Why Do Grandmas Love Bridge So Much?

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CHICAGO — Micah Materre can’t recall a time when her mother, her sisters and their close friends didn’t play bridge. The women are obsessed — so much so that Materre’s mother may have been a member of eight to 10 bridge groups at one time. For many older women bridge has become a beloved pastime that provides a social outlet — and a purpose. Some women had professional careers at one point.

My grandma loved doing two things: playing Bridge and watching Murder She Wrote:

MSW logged 264 episodes over 12 season from 1984-96. In that time, Angela Lansbury landed a record 10 Golden Globe nominations for Best Actress in a drama including 4 wins. At one point, over 40 million viewers were tuning in each week, roughly the same number would for a World Series Game 1:

The show revolves around the day-to-day life of Jessica Fletcher, a childless, widowed, retired English teacher who becomes a successful mystery writer. Jessica invariably proves more perceptive than the official investigators of a case, who are almost always willing to arrest the most likely suspect. By carefully piecing the clues together and asking astute questions, she always manages to trap the real murderer.

My grandmother absolutely loved this shit.

But not as much as she loved playing Bridge. I’ll tell you that much right now. Grandma Rosemary LOVED Bridge. All the war brides who got married in the late 40’s got a piece of the action. Bridge clubs were littered across the south side and jam packed every afternoon before supper.

I remember being a kid and staying with Grandma and she’d be out of the house for hours on end playing bridge with a bunch of Betties and Virginias. She’d come home and regale the 7-year-old version of me with stories of how she Trump’d this bitch and was stealing contracts on bids and basically just a bunch of jargon I couldn’t understand but made Grandma Rosemary sound like an up-and-coming mob boss. For obvious reasons I admired this game bridge.

But I never understood it. Lots of teamwork and keeping score by hand can get confusing. Also having the attention span of a ice cold boner doesn’t help but that’s a different story. Point is I let my best bridge years go by and now my Grandma’s gone and I’m wallowing in missed opportunity. So effective immediately I’m teaching myself how to Bridge and you’re coming with me.

Nevermind I pass. You could give me an in depth 15 minute, step-by-step tutorial and it still won’t help.

I said IT STILL WONT HELP.

Anyways, shoutout to Grandmas everywhere. You guys are so awesome that I’m waving the one-time entry fee to my new Bridge Club. Email me carl@barstoolsports.com for more details.