Card Club

My parents didn't have much of a social life when we kids were young. Most of their going out involved shopping or going to some school related event like parent teacher meetings or band concerts. 

But what they did have was card club. 

4 neighbor couples who got together once a month to play cards and do adult things without kids. 

Every month, the game would rotate to a different house. Being kids, we didn't understand this. All we knew is that at random times we would be told that  "card club" was coming. For the longest time I thought card club was a person, like Grandma. But it was worse....card club was company. And there were certain things expected of you when company came over. Like being quiet and not doing anything that would make your mom want to strangle you.

For kids, card club was like a holiday without the presents. Or kids. And we could not understand that at all. The house was clean and there were all kinds of fancy treats in the kitchen that we weren't allowed to touch. To this day, I have a hard time eating bavarian cream puffs because I can still hear my mom yelling, "don't touch that! It's for card club."

So the neighbors would all come over, and they would be wearing nice clothes. Not church clothes, but nicer than the usual yard work and housecleaning clothes that we were used to seeing them in. They were glamorous. 

And the house would be beautiful! Children threatened with being sent to Grandmas to live would clean or hide any offending messes. Piles of toys by the couch were replaced with bowls of chips and dip. Such variety! Brand name ruffled chips and tortillas replaced our usual generic snacks on card club night. There would be no day old cheese curls in a bowl with a plastic soldier on the bottom for these people. And French onion dip! Imagine that! This was party food that we as kids could only imagine.

We didn't know what actually happened at card club, because it was only for adults, so after we said our hellos, we were sent to bed. Of course, I would love to say that our exiting the scene was something like the Von Trapp children going to bed in The Sound of Music, but it wasn't. They had a well-choreographed song and dance, while we were more like Grandma trying to give 4 cats a bath in a locked shower stall. We all tried to be charming/entertaining/useful in order to stay up late. If this didn't work, you could always try showing off your report cards/art work/bruises or anything else that might engage your audience. We were all experts at thinking of things to ask for 

or "remembering" things we had to tell our parents before we went to sleep.

On a side note, Aunt Carrie once had an epic battle with Grandma to stay up late. After she ran through the usual  I need a glass of water/I'm too hot/I'm too cold excuses, she came up with being worried that she had extra skin on the top of her knuckles. Even with that disfigurement, she still had to go to bed. Grandma was tough.

After being shuffled off to bed for the one millionth final time that evening, card club was over. Unless your bedroom was next to the kitchen where cards were being played. Then you stayed up most of the night with your ear to the door, hoping you might hear something interesting, like a dirty joke. I remember hearing jokes one night (you could always tell when the adults we going to tell dirty jokes, because the talk would get really quiet, and Grandpa would always check the bedroom to see if we were asleep.) all I remember was the punch line, something about,"Wait! I've got a set of luggage too!" To this day, I still haven't figured out the rest of the joke.

The next morning is when card club began for us kids. Thats when we would wake to find bowls of fancy potato chip crumbs and stale pretzels left over from the night before. This was an opportunity to try those fancy snacks with the leftover French onion dip, or maybe even salsa, if you were lucky. As a kid, one could also make a killing on the number of pennies that could be found on the floor near the card table.

Card club stopped, but the four neighbor couples remained friends. They have since gone on many vacations together, probably still trying to have some adult time without the kids. I hope everyone has fond memories of those days. I also hope that someday someone remembers the rest of that joke.

The Keychain

One year, Aunt Chris got a fancy keychain as part of her Christmas present from a dentist she worked for. It was a lovely silver keychain, silver serpentine shaped like a teardrop. Aunt Chris must have had plenty of key chains at that time, because it became the grand prize in a Santa bingo tournament, which I won. 

The keychain was discovered in Grandmas couch a few days after the party. Now, I insist that it fell out of my pocket that night, and I just didn't notice it missing. Others insist that I put it in the couch cushions on purpose. Either way, the keychain was discovered and it was returned to me. Thus began the saga of the keychain. 

Uncle John, Uncle Jim and I returned the keychain to each other many times over the next couple of years. One time, the keychain ended up in Uncle Jim's suitcase on his honeymoon. Another time, Grandpa had it arranged so that Uncle John got the keys to this new house on the keychain. 

No one knows where the keychain is now. I believe that someone hid it so well that it was never found again. But who knows? It might turn up again....maybe in your stuff?

Camping. Tolley style.

Oh, where to begin? Everything about our camping trips was like a Three Stooges comedy bit, and you know how much Tolleys love comedy. Every trip was different, but every trip shared some similarities...

Like getting lost. We always had a map, but we always missed the exit we needed. That's where the phrase, "see America unintentionally" came from. Grandpa wasn't afraid to ask for directions, but sometimes it took awhile to find somebody to help us.

And then the dog would yak. We could drive for miles, but as soon as we slowed down and made that last turn into the campground the dog would lose it. All over the back of the station wagon.

Our camping spot was always located in the lowest elevation of the campground. What does that mean? it means that if it should rain, we would be sleeping in a puddle of water. How do I know this? Because it always rained when the Tolleys went camping. The rain didn't stop us from having fun, though. Thanks to Grandmas craftiness, she would make us raincoats out of trash bags and send us outside to play.

One of these times it was raining so bad that the dog dish floated by the camper. Grandma decided that it was too much to play outside, so we came inside the camper to wait out the storm. All six of us. And Uncle Jim's joke book. In a popup camper.

Now, Uncle Jim was pretty little. In fact, I believe that this was the first trip that he was allowed to pack his suitcase. And what he packed for 3 days of outdoors fun was three socks and his "1,001 Jokes" book. That was all. 

So, imagine all of us wet kids and dog hyped up on kool aid and zinging off the walls of the tiny camper while Grandma and Grandpa tried to catch up on some reading. And out comes the joke book.

Now this book contained 1,001 of the worlds worst jokes and Uncle Jim proceeded to tell them all. The one that I remember best is:

Man:  Doctor! I bit my ear!

Doctor:  How did you do that?

Man: I stood on a chair.

And it continued to rain. At some point, Uncle Jim ran out of jokes and started making them up. Then changing the answers when we guessed them Pretty soon it went something like this:

Jim: What did one man say to another?

John: Hi (a previously correct answer)

Jim: No

Laura: Bye (another previously correct   

                        answer)

Jim: No

Carrie: What time is it? (a good guess)

Jim: No

Everybody shouting: WHAT DID ONE 

          MAN SAY TO ANOTHER?

Jim: Nothing. They didn't know each other.

At this point, Grandma and Grandpa left our increasingly way too small camper and went to read in the car. I don't believe that they came back till the rain and our sugar buzzes stopped. 3 days later.