Diary of a Bridge Pro #30

Springfield, Illinois - April 14

The weather this week continues to cover a wide range - I notice, because I go everywhere by
bike. Yesterday, Thursday, offered up a cold dawn, a chilly morning, a pleasant afternoon, a brief
but severe rainstorm with high gusty winds, and then a glorious early evening featuring a sunset
of majestic purple hues.

I’d like to talk about Goethe, but I keep getting diverted by thoughts of this famous incident
from 1985 where Bobby Knight, basketball coach for Indiana, got worked up and threw a chair:

Like Bobby Knight, the same could be said of Glubok: "I can get a little intense sometimes."

*****

I've learned a ton from this endeavor in the month since I began writing this blog.. For one
thing, I never knew what a polymath was before.

For those of you who can't or don't want to click on the link: The Definition of Polymath: An
individual with a broad range of knowledge on a broad range of subjects - a Renaissance type.

Yesterday I surprised myself when I managed both to attend the potluck dinner at the
Discovery House across the street, and also to contribute a couple of pounds of coleslaw
(doctors and nutritionists both recommend coleslaw) and one of cucumber salad from the
Country Market on Second Street.

I’m not a big “group activity guy” - at least I haven’t been, in the past. Potlucks are fun, though -
you can’t go wrong in attending, really. I want to heartily recommend the institution to all and
sundry, now that I've attended one..

Things Potlucks Have Going For Them:

1) Everybody has a good time
2) There is an absence of pretense
3) The range of food is so wide that you are sure to find something you like
4) The crowd is very likely to be a mix of people, some you already know and others too
5) Group activities in general are very worthwhile - we all need these more than ever,
post-2020 - the need or desire for group activity is one of the reasons I'm glad to have resumed
playing F2F bridge.

Executive Summary: Group activities that feature food: Really good!

*****

Speaking of eating with other people, I sojourned downtown yesterday to Sixth Street Cafe. There, I ate a late breakfast and had a marvelous experience discussing Catcher in the Rye
with a young local who had just begun reading the book when I met him in that same spot a few
weeks previous, and by yesterday had recently finished it.

We spoke of the reclusive J. D. Salinger, and I recounted some macabre details of his short
story, A Beautiful Day for Bananafish.

Reading Catcher, my young friend was struck by just how angry Holden was - "Why was he so
angry?" he wanted to know.

I explained that he was angry at his mother for dying, and we both recalled that he was angry
at his brother, the writer, for "selling out and going to Hollywood, with all the other phonies".
Then he was angry at his roommate for having gross habits, and angry at a former teacher on
Sutton Place for trying to get intimate with him.

We talked about fancy prep schools like the one Holden attended, Pencey Prep - the Pencey
campus, even though entirely fictional, likely resembled the one where I did my undergraduate
studies: Amherst College, in western Massachusetts.

Here's how Amherst is branding themselves today:

https://www.amherst.edu/about

When it comes to re-invention, we could all learn a lot from these guys.

*****

Goethe, that pioneering polymath, is said to have said: "Beginnings have a magic within them.
Begin something!"

Last month I began this blog, and my bridge agency. My thoughts turn once more to bridge
legend Alvin Roth: Roth, what have I wrought?

Let's have a bridge hand. My recent trip to Florida offers many candidates, here's one from my
two days there playing with Wall Street Walter.

Consider the deal from Walter's perspective:

AT8x, AQxx, J, AKJ9 -The bidding proceeds One Diamond on your left, pass by partner (Your side vulnerable, they're
not), one spade on your right - naturally you double.

After (1D) - P - (1S) - ?, a take-out double with this hand is totally auto - you have the requisite four-four in the unbid suits, and an
ace-and-a-half more than a minimum - Your RHO passes, denying as many as three spades in the modern game (so tending to show precisely two) - your partner calls 2 Clubs, your RHO competes with Two Diamonds - You have four clubs and a stiff diamond, so you have more than you need to offer a competitive raise to 3C, so you do. Opener competes to 3 Diamonds, and this is passed back to you.

The bidding to date: (1D) - P - (1S) - Double (You) - (Pass) - Two Clubs (Partner) - (2D) - 3C -
(3D) - P - P - ?

*****

I'm going to assert here that you have to bid either Four Clubs or double - Walter elected to
pass - in my partnership with Walter, in competitive auctions, our side has often suffered from
this sort of error (under-competing).

In case you’re curious, here are the home pages for the institutions of higher education which
Walter attended, Cornell and Colubmia:

Cornell University
https://www.cornell.edu/

Columbia University
https://www.columbia.edu/

*****

My years at Amherst (1978-82) marked a transitional period in American higher education,
especially in what was then sometimes known as instruction in the liberal arts, or alternatively as
simply, "The Humanities".

While most academies, and the majority of larger state institutions of higher learning,
concentrated on instruction in the "hard sciences" (engineering and the like), places like
Amherst and a handful of others were known as being "Strong in the Humanities" - they took
great institutional pride in their departments of English and Sociology, sometimes known as
"The Social Sciences".

By the time I attended, less pride was taken - it was the early 1980’s, and we were at the
beginning of a sullen era, the tail end of a hopeful one. The country, and my college, were
transitioning from Aquarian to Reptilian, one might argue, but perhaps that’s applying too fine a
point.

By the time I arrived, I already had aspirations as a writer. When I returned for my junior yeyar,
after a leave of absence, I switched majors from History to English. This led to my having a new
Academic Adviser, one G. Armour Craig.

I didn’t appreciate G. Armour at the time - scion to the slaughterhouse family, he had
matriculated at Amherst in the 30’s - he loved the place, and spent his working years there, then
in his seventies, when I was assigned as his charge, he remained on the faculty, even taught a
course or two. Campus legend held that for most of his career there he waived his salary and
simply collected $1 a year.

He loved literature, and learning. but he was from an era way previous to my own. I mean, this
guy was older than Kaplan (b. 1925), maybe as old or older than Roth (b. 1914) - our generation
gap wasn't a crevice, it was a chasm.

I do recall my one encounter with him, where he discussed with me my academic progress.

He was genuinely interested in my education and my progress, and supportive of my desire to
write. He was old school but not a stuffed shirt, and I feel I was remiss not to make way more
use of all he had to offer to me in terms of sage counsel.

I felt at the time that I had no time on my hands - I could point out here that during that period I
was managing to win the NY GNT's every year (1981-84) and I think it’s fair to say that I was far
from diligent about my studies. So it doesn't surprise me now to recall that I didn't make use of
the office appointments with him which I was entitled to - I was probably relieved to be able to
postpone and dodge them altogether, with this one exception.

It was a sunny spring afternoon. "So, what do you think of Goethe?" G. Armour asked of me as
we sat in his large, shared office in Johnson Chapel. Clearly he lived the literary life, which I had
some interest in - but at the time I had way more interest in City Life, and in the card-players life,
and bridge.

"I'm not sure I'm familiar with him," I must have acknowledged - I recall vaguely that I might
have been assigned one of his books, in one of my courses, but I also recall that I hadn't even
cracked the cover open - possibly I never even bought the thing, much less read it.

---

"Good God, man!” G. Armour exclaimed to me, appalled. “You mean to tell me that you've
never read Goethe?"