Gambling , in Rathgar in the rare 'oul times ..( and some namedropping from Mrs.Joe Blogs)

It appears , nowadays , that all teenagers / adolescents , indulge in activities 'frowned -on' by adults ;
drink , drugs , sex etc...( what is the ' etc ' ...I wonder ?
When I was a teenager we didn't have any of the above ( well we did have , but innocents like us didn't KNOW about them ). Our particular vice was.... gambling .
When we were still at school we started playing PONTOON , or twentyone as it was sometimes called ....pennies became half-crowns , half-crowns became pound notes as we got older ( and started getting pocket-money or part-time jobs ).
This eventually led on to Poker - schools ....playing mostly draw poker at every opportunity .
We , at first , played in different houses , but eventually settled on the home of one of our friends as almost a permanent venue . We were all late teens or early twenties , about 10 or 12 in the school , at various times . We depended very much on the patience and forbearance of pur friend's parents . He lived in a three story house , but the family used , mainly , only the lower floor for day to day living and the top floor as bedrooms . Which meant that the middle floor was seldom used . There steps leading up to the middle floor from outside and the front door was seldom locked . So we could access the front room without having to go through family space .
The large window of the front room looked straight out on to Garville /Rathgar Ave. crossroads , so when a game was in session we were able to see from a distance the late arrivals as they hurried in to join the game , sometimes even having their 'hand' dealth out before they even entered the room .

Games would sometimes start in the early evening , usually on Fridays , and carry on to late at night . On occasion we would change the routine , calling in to the house for a game of pontoon , then heading off to Harold's Cross Greyhound Track until the last race at 9 PM and return to the house to play poker until the 'wee small hours'. At Christmas or Easter when we had more time off and more money , some of the games went on for about 12 hours , early evening to early morning .

Often a weekly wage was lost by one or other of us on a Friday evening , no problem , we could always borrow from the winner until the next payday when hopefully the positions might be reversed .
On Saturdays we of course had to visit the Bookies , even before RTE started showing televised racing , another friend had BBC piped racing , luckily he also lived near the bookmakers shop and we could put on our bet and run quickly around the corner just in time to see the race live on TV .
We also attended race meetings in the Summer , Baldoyle , Phoenix Park , Leopardstown all had evening meetings and were accessable by public transport....
It was great fun while it lasted and over all that period I suppose we ended up even , the fun and the comradery we experienced was the real payoff.....

Since then I have learned a new card game .....Texas Hold'em.... I was taught it by my daughter-in-law , Two-deck -Sal , who was born in Texas and , apparently learned the game in her crib....I can see her now ..green.... eye -shade , dangling Marlboro trailing smoke , snapping out instructions to the less serious players ....as she deals in the no-holds-barred game .......( at one point , when I tentatively queried the hiearchy of winning hands , I was curtly informed by 'the shooter' that we were now playing Texas Hold'em in Fort Worth , Texas in the 21st century and the 'Rathgar Rules ' of a dull 1960's poker school , did NOT apply.....ouch!!!!)

On another subject I have been instructed by my wife to write the following :
'' As a matter of fact my wife , having read all my adventures proceeded to name drop herself .....TO start with as a child she lived in Mill Hill , London , where supposedly the famous playwright Oliver Goldsmith once sat under a beautiful oak tree in her front garden , writing his plays....
Later she was attending a family gathering and was delighted to receive a 10 shilling note from a German gentleman who was the inventor of the '' Thermos flask''.
And guess what ?....one day after school she watched , in awe , as King George VI drove by in his limosene , later she met the Queen Mother IN PERSON , at a local garden fete and curtsied .
And while at college had the pleasure seeing the Queen at close quarters .....she really was beautiful .
But her most EXCITING meeting was in the ITV studios , London .....with Tom Jones...''
end ..