home when they wanted. They were very well-behaved. They were not fast; their only defense mechanism in the wild was to hide in a hole or cave, and, to tell the truth, these long-haired guinea pigs had not been in the wild in many generations.

I thought that it would be nice to take Charlie for “walkies”, as Barbara Woodhouse called them. Charlie had very short legs, of course. I did not anticipate that we would cover a lot of ground. I bought a very cheap leash for Charlie, and he did not seem to mind it. I put the leash on him and carried him outside. He made a beeline for the nearest dandelion. He spent a few minutes there until he had devoured all of the greens. He then moved to the next dandelion about six inches away, and he spent the next few minutes chomping on the delights that it had to offer. I terminated our walkie without ever doing more than shuffling my feet.

When the guinea pig mansion was completed, Sue and I decided to get Charlie a companion. Her name, of course, was Loretta. We decided on the name before we ever departed for the pet store.

As soon as we reached the store we walked to the section in which they kept the guinea pigs. They usually had between five and fifteen of them, a very good selection. Most people do not realize that guinea pigs whistle when they get excited. I was quite adept at emulating a guinea pig whistle, and I always exhibited this talent at the store. Pretty soon the whole clan would get in the act. All of the customer would come over to the guinea pig area to witness the excitement.

Loretta, with her three-toned face and white torso, was at least as cute as her namesake (when she dried off). Also, my arms were never as hairy as they look here.

We picked out a suitable Loretta and brought her home with us. She got along fine with Charlie, and before too long she had a litter of three.

Guinea pigs and mice are both rodents, but the similarity ends there. Loretta carried her babies for about two months. The last few days we could see them moving around inside her. They came out with their eyes ope, a full set of teeth, and beautiful coats. By the time that we saw them they were on their feet and moving about.

Another important difference between mice and guinea pigs: The best way to pick up mice is by the tail. However, NEVER pick up a guinea pig by the tail; its eyes will fall out.

Guinea pig babies certainly must rank with the cutest animals ever. When we let down the ramp Loretta would go for a walk in the living room, and the babies followed her in a line nose-to-tail. To top it off they all made what I called “monk-monk” noises. I don’t know how else to describe them. Adults never made these noises. I am positive that Sue took some photos of this furry little train, but I cannot find them.

The big trip: Sue and I took no vacations during the years that we lived in Plymouth. In the fall of 1976 we learned that Patti Lewonczyk and Tom Corcoran were getting married in Newington, CT, on January 7, 1977. They invited us to the wedding, and we decided to go. We planned to fly to Kansas City⁵ to spend Christmas with my family in Leawood, and then fly back to Hartford. We then would drive to Enfield to celebrate a late Christmas and New Year’s with Sue’s family. Then we would return to Michigan after the wedding.

I don’t honestly remember too much about the trip to KC, but Sue took a number of photos. My sister Jamie was apparently not there. She was nineteen or twenty at the time. I think that she had left college and moved somewhere. She also got married around this time if my math is correct. Father Joe drove down from Kelly, KS.So, there were six of us (counting Molly the dog) for Christmas.

From the photos it appears that Sue and I spent most of our time at my parents’ house playing with Molly, whom I have always considered to be Jamie’s dog. My dad, who had no use for live animals of any description, was forced into several pictures that included Molly.

My parents and I certainly attended mass on Christmas day. I am almost positive that I was still going to church regularly in late 1976. If not, I definitely was not ready to tell my parents. Sue might have attended out of courtesy to my parents. I can’t think of any other reason for her to be wearing such a nice dress.

The whole experience was more than a little awkward; things were always awkward in that house. My parents were both devout Catholics from birth. They had raised me to be one, too, but, after a very promising start, I failed to meet their expectations. They never said anything, but it was in the air.

Two young guinea pigs and Sue’s present for Betty.

From the top: Loretta in her split-level pad, Charlie on his hind legs sniffing around in the 20-gallon tank, and their two offspring in a wire cage that I don’t recognize.

From KC we flew back to Metro Airport in Detroit.

Shortly thereafter we drove to Enfield in Sue’s Dodge Colt. We must have gone through Ohio and Pennsylvania because we brought with us several guinea pigs—Charlie, Loretta, and some of their offspring. They occupied the back seat in at least two cages, including the split-level house that I built for them.

I have almost no recollection at all of this part of the visit. Sue’s photographs indicate that gifts were exchanged, and the guinea pigs always seemed to be right in the middle of the festivities.

Snow at the church. That may be the legendary Hergmobile.

Although Tom and Patti were not very religious, their nuptials were performed at the Catholic church in Newfield. That was what people whose parents were Catholic did in the seventies. We attended the ceremony, but I don’t remember anything about it. In the Catholic church the wedding ceremonies are generally part of a mass. So, a large portion of the time was devoted to the usual rites.

Many of our friends at the Hartford were there, and, as far as I know, they all attended the reception. I only remember one detail. At the meal Sue and I were seated near Jim and Ann Cochran. Someone asked me about what I had been doing. I told them how thrilled that Wayne, Mitch, and I were the previous year to make it to the National Debate Tournament in Boston. I also probably told them about Don and Stewart. I may have told a few debate stories, too.

An hour or so after the meal Ann came up to me and said, “You don’t even know what you’ve got, do you?”

I didn’t think I had anything, but my last physical was when I left the Army almost five years earlier. Before I could relay this information, she put her arms around my neck and planted a huge smacker on my face. You could have knocked me over with a feather. Later, I saw her sweet talking a guy that I had never met.

I think that there must have been a second round of festivities at the 345 Club. Quite a few photos show people without suits and ties in rooms with old wallpaper and antebellum furniture.

Scott Otermat in the foreground and Tom Corcoran with the drink.

Damon Panels, Someone, Scott Otermat,
and the Cochrans.

The following photos are at the 345 Club.

Fashion note: Yes, there was probably still a suit in my closet, and I certainly had some ties. However, as an impoverished graduate student, I was well within my rights to wear to any “formal occasion” my trusty corduroy jacket over a bulky wool sweater. Besides, it was cold.

The last forty or so miles were through the Pocono Mountains.

The first half of the drive back to Plymouth was something of an adventure. As we reached the northern section of the Pocono Mountains it started to snow. Thereafter we saw very few cars. Sue was driving, and I was nervous. At the time this was the scariest drive I had ever been on, but that record lasted less than a month.

We finally arrived at a motel near Scranton, and we obtained a room. The motel had a no-pets policy, but we snuck the guinea pigs and their cages into the room. All four had long coats, but they were not used to cold weather.

It was sunny and bright the next morning, and the drive to Plymouth was easy.

Sue’s jobs: Sue’s first job after we arrived in Plymouth in 1974 was a very convenient one. It was in the center of Plymouth, only a few blocks from our apartment. The company was a business association for insurance companies in Michigan. I am not sure what her responsibilities entailed. She was called a “correspondent”.

Sue liked this job, but her employers considered her a potential rabble-rouser. Unions were still very big in Michigan, and management did not want anyone who might undertake to bring one to the organization. They asked her to leave.

She found a job pretty quickly with a company named Michigan Basic. This company developed software for IBM mini-computers, such as the System/3. Sue’s boss’s name was Chuck Glore. Sue learned from him how to program in RPG (Report Program Generator).

I don’t remember where the office was, but I recall accompanying Sue there on a few evenings or weekends. I was very interested in the concept of computers that a small company could program themselves.

