Grandma's Card Club

Every Thursday afternoon, my grandmother hosts her card club: four women, all over eighty, who have played gin rummy together since 1971.

I visited during one this summer and was promptly put to work refilling iced tea. They play fast, talk faster, and cheat with total transparency. "Oh, I didn't see that," one says, peeking at another's hand. They laugh until someone has to take off their glasses and wipe their eyes.

They've seen each other through new babies and new hips, moves and weddings, and one memorable trip to Atlantic City they will not discuss in front of grandchildren.

At the end of the game they put a quarter each into a coffee can. The winner takes the can home, and has for fifty years. My grandmother says the can has traveled more than she has. I'd give anything to have friends like that at eighty. I'm working on it.