Dear Readers,
Here's the deal:
Reading my friends' Facebook walls, I came by chance upon a post by my cousin in Oklahoma which read:
Seeing a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, I immediately posted the bizarre "story" of how she and I met to her Facebook wall. It reads:
We met at Ike's Chili Parlor in Tulsa where you were dealing them off the arm. Making a bit of small talk, when inquiring about the local weather for the rest of the week, I was enamored by your sparkling wit when you answered "Chili today, hot tamale".
Through subsequent conversation, to my great surprise I found that unbeknownst to both of us, we were long lost cousins.
Imagine that! Isn't it a small world though. Glad to meet you Cuz.
Imagine that! Isn't it a small world though. Glad to meet you Cuz.
As requested, I copied her post to my Facebook wall, settled back, and waited for a bite.
My long-time bridge acquaintance Ken Parker was the first (and sofar the only) one to reply. Playing the game out, I returned his favor and the How Jim Met Ken; A Story of Old Araby blog in The Editor Sez was duly born. After it was published, I posted a link to the blog on his Facebook wall so that the world would not be deprived of Ken's and my fascinating stories.
As a side note, I started to name MY story How Jim Met Ken: or You Bet Your Ace, but prudence got the best of me in the long run.
Sigh... what a weenie...
As a side note, I started to name MY story How Jim Met Ken: or You Bet Your Ace, but prudence got the best of me in the long run.
Sigh... what a weenie...
Anyway, now you know.Aren't you simply thrilled to the core?
Signed: The Editor
Note:
The comment for this post shows Ken's account of how we met.
Read it 1st as it's a setup for How Jim Met Ken: A Tale of Old Araby.
I met Jim Hickerson while working as a mercenary in the Kalahari Desert back in the days when we were both young and tough.
ReplyDeleteOur journey began from a kickoff point in Botswana and took us through parts of Namibia until we found the oasis where we would spend the night.
All day had been spent traveling single file on our camels. I was following a camel that would periodically discharge the worst kind of indescribable smells. I kept yelling to the camel driver ahead of me to put a diaper on that damned animal, but he never responded.
When we finally reached our overnight oasis, I had the opportunity to confront the damned camel jockey who I had followed all day.
I quickly concluded that it wasn't the camel who was the source of the flatulence - it was its driver. As I was already creating a scene approaching this squat fighter, I knew I had to think quickly and find another subject to broach with this man.
As I extended my hand and introduced myself, he responded by saying he was known as Slim Jim Hickerson, from Georgia no less.
As an excuse for charging at him, I told him he looked as though he might be another bridge player. He said he was and we agreed to play a hand or two once we set up the tent and could find another pair of players.
On the first hand, with Jim sitting to my right, partner and I reached a contract of 7 Hearts. The opening lead was a small club. I surveyed the dummy and almost lost it when I saw its diamonds, K-J-9-8-2 opposite my Q-10-7. After his asking for aces and kings, my knuckle-headed partner had bid us up to 7 Hearts off the ace of diamonds!
As my contract was un-doubled, I knew that Jim must be holding the ace of diamonds in his hand to my right. I quickly envisioned a gigantic ruse. I pulled trump ending in dummy (careful to preserve a re-entry card), pitched the 10 and then the Queen of diamonds on dummy's high spades and displayed a sigh of relief for this opportunity.
This left me with the bare 7 of diamonds in my hand. Next, I led the deuce of diamonds off the dummy and looked squarely into Jim's face with a look designed to dare him to just play that ace which would set up dummy's remaining diamonds for discards of losers from my hand.
Just picture my trumping his ace and his having to explain to his partner why he had allowed me to set up the diamond suit when he could see I was going to ruff out his ace.
Of course, my ruse forced Jim to play low to the diamond trick and my lowly 7 won the trick, allowing me to make the grand slam.
At a penny a point, that hand cost Jim $15.10, but from it I learned that Jim had the capacity to become a good bridge player one day.
With my encouragement, he got into duplicate bridge when he got back to Atlanta and, before you knew it, he earned the status of Life Master.
And to think it all began with a stinky camel.
Were it not for that game of bridge, Jim would still be fiddling in the Mercenary Band and entertaining the camels in the Kalahari.