After a while, Sue and Chuck had a falling out over something. It might have been because of a recession in the auto industry. Since nearly every company in southeast Michigan was heavily dependent on the auto companies, at least indirectly, all businesses suffered. At any rate, Sue was back in the job market, but she now had a marketable skill.

She took a job as a placement for an employment agency. In many ways it was a perfect job for Sue. She has always loved to talk on the phone, she enjoys introducing people to one another, and she really believed that there was a seat for every butt.

Unfortunately, the local economy being what it was at the time, there were far more butts than seats. Sue often came back to the apartment crying in frustration.

One of the few thriving companies in Detroit was Brothers Specifications. As “white flight” took hold in Detroit a lot of fairly nice houses were abandoned. The federal department of Housing and Urban Development hired the company to inspect the abandoned houses and to assess the cost, if any, of making the houses habitable. The employment agency that Sue worked for had been contacted by Frank Yee, the computer guy at Brothers. Sue tried to convince him to hire one of her job-seekers. He told her that he would rather hire her than the applicant whom she was representing.

Sue took Frank up on his offer. She liked this job a lot. She got along well with the people there, and there was a very active social life, which was right up Sue’s alley. The details and many photos will be posted in the Detroit section of the blog.

Visitors: Sue has told me that her peripatetic grandmother, Molly Locke, visited our apartment and slept on the waterbed. She was on a trip to western Michigan to visit the family of her son Bob Locke or on the way back to Enfield. I must have been away on a debate trip. She slept on our waterbed but did not enjoy it much. This visit probably occurred in the spring or fall. I would have known about it in the summer, and tourism in Michigan in winter is seldom advisable.

Sue also told me that her female cousins (her Uncle Bob’s daughters) also visited her while I was on a debate trip.

Mark (?) is on the waterbed. Jamie is sitting on the floor looking at the Mean Reserves album. I am probably sitting on a kitchen chair. We are all facing the television set.

I reckon that our other visitors arrived in late winter or early spring of 1977. My sister Jamie drove up with, I think, her new husband Mark. I remember absolutely nothing about this visit, but Sue took a photo of them, and I am in the picture. I suspect that we talked mostly about our pets. We were very serious pet owners at the time.

They stayed overnight on the waterbed. I think that they left the next day.

Entertainment: Sue has always loved live music. She found a bar named The Crows Nest inside the Mayflower Hotel, which was right in the center of Plymouth. It often featured live musicians. She had two favorite singers, a blonde whose name was Jane or Janet, and Elaine Philpot, who had darker hair and claimed to be 5’12” tall.

Elaine had an interesting song that she used for sing-alongs. The title is “Piccolomini”⁶. Here are the lyrics:

Piccolomini Piccolomini Piccolomini Picco-
Lomini Piccolomini Piccolomini Piccolomini Pi-
Ccolomini Piccolomini Piccolomini Piccolomini 
(repeat faster and faster until totally out of breath).

I remember Elaine best for her pet waterfowl named Kensington. I thought of him as a large duck; Sue remembers a goose. She is probably right.

Whatever he was, he enjoyed biting people’s bare legs. He brazenly walked up to strangers, turned his head ninety degree, opened his beak and thrust at the exposed flesh. When he hit the target, he twisted his head back to the upright position before releasing. This really hurt.

Sue photographed the RMSB playing hard and fast at Floyd’s in Ann Arbor.

Our other favorite hangout was a bar in the center of Ann Arbor called, if memory serves, Floyd’s. We went there several times to listen to the Red Mountain String Band, a bunch of people who occasionally came up to God’s country to perform before returning to “that school down south” in Columbus. At least once Don Huprich joined us at Floyd’s.

This was from an article in the OSU newspaper about the group wanting to play in prisons.

They were very good musicians. The leader, Larry Nager⁶, was also very funny. We always sat quite close to the band. I asked Larry once to specify the location of the Red Mountains. His answer disappointed me a little. He admitted that they were a figment of the imagination. In his position I would have made something up.

Cards: I think that I got interested in card magic and card throwing while watching Ricky Jay⁷ on the Tonight Show. He performed a hilarious trick called The Lethal Four-Card Fist. He made Johnny Carson put on a studded mitt designed by a goaltender in hockey. Then he gave Johnny a banana to hold in his gloved hand. He began a long tale about the origin of the technique of the four-card fist (one-card between each finger and one between the thumb and forefinger), which he attributed to Somebody “the heathen”. In the middle of his patter who once slew five separate assailants when he was apparently unarmed. In the midst of this patter he whirled and threw all four cards at the banana HARD. At least one or two definitely struck the banana or the glove.

Afterwards Johnny examined the banana and remarked that the attack did not appear to be very lethal. There was not even a scratch on it. Ricky sternly reproved him for the plebeian mistake of judging a book by its cover. He then explained the art of ubiwasi that he had learned from the inside back cover of Superman DC comics. With one finger an ordinary man can bring an assailant with a single finger without leaving a mark.

Ricky advised Johnny to peel the banana carefully. The fruit of the banana fell onto the carpet in five neat pieces. Even with no training I could figure out how he did the trick, but his presentation was flawless.

I purchased Jay’s outstanding book, Cards as Weapons. I did not use Ricky’s throwing technique; I invented my own, in which I compensated for my rag arm with a method that allowed me to snap my shoulder, elbow wrist, and finger joints in rapid succession. I threw one thousand cards a day for the better part of one summer. It was a minor miracle that I did not do permanent damage.

I once threw a playing card forty yards outdoors against the wind. That’s ten yards less than Ricky’s best (long since eclipsed by others), but it was farther than my bunkmate in Basic Training, Rosey, could throw any object.

I bought quite a few other books about card tricks and some trick decks at a magic store. I practiced my sleights for at least an hour a day. I could do a few tricks, but none of them very well. I only perfected one, Scarne’s Color Change, which required very little skill. I watched the Amazing Kreskin use it to baffle Charlton Heston, who held the deck in his own hands through nearly all of the experience. on national television.

Once, when Elaine Philpot was sitting at our table at the Crow’s Nest, I pulled a deck of cards from my pocket and said that I had learned a magic trick. I then told her that scientists in Switzerland had determined that a few sensitive people were able to determine whether a playing card was red or black solely through their fingertips. The cards with red suits and numbers allegedly transmitted slightly more heat. I asked her to try it. When the trick was over she was absolutely convinced that her fingers could discern red cards from black even though I started by telling her that it was a trick.

Wedding: Mitch Chyette married his longtime girlfriend, Andee, in the summer of 1976. It was the only Jewish wedding that I have ever attended. The debaters were all there, but I don’t remember many details. If I find any photos, I will post them.

Sports: I played a few rounds of golf with Don Goldman. I don’t remember any details.

I bought a pair of Adidas running shoes and started jogging when I noticed that I was getting fat. I jogged at least a couple of times a week for forty or more years.

The only recognized sport in the Ann Arbor area is college football. If the team and I were both in town, I went to the game. If I was out of town, I gave my ticket to Don Goldman or someone else. He did the same for me. In that way Sue was able to see a few games, too. The team’s records during the three years were 10-1, 8-2-2 (tying two out-of-conference games and losing to Oklahoma in the Orange Bowl, and 10-2 (losing to USC in the Rose Bowl).

Rick Leach was the star of the 1976 team.

One game—or actually half of a game—stands out in my memory. Sue and I attended the game with Mitch Chyette and wife Andee. For her the best part of the game was the show that the band put on at halftime.

