Diary of a Bridge Pro #37

​Springfield, April 17
Going through a mystical period, a good time to cite a pair of books that have helped me along
the way. I’d like to elaborate on what these two books mean to me later on down the line - here's
the first:
​
Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind.

The lessons in this slender book are more useful when I write this today, in 2024, than when
the book was written back around 1971.

Just as Suzuki brought Buddhist teachings to the west, I aspire to have a similar impact on
world bridge thinking.

Here's another one you might want to read -- the Steve Jobs biography from about ten years
ago.

​Jobs is a hero to all kinds of people, naturally - I like to think there are three of us who share a
characteristic, Steverino, yours truly, and Carrie Fisher - Ms. Fisher put it best in one of her
novels (Delusions of Grandma?) -

“...I felt as though I would always be tragically in-between, with too much personality for one
person but not quite enough for two....”

*****
Sometimes the cards aren’t worth a dime, if you don’t lay ‘em down....
If you want to order Delusions of Grandma, or perhaps one of her other novels (Postcards from
the Edge?)
​
Click here.

As an abstraction, I determined that these thirty-something numbered blogs should allow for
more scope for reflection, a little less bridge - just as the personal growth gurus like Roshi, Ram
Dass, and Gail Sheehy might advise about the decade of the thirties - gotta know who you are
before you figure out how to shake loose of that guy!

Buddhist Thought for the Day: Sometimes we are playing bridge, and sometimes we are not
playing bridge.

*****

To excel at bridge, one must learn to concentrate. If you can't hold a train of thought, you can't
do well at bridge

*****

Roshi Suzuki, author of ZM/BM, was asked to leave Japan in the late 1950's to establish a Zen
Center in northern California.

Roshi said that he couldn't do that, above his pay-grade. He was, after all, a simple guy. He
did, however, agree to move to California and meditate there, and allow others to join him.
I could be mistaken with some of these assertions, but I believe it was around 1958 that Roshi
established a daily meditative practice in San Francisco. Within weeks there were a dozen
people joining him, and within months, more still.

Not long after he established a center farther down the coast, near Carmel: The Zen Mountain
Monastery.

Bridge hooks - Originally from Vancouver, Canadian bridge legend Allan Graves was my
personal portal to Buddhism - I guess it began in the 80's, our series of casual conversations on
the subject, mostly in tournament playing rooms. Around 1989 or '90, I ventured up to Barnet,
Vermont, to the Karme Choling Center, where Allan was working. I took the beginner course
over one August weekend and launched a pleasant summer / autumn romance with a fellow
student, a nurse from outside Philadelphia.

Certainly I didn't become an ardent Buddhist, but that weekend did change my life. That book,
Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, lit the way. Roshi, we call him - or Suzuki.

*****

It's pleasant for me to recall where I read the Steve Jobs book - it was on the living room shelf
at the Mahaffey estate near Orlando. The house had of course a pool, and it was on a lake you
could swim in - I was fortunate to be a houseguest of Mahaffey there at least twice - Passell or
Gary (Cohler) told me the house valued at 10,000,000 - Mahaffey himself was a legend. He died
in his early 80's around the first month of lockdown, back in March of 2020.

It is pleasant to recall him here - he liked to be called King James, that was his nickname -
fascinating guy, "Mahaffey Stories" could fill this blog, and the next entry too.

He had a great caustic sense of humor, and he was a big party animal. His Florida friends like
Shannon, MIke C., the Tudor King, others - more deceased than living, now - would all have
"Mahaffey stories" to contribute.- Jeff Overby or Jay Whipple would have a few, no doubt -
here's one from me, probably hasn't been heard before, at least it's got that going for it:

*****
One year at the end of the last century, the fall nationals were held in Seattle. I'm guessing that
this was 1998 or 1999. This was the year that Jayne Thomas, a Tournament Chair and District
Representative from Florida, was president of the league. The even bigger convention in town
that week was some sort of international organization - maybe the World Economic Forum, I
recall there may have been protests.

Jayne had almost as big a sense of herself as Jim had of himself, and they got along just fine.
She was on his payroll for something, I forget what. Certainly if he needed to call upon her in
her role as Tournament Chair she was likely to listen. Mahaffey sought to live an epic life -
driving jeeps into fountains, ala F. Scott Fitzgerald. He nicknamed Jayne “The Demon Dyke”,
and was immensely pleased with himself for coining that moniker.

The scuttlebutt that week in Seattle said that The President of Singapore, in town for the
Conference, had offered $25,000 a night for the Presidential Suite, which the ACBL had under
contract - Jayne gave that offer the big passerooski - anyway, the first day of the tournament,
the opening Friday, I'm walking back from the dinner break, just after twilight, about a block from
the venue. Mahaffey is walking there too, I'm thinking he might have been returning from the
meal break for the second session with Shannon.

We're stuck on the sidewalk waiting, there's a huge, long convoy of SUV's and police vehicles
with spinning blue lights,- probably an escort for the King of Siam or something - that was it, it
was some kind of Pan Asian Conference. So all these official vehicles are crawling their way
down the main drag of Seattle, Olympia Blvd or whatever - Mahaffey looks over the convoy,
quite vast really - a dozen cars or more, stretched for close to a block - he sees that he has an
audience of bridge players congregating on the street corner, and with his loud booming voice,
he comments on the convoy:

"Jayne Thomas, coming back from dinner."
​
He laughed at his own joke and I remember it still, a quarter century later.

Funny guy, Jim Mahaffey.