We had so much to do in those early years at Straddie, and yet we had none of the appliances we all need today to make an evening full and entertaining. Although one year, Sawdies did install a light box pretending to be a TV in the house we had rented from them. You see this mainland rejected TV was on its last legs and could manage at best only 2 hours of view time per night. You would start the evening movie with a full 16� screen only to have great actors like Charlton Hesston and Audrey Hepburn reduced in height to 8� while still maintaining their same width. Strange viewing indeed! Still we slugged it out with squinting eyes to reach the great climax of every one of those movies. Needless to say but there was some downtime to be filled in. This was the time for cards. But we kids were getting bored playing the same old card games and so one night Helen asked Dad that fateful question. �Dad do you know any card games?� Dad indicated that he knew one and that he would be happy to teach us. This was excitement plus. A new game – evenings of fun coming up. Well Dad came over from reading his book and sat at the table with us kids. As he sorted the cards we all leaned forward, with elbows on table and knees on seat and ready to take in the instructions of our new card game. Now 500 is a great card game, but it should come with a warning on the pack �NOT SUITABLE FOR KIDS UNDER 12� which was most of us at that table that night. Unperturbed, Dad continued to explain the games instructions and how it was played. He taught us all about the trumps, the changed value of the Jacks, the dropping of certain cards, of hearts beats diamonds beats clubs beats spades and the process of taking turns of calling suits and numbers until you got the last call standing. Over half an hour had passed and Helen seemed to be taking it all in far better than any of us. I know that because she and was the first to break from the mesmerizing spell we were all under to say �OK, we all know how to play that now� and gathering up the cards said �Lets get started�. �NO, NO, NO� Dad said �I haven�t explained how to play the game at all yet � I have simply explained the process of selecting who starts�.