We watched the first half of one of the home games—I think that it must have been the 1976 game against Minnesota—in the rain. I was miserable. Andee opined that we should leave after the half. I said that if we stayed for the halftime show, we were definitely staying for the second half. We decided to leave at the end of the first half and watch the rest of the game at their nearby apartment.

For years I thought that the game we saw with Mitch and Andee was the one in 1968 in which Ron Johnson set the NCAA rushing record (broken many times in subsequent years) with an unbelievable second half in the mud. I must have conflated two events that were actually years apart. It happens when you become a geezer.

I am pretty sure that we also went bowling once with Mitch, Andee, and her sister, who was dating a Chaldean guy who apparently smoke a smattering of Arabic. He told us how he had been hired by some Black guys to read some Muslim texts to them. They liked the way that the Arabic sounded, but none of them understood it. He said that he always threw in some jokes, malapropisms, and obscenities.

1. This policy began in the nineteenth century. In 1974 Detroit Edison was sued for antitrust violations by a drug store. In 1978, after we had moved away from the tracks, Detroit Edison terminated the policy.

2. I don’t think that Purina still markets specifically to mice owners. I looked for a picture on the Internet, but I could not find one.

3. Charlie Haggers was played by Graham Jarvis. He died in 2003 at the age of 72.

4. Loretta Haggers was portrayed by Mary Kay Place. She won an Emmy for her performance.

5. It is quite possible that the Kansas City trip took place a year earlier (1975).

6. I later learned that Piccolomini is the family name of two popes, Pius II and his nephew Pius III. Pius II as a young man wrote some erotic literature. His nephew’s pontificate lasted less than a month.

7. The band is long gone, but Larry Nager has had a very productive career in performing music and writing about it.

8. Ricky Jay died in 2018. He was one of my very few idols.

1975 Summer: Hartford

Posted on March 6, 2021 by Mike

One magic summer. Continue reading →

By the spring of 1975 both Sue and I missed our friends back in Connecticut. From Michigan I got in touch with someone, probably Scott Otermat, at the Hartford to see if I could obtain employment there for the summer. The Individual Pensions Department was happy to have me back, and they paid me pretty well.

Sue also contacted her last employer in Hartford, the Little Aetna, and she was also able to obtain a temporary position with them.

The second semester at U-M ended in late April. Sue was between jobs. So, early in May we loaded up both cars with our clothes and other necessities, and we also brought Puca in his cage. I don’t remember anything about the trip. We certainly drove through Ohio and Pennsylvania. We did not encounter any memorable difficulties.

The area has changed a lot since 1975, but I think that we stayed somewhere in the above vicinity. Our building was on the west side of Wethersfield Ave.

We did not sublet our apartment in Plymouth. I don’t think that we even discussed it. Even paying two rents, we calculated that we would do a lot better economically than if we had remained in Plymouth and sat on our thumbs.

We probably stayed at least one night in the Hartford area before we found a furnished apartment. Sue’s family might have put us up. I don’t remember that we made any other arrangements. We found a very convenient place on Wethersfield Avenue in the south end of Hartford. There were quite a few apartment buildings there. Ours had a parking lot in the back.

Work: Sue did not talk much about her work at the Little Aetna before we left Connecticut, and I don’t remember her talking about it much during the summer of 1975 either.

I was welcomed back to the twenty-first floor by many smiling faces. I was assigned a desk right in the middle of the Individual Pensions department and provided with a teletype terminal right on my desk. It differed from the two in the computer room in two ways: 1) Its off-line storage device was film tape cassettes rather than paper tape. It could read and write much faster; 2) It was quiet enough that it did not disturb nearby employees. The ones in the computer room were very noisy.

I undertook some programming projects on the HP 3000, but I don’t remember any details. I had had no association with computers in the eight months that I had been gone, but it did not take me long to feel comfortable again. I was only twenty-seven years old; my memory still worked.

The big project for the summer involved Paul Gewirtz, who was by then a Fellow of the Society of Actuaries, Scott Otermat, me, and a few people from the Data Processing Department. Our department wanted DP to do a project on the mainframe. I am not certain, but we may have wanted them to replace the very flawed system that was still being used to produce the annual reports for the policyholders.It is described here.

Scott, Paul, and I met a few times before we talked to the people from DP. We had our needs already outlined on paper including the formulas for the calculations. We had laid out what data the entry screens had to collect. We gathered samples of the output from Carolyn DesRochers’s area.

I have been in a hundred or more such meetings. In subsequent years I was on the other side of the table. That is, people were explaining to me what they wanted the computing system to do for them. Only one or two of those requests were as well documented as ours was at the first meeting.

DP assigned two people to our project, one female and one male. The woman had some experience. It was, I think, the first project for the guy. In the first meeting we did not get as far as showing them the materials that we assembled. We first had to explain to them what individual pensions were and how they were handled at the Hartford. The only thing that the committee agreed upon at the end of our first meeting, which lasted for a couple of hours, was that we needed more meetings.

After that we met weekly, I think on Tuesdays. The three of us continued to do almost all of the talking. After five or six weeks of this, the DP lady informed us that we needed to do a presentation for one of the vice-presidents to evaluate the project. We were happy to hear this. Although we were disgusted by all the time that we had already put into the project, it seemed as if it was beginning to roll.

The DP lady assigned aspects of the presentation to each of us. I don’t remember who played which role. We even had a rehearsal. The meeting attended by veep was not that memorable either. We gave out little talks. The DP guy asked a couple of questions. We all shook hands and went back to work.

A few days later Paul or Scott heard from the DP lady that the presentation had been favorably received. She also said that we would meet the next Tuesday to begin the next stage. She wanted all three of us to attend. Paul, for one, did not see why his presence was still required, but he came anyway.

That meeting was a real eye-opener for all three of us. The DP woman announced that we needed to put together information to justify that our project was worthy of a feasibility study that would be conducted by a different group of people from the DP department. The three of us from pensions were gobsmacked. We told her that we thought that our committee had been doing a feasibility study. That was why our documentation was so detailed. If we were not assessing the feasibility, what had we been doing? Furthermore, if the VP was not assessing the feasibility of our request, what was he doing?

She said that the VP from the DP department was impressed with what we had done. It was an easy decision for him to proceed with the project. She may have understood how little this praise meant to us, but she insisted that the next step was definitely to request a feasibility study and make a separate presentation. We had to be prepared to meet the department’s standards for such a request. After some more venting of our frustration we scheduled another meeting.

Paul, Scott, and I met the next day. Paul had just one question for me: “Could you write this code?”

The line printer could at least handle wide paper.

I said that the coding would not be that difficult. However, if we used the HP 3000, the data entry on teletypes (as opposed to mainframe terminals or coding sheets keyed in elsewhere) would be kludgy, and I had no access to a printer capable of producing the output.

At the next meeting Paul swept aside the agenda provided by the female DP employee and said that he wanted to consider another approach. He wanted to know if it were possible for a few people from our department to be given a portion of the disk and whatever other resources were needed to produce the required output. He emphasized, “Data processing would not need to do any of the system design or programming. We just need access to the machine and a programming language that we can use.”

This was, of course, out of the question. She would not even ask her bosses if that was a possible approach. We needed to go through the established protocols. That ended the meeting.

When he got back to Individual Pensions Paul called one of the officers in the DP department and informed him that our department was dropping the request. I don’t know if anything was ever done about this.

