![]() These are all worth varying amounts of points but the most points would come if you happened to get both of the pinochle duos available, both jacks of diamonds and queens of spades. He then puts down his meld, which includes any run (all cards in the trump suit except the 9), any marriage (king and queen of any suit), any four of a kind in the face cards or aces, the nines of trump, and the pairing which gives the game its name, the jack of diamonds and the queen of spades. At that point the winner announces which of the four suits will be “trump” and is given four cards (hopefully in the “trump” suit!) from his partner’s hand. After the hands are dealt there is a bidding process which starts at 25 points and increases in five point increments until the highest bidder is decided. It’s a team game where four players pair off and are dealt a full deck of cards (two copies of the four suits but only from the nine through the face cards and the ace for 48 cards total). Pinochle was, aparently, a game he and his wife had often played with their friends. That is, until we started playing pinochle. I would often go along with my mom during that summer between freshman and sophomore year and it was nice to visit but it never something I really looked forward to. The family rallied around him and continued a kind of meals-on-wheels service where the eleven children (or in-laws or respective grandchildren) would bring over a dinner or lunch every day on an 11-day rotation. His sadness at the loss of his wife was palpable but it was clear that he would last at least a few more years without her. He had already had a multiple bypass heart surgery and cancer and was in the process of coming out the other side of that whole ordeal. He was more of an idea of a grandfather than a flesh and blood person. ![]() Grandpa Pete had always helped me whenever I needed to build something for a school project but our interactions beyond those fun building times were limited. I was finishing up my freshman year of college and had by then figured out that engineering was not my major of destiny and I was pretty focused on my own issues. ![]() Still, it was kind of easy to forget at that time that my grandfather, Pete, was a person. They had 11 children and nearly 40 grandchildren and a whole mess of great-grandchildren. In the spring of 2007 my maternal grandmother died and left her husband a widower. This post is going to get a little more personal than I usually get, so if you’re just here for the movie talk or whatever check back again later. ![]()
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