Sports: If there was a Mean Reserves softball team in 1975, I don’t remember whether I played or not. I do remember playing in a few practices. My kneecap felt fine. I may have lost a step on the basepaths, but there was no pain. The biggest problem was that I seemed to have lost my league-leading swing. I felt as if I was swinging the same. I could still direct the ball to right field, but I could no longer consistently hit line drives. I found this very frustrating.

I also remember one practice softball game in which, for whatever reason, I was playing shortstop without a glove. Someone hit a line drive over my head and to my left. I leapt toward it and extended my bare left hand. I stopped its flight long enough that I was able to catch it with both hands before it hit the ground. It was a spectacular play.

I also remember that I was playing left field once when there was a man on third with one out. The batter hit a fly down the third base line. I caught the ball on the run and immediately threw it toward the catcher as hard as I possibly could. As I had anticipated, the man on third tagged up and tested my rag arm. The ball reached the catcher in time, but something went wrong. I don’t remember what.

So, my Hartford softball career ended with my perfect record of never having thrown out a runner intact.

John Sigler and Jim Cochran continued their golf partnership. One week I substituted for Jim in the Men’s League. I was matched up against a guy whom I had narrowly defeated in a very tough match the year before. I had to give him one stroke this time, which was not at all reflective of our abilities in 1975. He was at the top of his game, and I had played little or no golf since breaking my kneecap a year earlier.

The first hole was a medium-length par four. My opponent hit a nice drive and a good iron shot. He had a long putt for a birdie. Meanwhile I was spraying the ball from the rough on one side of the fairway to the other. After four miserable shots my ball was on the fringe perhaps a foot from the green. I decided to putt, and I stroked the most memorable shot of my entire golf career. The ball rolled and rolled and then dove into the hole.

This fluky shot seemed to ruin my opponent’s composure. He three-putted, which meant that we halved the hole. Thereafter, he played better than I did, but only by a little. I lost a couple of holes badly, but, even though I had to give a stroke, I also won a couple of holes on which he made mistakes. We ended up tying the match. John won his match, and we won the team match to earn 2.5 out of three points.

I played a few rounds of golf on weekends with John and Norm Newfield, but I don’t think that I played very well. I remember thinking that my athletic prowess, such as it was, reached its zenith the day that I broke my kneecap during the previous summer.

Other: I have few other distinct memories of the summer. I remember cooling off with gin and tonics. The apartment did not have air conditioning. I knew no one in Connecticut who had air conditioning until years later.

Jim Hawke and I became good friends that summer. We ate lunch together most days. Occasionally we went out to a nearby restaurant.

There were two negative and bizarre notes. One morning I placed my wallet in the inside coat pocket of my brown corduroy jacket. I walked out to Greenie, parked as always in the apartment’s lot. I opened the car door, took off my jacket, and tossed it on the passenger seat.

When I arrived at the Hartford I seized my jacket and, before I even put it on, I noticed that the wallet was missing. I searched the car and found nothing. I immediately drove back to the apartment. It only took about ten minutes. I searched the parking lot and retraced my steps to the apartment. I never found it.

There was not much money in it, and I did not have any credit cards. I had to replace my driver’s license, of course, but the biggest loss was my green military ID card. On it was the only extant picture of me with the ultra-short military Class A haircut. Sue said that I looked like a convict in that picture.

One evening while I was driving from work to the apartment my back began to itch. It soon became almost more than I could bear. Then I began to feel feverish and weak. It was, thank goodness, only a short drive.

There are at least 125 species of wolf spiders in the United States.

Once inside I peeled off my coat and shirt and looked at my back in the bathroom mirror. Apparently a spider or an insect of some sort had somehow gotten in my shirt. There were a dozen or so bites. I searched through my clothing, but I did not encounter my assailant.

I took a shower, lay down, and immediately fell asleep. I awoke an hour or so later, and I felt better. By the next day I was fine.

1974-1975 U-M: Debate

Posted on February 26, 2021 by Mike

First year of coaching. Continue reading →

The topic in intercollegiate debate remained the same all year. The one for 1974-75 was “Resolved: That the powers of the Presidency should be significantly curtailed.” At nearly all major tournaments teams debated an equal number of rounds on both sides of the question in the preliminary rounds. A primer on the mechanics of college debate tournaments can be read here.

This topic, by the way, was very similar to the one that was debated when I was a junior in college: “Resolved: That executive control of United States foreign policy should be significantly curtailed. I felt that I was slightly ahead of the game.

The first tournament on the docket was at Western Illinois University in Macomb, IL. In preparation for the tournament I scheduled a couple of practice debates. The guys were much better than I anticipated. They certainly were better than the four people who participated in the exhibition debate at the beginning of freshman year. I could not imagine how Wayne Miller and Dan Gaunt compiled a record of 0-8 at districts in the previous spring. They only won four ballots out of twenty-four!

Aside from helping get the debaters ready, I needed to do a good bit of administrative work to prepare for this tournament and all the others:

The host university should have mailed an invitation with a registration form to the team. If we did not have one, I needed to contact them somehow to request one. I don’t think that I ever actually did this. Long distance calls were costly in those days.
In that first year I asked the guys about the quality of the tournaments. A lot could have changed in the four years since I had debated. For example, I did not remember ever hearing of Western Illinois’s debate team, much less its tournament.
I needed to project out how much it would cost to attend. I had to pay for tournament entry fees, gasoline, tolls, housing, and the per diem for food. Credit cards were a new thing in 1974; I did not obtain one until more than a decade later. So, I always asked for a little more than I planned to spend and brought some of my own money, too. I had to plan out the whole year to make sure that enough money was left over for the district tournament. If we qualified for the National Debate Tournament, we would beg, borrow, or steal what we needed.
Here is a list of factors determining the cost of each tournament:
- Who will accompany the debaters? Usually I did, but Don Goldman had to judge at a certain number of tournaments in order to be allowed to judge at districts. Occasionally we got someone else. No one accompanied the guys on the trip to California.
- How were we getting to the tournament? We never rented a car, but we might need to reimburse wear and tear.
- How many teams were we sending? There must be enough room in the vehicle to hold them.
- Where were we staying and what was the cost?
If I decided that we were going, I filled out the registration form and mailed it in.
A few days before we left I submitted a request to the department’s secretary. Dr. Colburn probably had to sign these.
The day before we left I picked up the money for the tournament in cash.

We were expected to get receipts for all expenses. Sometimes that was not feasible. For example, snack machines at gas stations and hotels do not give receipts.

So, I bought a book of receipts. They were the familiar kind that a waitress at a diner might use. If I was missing a receipt, I would write one up myself or ask one of the debaters to forge one. We spent so pitifully little money that I figured that no one could conceivably complain, and, in fact, no one did.

The drive to Western Illinois was a long one, longer than Google shows here. The speed limit in 1974 was 55 miles per hour on all Interstates, and I could not afford even one ticket. I religiously followed the speed limit, and even if I hadn’t, Greenie’s 68 horses pushing a maximum load would struggle to reach 60.

When I looked at the invitation from Western Illinois I discovered that Dale Hample¹, whom I knew from my debating days, was now the debate coach at WIU. He represented “that school down south”. We debated several times. The only one that I clearly remembered was the one at districts.

I decided to bring two teams in Greenie to Western Illinois. My recollection is that the area behind the backseat was loaded from floor to ceiling with debate materials, and everyone had a briefcase or something equally awkward on his lap. Three large males were crammed in the pack seat. I calculate that we must have spent over the entire trip in those uncomfortable conditions. I drove all the way with the seat pulled so far forward that my knees nearly touched the steering column. No one complained.

For much of my information about the debate team’s adventures I have relied on the recollections of Wayne Miller. Any mistakes are definitely his fault.

At Western Illinois Wayne debated with Dan Gaunt, and Mitch Chyette debated with Mike Kelly. Wayne and Dan ran a case that provided Congress access to all information in the executive branch in order to prevent presidents from engaging in misadventures like Vietnam. They qualified for the elimination rounds and made it to the quarterfinals. Mitch and Mike finished in the middle of the pack.

A king and queen would be needed to call parliament. I was thinking Cary Grant and Elizabeth Taylor. They were born in England.

The very first debate that I judged was one of the worst that I ever heard. Illinois College’s affirmative case proposed to replace the entire executive and legislative branches with a “parliamentary system”. This may or may not have been a good idea, but the affirmative debaters presented no proof of any substantial improvement. The negative from Morehead State could not think of any very good arguments against it either. I ended up voting for Morehead, but I gave by far the lowest speaker points of any judge in the entire tournament—10, 8, 8, and 6 on a thirty-point scale.

I was not chosen to judge any elimination rounds, probably because my assessment of those teams seemed, at best, squirrelly. In the next six years of judging I never again gave anything close to those points. I probably overreacted. All four debaters were bad, but there was no sense in rubbing their noses in it.

The judges’ ballots were carbonless forms. The tournament kept the top white copy and distributed to the teams the pink and yellow copies. On the way back to Ann Arbor we had plenty of time to go over the comments of the judges in each round. We then filed the ballots alphabetically by the last name of the judge in an accordion file that we brought to all tournaments. Whenever we were assigned a judge with whom we were not familiar, we would check the file to see if he had judged any of our teams. It was very important to try to understand how different judges react to various types of arguments or presentations.

I drove Dan and Wayne down to Lexington for our second tournament at the University of Kentucky. This tournament attracted top teams from all over the country. The Wolverines did very well. They were 7-1 in the preliminary rounds and made it to the quarterfinals.

The Kentucky tournament was memorable for me because I judged my first elimination round. It featured the future national champions, Robin Rowland and Frank Cross from Kansas University against the University of Wyoming. The other judges on the panel were extremely distinguished—David Zarefsky² from Northwestern, Jim Unger³ from Georgetown, Harold Lawson⁴ from Ohio State, and Bill Southworth⁵ from Redlands. I was a nobody.

My ballot was the last one turned in. I went over all the arguments very carefully. All five of us voted for KU. While driving home I realized that if I had voted for the Cowboys, I might have been “sat out” by the most celebrated panel of all time. If so, that might have been the last elimination round that I was ever allowed to judge. Word spreads quickly if you cast too many questionable ballots.

John Lawson’s debate career at Michigan exactly coincided with the period that I had been in the Army and then employed at the Hartford Life. He knew Bill Davey, Mike Hartmann, and Bill Black, and he had probably heard stories about me. I am not sure what he was doing in 1974-75. His LinkedIn page says that he got a teaching certificate at U-M in 1975. Maybe he was working on that.

In any case John agreed to accompany the guys to the most important tournament of the fall semester at Georgetown. I don’t remember the results, but their drive back was memorable. They were caught in a snowstorm and were trapped in the Allegheny tunnel, which is well over a mile long, for some time. Not a good situation for a claustrophobic.

At some point early in the year Paul Caghan, who was debating with Don Huprich, asked me to come to his apartment to work with him on his affirmative case. I think that it proposed to eliminate the CIA. I almost never turned down a request for assistance.

Paul’s apartment was located a mile or two north of the main campus. Most U-M undergraduates who lived off-campus—and a large number of students did—sought reasonably priced accommodations in old houses that were within walking distance of campus. I was therefore surprised to find Paul living in a really nice, modern, and spacious apartment in a regular apartment building.

Paul and I were creating “blocks” for his case. We listed arguments that opponents might be likely to use and prepared “canned” responses to them. This process frees up more time for other things in the debates themselves. Everyone did it, even in my day.

Paul and I made quite a bit of progress for an hour or so. We were seated at the kitchen table, on which were spread Paul’s debate materials.Then the doorbell rang. Paul got up to answer it. I stayed in my chair.

A large Black guy was at the door. Paul greeted him and, ignoring me, escorted him back to the bedroom. They were in there for fifteen or twenty minutes with the door closed. Then they walked together to the front door, and the big guy left. This was not my first rodeo; I had a pretty good notion of what had transpired, but I held my tongue.

Paul came to see me in the debate office to discuss the debate program’s funding a few times. The first subject was the stipend that had been available for decades to one female debater at U-M every year. Paul said that in the previous year he had arranged with Dr. Colburn for her to be awarded the money, which she then had returned to the team to help pay expenses. He said that she would do it again in 1974-75. I just had to give her name to Dr. Colburn. I did so, and the debate budget was instantly boosted by 40 percent.

Paul also had devised a plan for funding the entire program outside of the speech department. He had his eye on two sources—the university’s summer debate institute for high school students and the high school debate tournament held at U-M. I knew nothing about either one. If they existed when I debated, I heard nothing of them. Both of these activities were run by an obscure administrative department far from the speech department in the Frieze Building.

Paul showed me materials that he had created to promote the institute and the tournament nationwide and thereby to increase their revenue-generating capacity markedly. He asked me for help in putting the case before the administration.

I knew nothing about dealing with the bureaucracy of a huge university. I did know that it would be easy to step on someone’s toes, and the person with sore toes would be likely to fight back. Before one attempted anything like this, it was crucial to understand the politics. I came back to Michigan to coach debate. The last thing that I wanted to do was to become involved in a political war. As they say in the military, “That’s above my pay grade.” So, I declined to help Paul with this project⁶, and I did not hear about it again. A few years later I did come to understand the politics, and I was very glad that I had avoided a confrontation.

I remember taking one trip with Paul. Wayne Miller’s brother lent us his car to drive to the tournament at Emory University in Atlanta. I drove most of the way, but after sunset I became sleepy. Paul volunteered to drive. Several times I excoriated him for driving too fast, but he persisted. He just had a lead foot. Somewhere in Tennessee we ran over a deer. The deer was lying on the highway, presumably dead. We all saw it in the headlights, but at the speed that Paul was driving he was unable to avoid it.

The gas gauge immediately showed empty. We stopped to check whether the fuel tank had been ruptured. Fortunately, the tank was intact, but the gauge no longer worked. I later had to pay Wayne’s brother to replace it.

I have no recollection of Paul attending any tournaments after Emory.

We also attended a tournament at Bradley University in Peoria, IL, at some point in the autumn. I don’t remember anything about it. Don Goldman may have escorted the debaters.

The two novices, Tim Beyer and Stewart Mandel definitely attended at least a couple of tournaments in the fall, but I am not sure which ones.

Over the Christmas break four of the guys—Wayne, Dan, Mitch, and Mike—flew to California to debate in tournaments at UCLA and Redlands. I paid the entry fees out of the budget, but they paid their own expenses, including travel and lodging. It was probably a great experience for them, but the results were strictly mediocre.

Since Dan Gaunt decided against debating in the second semester, Wayne needed a new partner. Wayne had always been a first negative, and so had Mike Kelly. So, the adjustment would be easier for Mitch, who had debated second negative all year. Mitch was probably also at least a little better than Mike. I paired Mike with Don Huprich for the second semester.

The first tournaments in January were in Boston. Boston College, MIT, and Harvard held nearly consecutive tournaments. I originally intended for us to attend all three, but I had accidentally “mailed” the registration form for MIT into a trash can on State Street in Ann Arbor.

We attended both BC and Harvard in 1975 and 1976. One year both Sue and I drove with two debaters each. The other year I drove by myself with Wayne and Mitch. My recollection, which may be wrong, is that the two-car year was 1975. Here is what happened.

We planned to drive both Greenie and Sue’s Dodge Colt across Ontario and reenter the United States north of Buffalo. We knew that the border security at the Detroit-Windsor end would be trivial. Thousands of people worked in one city and lived in the other. The biggest TV station in the Detroit area was CKLW in Windsor. Its signal could easily be picked up in Plymouth.

However, by the time that we reached the border between Ontario and New York we had been driving for a long time, we were tired, and we probably looked it. Sue and I were driving small cars with a great deal of luggage—six suitcases plus a large number of briefcases and large steel file boxes that each contained hundreds of 4″x6″ cards on which were written quotes to be used as evidence in debates. Don and Mike were passengers in Sue’s car. Both of them had short hair, and Sue was dressed respectably. On the other hand, Wayne and I both had rather long hair. Mitch had very curly hair that resembled Harpo Marx’s. All three of us wore blue jeans, and I sported a beard. I also wore a cowboy hat, coat, and boots suitable for riding the range.

The border agents swooped down on Greenie. They made us remove everything from the car. They wanted to know what we were trying to bring into the U.S. I explained that we were debaters going to Boston from the University of Michigan and that we were carrying a lot of debate materials—cards and paper. They made us open everything, and they spent the better part of an hour examining our gear.They found nothing. Then they let us all go.

They ignored Sue’s car. I later learned that Don had brought some marijuana in his suitcase. He had been sweating bullets during the border check. I made it clear to him that he was never to bring dope on debate trips again. I cannot even imagine how much trouble he would have been in then, and I would have been in the soup when we returned.

I think that we stayed in an apartment in Boston during the BC tournament. This was arranged by a guy named Bill Topping. I am not positive, but I think that Sue stayed at her parents’ house in Enfield, CT, while the preliminary rounds were going on. She came back to Boston for the elimination rounds. I know that she sat next to me for a debate that included Larry Summers from MIT, who later became the President of Harvard and then Secretary of the Treasury. He won that round, but he did not win the tournament. Neither did either of our teams.

In between the two tournaments we stayed overnight in the Hartford area. Sue and I stayed with Jim and Ann Cochran. I remember that we tried to play bridge in the evening. Sue and I were partners. She knew a little about the game, but she had a strange aversion to drawing trump. On two hands in a row she was declaring a makeable contract. After the first hand we all patiently explained that if you were playing in a suit contract, and you needed more than one or two tricks in a side suit, you first needed to lead out trumps until the opponents had none.

On the next hand—the next hand!—she faced a similar situation and neglected to draw trump. I banged my fist down on the table so hard that the table broke. I may have imbibed a beer or two.

It was great to see some of my friends again. Jim and Ann may not have been as enthusiastic.

The guys did not stay with us at the Cochrans. I think that they stayed in Enfield with Sue’s relatives.

Wayne and Mitch finished in the middle of the pack at Harvard, too. On the second evening Mike and Don decided to try a pizza place that was not on the tournament’s list of recommended restaurants. They both got sick and had to forfeit a round or two. They were much better by the time that we were ready to leave.

Huprich disposed of his marijuana. I did not ask him how. The trip back was blessedly uneventful.

Northwestern sponsored the biggest tournament in the district. I remember that it was very cold at this tournament every year that I attended. I met Wayne’s friend Howard Kirschbaum, who went to school there. He remarked that he planned to get his degree in three years. This astounded me. Why would anyone want to cut short what was undoubtedly the most enjoyable period of one’s life? College life was ideal; the real world not so much.

Wayne and Mitch qualified at the tournament, but they lost in the first elimination round to an extremely good team from Redlands.

Don Goldman took Tim and Stewart to a lower-level varsity tournament at the University of Detroit. The guys had an unbelievably good tournament. They made it all the way to the final round!

The last varsity tournament before districts was at Butler University in Indianapolis. This was an important tournament for us because we did not attend a lot of the tournaments in the district. Some of the judges from other schools in the district may not have seen much of us. Wayne and Mitch qualified again, but they were eliminated soon enough that they were able to watch Howard Kirschbaum, a little the worse for wear, lose in the semifinals. I must have been judging the other semifinal round, but I don’t remember it.

The high school tournament sponsored by U-M was held at some point in the second semester. Don Goldman designed the schedule, which had been advertised as protecting teams from facing other teams in their district. Don had received an outdated list of the districts, and that is what he used. A few of the coaches were upset because we scheduled their teams to meet teams from their districts.

My job was to make sure that there were judges every round. Dr. Colburn ran the assembly at which the awards were handed out.

I took Tim and Stewart to Novice Nationals, which was also held at Northwestern. We stayed at (I think) a Holiday Inn in Evanston, quite close to the university. During the night someone broke into the room shared by the three of us. I woke up to see in the dim light someone rummaging through the pockets of a pair of pants that belonged to one of the guys. I yelled at the intruder. He immediately ran away. I called the desk. They sent a security guard to our room. We determined that we had not lost anything. I always slept with my wallet under my pillow.

We later learned that the thief had been apprehended. Ours was the last room. He had already burgled several room using a passkey obtained from a maid.

I have a vague recollection that Tim and Stewart qualified at Novice Nationals, but, if so, they did not get very far in the elimination rounds.

During the entire season I had religiously kept careful records of our expenses. I had collected receipts to justify every expense. However, I had only turned in receipts to the department’s secretary for one or two tournaments. Before districts I had to get caught up. It’s not as if I had been lazy or dishonest. I just spent almost every waking moment trying to help prepare the debaters. I did as much research as anyone.

I presented all of the receipts and expense forms to the department head’s secretary. I do not remember her name. Evidently she was shocked and angered that she had to spend so much time processing these forms. The next day her boss, Edgar Willis⁷, summoned me to his office.

It was not a pleasant meeting. He began by telling me that I had upset his secretary by dumping all of my travel reports at once. I apologized, and I mentioned that no one had made me aware of any schedule or deadline for submitting them. During the debate season I had had very little time for paperwork. Now that it was almost over I had a little time.

He then asked me about the scholarship to the female debater, Paul Caghan’s girlfriend. He wanted to know why she did not go to any tournaments. I told him that she had said that she did not want to attend any. This was completely true.

Then he accused me of prejudice against women because I only recruited male debaters. I was happy that the interrogation turned in that direction. I explained very sincerely that recruiting was not part of my job. I insisted that I had never talked to anyone, whether a current U-M student or a high school debater who was coming to U-M, about joining the debate team.

He then complained about the way that the debaters talked. He said that several faculty members had overheard practice rounds in which the people were speaking at a rate that was almost incomprehensible. This was true. It takes a lot of practice to learn how to listen to debaters. I explained that debate was a timed event. If a speaker did not have time to answer an argument, the other side would by default win that argument. Thus, a primary focus was to make sure that every important argument received attention. Speed was one factor, but so were economy of language and the ability to assess the impact of arguments in order to devote time on important ones. We worked on all of these things.

Finally Dr. Willis wanted to know why we needed to travel to Boston and Atlanta and California for tournaments. He said that he was sure that schools in Michigan and Ohio held tournaments that we could attend. I replied that we did attend some of those, but the level of competition at most of the closest tournaments was too low for our varsity debaters. Fortunately, I had a great example to support this argument. Two freshmen, Tim and Stewart, had recently finished second at the U-D tournament. After that he let me go back to work, chastened but unbowed.

As usual there were twenty-four teams at the district qualifying tournament for NDT. Two teams, Northwestern and Augustana College, had received first-round bids.⁸ The second teams from those two schools competed at districts. I thought that Wayne and Mitch had a pretty good chance of qualifying, but I figured that they would need some luck. They debated pretty well. Their 5-3 record was good enough to qualify. However, one other 5-3 team, Wayne’s friends from Western Illinois, had more ballots, and they received the final bid.

I wanted to apply for a second-round bid. After all, Wayne and Mitch were the next team in line to qualify, and they had a pretty good record overall. I tried to get Dr. Colburn to sign the application, but he would not do it. He said that the department would not authorize it. I asked him why not. At first he said that there was no money available. When I said that we would find money somewhere, he said that the department would still not approve it.

I did not know what to say. I felt crushed and betrayed. On the other hand, only Mike Kelly would be graduating. We really could wait until next year.

1. Dale Hample is now at the University of Maryland. He even has a Wikipedia page.

2. In 2021 David Zarefsky is still at Northwestern University.

3. Jim Unger coached at Georgetown and then at American University. He died in 2008. His Wikipedia page is here.

4. Harold Lawson died in either 1999 or 2000. At the time he was the debate coach at Central Missouri State University.

5. In 2021 Bill Southworth is still at Redlands.

The debate team’s headquarters is now in the storied Michigan Union.

6. Decades later Michigan became a national power in debate. The program was established outside of any academic department. The funding for the team comes primarily from the two sources that Paul identified. In the 2020-21 school year the team received two first round at-large bids to the NDT. According to the coach, Aaron Kall, the third team also probably would have received a bid, but the rules limited each school to two.

7. Professor Willis died in 2014 at the age of 100. His obituary can be read here.

8. Northwestern and Augustana both made the elimination rounds at NDT. None of the district qualifiers did. Both teams lost in the Octafinals. Baylor emerged as the Champion.

1972-1974 Connecticut: The People

Posted on February 15, 2021 by Mike

Friends, memorable acquaintances, and relatives. Continue reading →

I met a large number of people working at The Hartford. Here is an alphabetical list of the ones that I remember. At the end are a few people whom I remember only by first name. If no department is mentioned, the person worked in Life Actuarial. If no specific responsibility is mentioned, it is safe to assume that the individual was an actuary or actuarial student.

The only think that I remember about Larry Abbott is that he always came to work without a suit coat. He kept a sports coat near his desk to wear to meetings in other departments. I think that he worked in Group Actuarial.
I did not know Pat Adams very well. I remember criticizing her pitiful sneeze in the study room. I also remember that she took—and passed actuarial exams two at a time.
Lou Aiello was a clerk in Life Actuarial. He might have worked for Alan Gibb. He batted .500 (1 for 2) for the Mean Reserves, and his hit was the most legendary in the history of the team.
At some point I sat near Barb Bednarz. I think that it might have been when I came back for the summer of 1975. I remember talking to her about Monty Python and explicating my theory that a human being trained from birth to run on all fours could win Olympic medals.
Paul Campbell arrived after I did. He was a Variable Annuity actuary. He played once or twice for the Mean Reserves softball team.
Jim Cochran came to Hartford in 1973. He and his wife Ann were close friends. They taught me a subset of the rules to Sheepshead. Jim played on both Mean Reserves teams and took my place on the golf team. He was the outsider in the 345 Club carpool. I keep in touch with him via email. Some people called him “Crow”. I think it had something to do with the original spelling
Tom Corcoran has been my close friend for over forty-eight years. Having grown up in the Boston area, in the seventies he still pronounced his last name in almost exactly the same way that Jim Cochran pronounced his. Tom, who participated in nearly every aspect of my life at the Hartford, married Patti Lewonczyk on 1/07/77.
Sue Comparetto worked as a clerk for nearly every insurance company in Hartford. We got married on 12/08/12, when it finally made sense for tax purposes. She took the photos for the Mean Reserves softball album.
Carolyn DesRochers was a supervisor in the Individual Pensions Department. I worked with her while attempting to determine the source of the problems with the annual reports for the policyholders. She was married to Chris.
Chris DesRochers¹ started, I think, a year before I did. I succeeded him in the role of preparing a monthly report for Jan Pollnow. He was married to Carolyn. I think that I helped them move.
Paul Engstrom played both years for the Mean Reserves softball team, but I don’t have any clear memories of him.
Wayne Foster ran the payday pool. He had been a communications specialist in Vietnam. He was awarded a Bronze Star for completing an international phone call.
Don Francis was the #2 man in the Life Actuarial Department. He played softball with us a few times, but I did not know him very well.
Tom Garabedian worked in the Group Actuarial Department. He was one of the best players in both basketball and softball.
Paul Gewirtz was the senior actuary in the Individual Pensions area. I think that he became a fellow of the Society of Actuaries while I was at the Hartford. He made a memorable contribution to the lore of the Mean Reserves softball team.
Alan Gibb was a supervisor in Life Actuarial. I did not have much interaction with him.
My only contact with Bob Goode, a top executive, was a very nerve-wracking phone call during my short period working for Mike Winterfield.
I am not sure where Les Gubkin worked. He somehow found out about the Mean Reserves and joined the softball team in 1973.
Jim Hawke began working at the Hartford in 1973. We soon became close friends, and we still stay in contact by email. He played a little softball for the team, but he is most famous for the picnic with Ethan, Sue, and me on Bunyan Mountain. He also took over my bedroom in the 345 Club and my spot in the carpool.
I remember Jim Housholder, but the only conversation that I recall clearly was when he explained about a new product he was working on—a whole life policy with a death-exclusion rider.
Kevin Kirk worked in Individual Pensions. He and his wife came over to have supper and watch The Wizard of Oz with Sue and me in East Hartford. Kevin played on both the basketball and softball teams.
Donna Kolakowski was one of the youngest clerks. She attended some of our events. I went to lunch with her and Jim Hawke a few times.
Jim Kreidler once called me a jock, one of the greatest compliments that I ever received. He wimped out in the epic tennis match of 8/18/73. He went to England to work there.
Patti Lewonczyk² was a supervisor in Individual Pensions. We worked together on proposals. She married Tom Corcoran. They went on vacations with Sue and me in the twenty-first century.
Frank Lord³ played on the softball team. He might have also played basketball, but his best sport was tennis. He was the first person that I knew who drove a BMW. I saw him in 1988 at the Mark Twain House when I won the story contest.
I think that Mel Majocha worked at the Hartford somewhere. She went out with Tom Herget. I went to her parent’s house for a cookout once. I will never forget how she said goodbye to me.
Dave McDonald was Secretary (boss) of the Individual Pensions Department. He asked me to investigate the problem producing the annual statements for customers.
Gail Mertan went out with Tom Garabedian. I don’t know where (or if) she worked.
Marsha Monico went out with Tom Herget. I don’t know where (or if) she worked.
Bill Mustard played golf with John Sigler, Norm Newfield, and me. I think that he worked in IT at the Hartford.
Norm Newfield was a tremendous athlete. He worked in Human Resources. He played on a flag football team in New Britain, and he participated in my football pool. He was part of our foursome in golf and an opponent in the golf league.
Scott Otermat⁴ was my supervisor in the Individual Pensions Department. His favorite author was Ayn Rand. He had a dog named Cinders. I helped him move to Bristol. He liked to work on his MG. His full name was actually Scott C. Otermat, Jr. I tried to get him to promise to name his first-born Scott C. Otermat The Third so that his initials would be the same as his first name.
Damon Panels lived across the street from the tower building. He occasionally gave a soirée in his apartment. Sue and I went to see him years later in Bloomfield, CT.
Tony Piccerillo was a recent graduate of Trinity College who worked in Individual Pensions.
Jan Pollnow hired me. He was a star play on both athletic teams. He was my last boss before I moved to Plymouth.
Russ Pollnow was Jan’s brother. I don’t know where he worked but he played on the 1974 softball team.
Parker Prine worked with Norm Newfield in Human Rellations. He played in the football pool and won one week. Tom Herget accused me of making him up and keeping the winnings for myself.
Ann Randazzo was Don Sondergeld’s secretary and the unofficial office manager of the Life Actuarial Department.
I don’t know where Keith Reynolds worked. He played softball and went to bars with us.
Bob Riley was a supervisor in Life Actuarial. He was Sue’s boss and a first baseman on the 1974 team.
I don’t know where Charlie Robinson worked. He played on the softball team.
David Rowe was an exchange student from England who worked as an actuary in Life Actuarial. The four bases on a softball diamond confounded him. Traffic on roundabouts in England goes clockwise.
Gerry Schwartz, an employee of the Operations Research Department, had the dubious honor of managing the HP-3000 computer system.
John Sigler was my golf and tennis partner. He also played on all of the Mean Reserves teams.
Fred Smith played on the basketball teams. He was famous for being able to read paper tapes.
Don Sondergeld was VP and Actuary (big cheese). He never berated me publicly for insulting his wife. In 2021 he is still an active member of the Hartford Bridge Club.
Mike Swiecicki⁵ left the Hartford before I did. I remember him as being a phenomenal player at games that required hand-eye coordination.
Laurie Weisbrot (a guy) worked in Group Actuarial. When he passed the tenth exam he purchase a vanity plate: LRW-FSA.
Mike Wheeler played on the softball team both years.
Jo White was a senior clerk. She played a lot of golf, mostly at the Buena Vista Golf Course in West Hartford.
Ron Wittenwyler played third base on our softball team in 1973. His wife Jane came to some games.
First names only:
- Bill: Norm Newfield’s partner in the golf league;
- Jackie: Sue’s landlady in Rockville;
- Lisa: who worked for Don Francis;
- Paula: a clerk who worked for Patti Lewonczyk and whom I made cry;
- Ray: a supervisor in Individual Pensions;
- Ron: who married Jackie.
- Tad: a clerk who worked for Alan Gibb.

Sue Comparetto had a million friends. I have undoubtedly forgotten more than I remember. Here are a few that I met during this two-year period.

Marlene Boulerice was with Gary Gudinkas at the time. Sue went to high school with her.
Diane DeFreitas was Sue’s roommate in East Haddam.
Gary Gudinkas was a short guy who was with Marlene. Sue knew him from high school.
Karen Peterson worked at Travelers Equity Sales with Sue and went on the trip to Alaska with her.
Diane Robinson⁶ worked at Travelers Equity Sales with Sue and went on the trip to Alaska with her. We visited Diane a few times at her home in Vermont.
Pat and Stan Slatt had a very large python and a boa constrictor.
Bob and Susan Thompson had a dachshund and a very old Plymouth.
Sue knew Evelyn Umgelter from high school.

It took me years to sort out Sue’s relatives on her mother’s side. I’m only listing first names. Except for Effy, their last name in 1972-74 was Locke. Almost all of them lived within a mile or two of Sue’s childhood home on North Maple in Enfield. Sue was older than all of her cousins and siblings, and I was older than she was. So, I am pretty sure that all of the people of Sue’s generation were living at home during this period.

Bob was the only one of Effy’s brother who left Enfield. He moved to western Michigan and worked as an engineer. Sue and I visited his family in the nineties.
Carol⁷ was Bob’s wife.
Charlie⁸ was Effy’s brother. He was an electrician who did work for Sue’s Father. He lived within a couple of miles.
Chet⁹ was also Effy’s brother. He was buried in his military uniform. He lived within a couple of miles.
Effy Slanetz¹⁰ was Sue’s mother.
Elsie¹¹ was Chet’s wife.
Gene¹² was Charlie’s wife.
Glenn was a son of Ted and Judy and therefore Sue’s first cousin. He lived a few miles away in a new house
Jimmy was a son of Ted and Judy and therefore Sue’s first cousin.
Judy was Ted’s wife. They lived across the street from the Slanetz home.
Molly¹³ was Sue’s Grandmother and Effy’s mother. She lived in a room attached to Ted and Judy’s house. She loved to play bingo.
Paul was Chet’s son. a grave-digger, and Sue’s first cousin.
Patti¹⁴ and Cathy were Charlie’s daughters and therefore Sue’s first cousins. I did not know them very well.
Susie was Ted and Judy’s daughter and Sue’s first cousin.
Ted was Effy’s youngest brother and therefore Sue’s uncle.
Timmy was Chet’s son and Sue’s first cousin.

In contrast, I am not sure that I met any of Sue’s uncles, aunts, and cousins on her father’s (Slanetz) side during this period. I got to meet a lot of them at a Slanetz family reunion that was held years later at Sue’s family house.

Art¹⁵ was Sue’s dad. He farmed when Sue was little. When I knew him, he had a corporation with several irons in the fire—construction, trash, water, and who knows what else.
Betty was Sue’s youngest sister.
Don was Sue’s only brother.
Karen was Sue’s younger sister. She was older than Betty and Don.
Margaret¹⁶ Davis was Art’s sister. She had three children.
- Mark was the brains of the family. I saw him once in Houston, and he has visited our house occasionally.
- Robby still lives in Enfield in 2021.
- I met Diane only briefly. I think that she in South Carolina in 2021.

Chris DesRochers died in 2013. His obituary can be read here.
Patti and Tom Corcoran married while I was coaching debate in Michigan in the late seventies. They had two children, Brian and Casey, who in 2021 both live in Burlington, VT, with their respective families. Patti died in 2011. My tribute to her can be read here.
Frank Lord died on July 3, 2020. His obituary is here.
Scott Otermat left the Hartford in 1980. He died in 2016. His obituary is here.
Mike Swiecicki left the Hartford before I did. He died in 2015 after a twenty-five year career as an actuary with CAL PERS. His obituary is here.
Diane Robinson died in 2009
Carol Locke died in 2018. Her obituary is here.
Charlie Locke died in 2017. His obituary is here.
Chet Locke died in 2004. His obituary is here.
Elsie Locke died in 2018.
Effy Slanetz died in 2002. Her obituary is here.
Gene Locke died in 2018.
I think that Molly Locke died in 1990.
Patti Locke Caswell died in 2019. Her obituary is here.
Art Slanetz died in 2017. His obituary is here.
Margaret Davis died in 2010. Her obituary is here.

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Tag Archives: Cochran, Jim

2008-2019 Partners at the Hartford Bridge Club Part 1

1974-1977 Living in Plymouth, MI

1975 Summer: Hartford

1974-1975 U-M: Debate