Amanuensis Monday ~ The Stories That Should Be Told, Part 8

The following transcription is from a series of recordings my father made in the early 1990s:

There are just hundreds of little stories about this village back through the years.  This one must have happened back in the 1940s.

Uncle Tom Enright and some old fellow named Jim Scott were playing poker in Charlie's Nite Club. 

Uncle Tom and the old man had a couple of toddies.  Homer Rushing was the dealer.  Everybody who had played draw poker knew you got five cards.

Uncle Tom ended up with three pair.  That's six cards!  They said they had a hell of an argument.  Probably ended up splitting the pot.

Mary Allye Steele Edmonds

Thinking about Uncle Tom Enright and his wife, Mrs. Lilla.  One of their children, Joe Enright, told me the following story.

They were all playing bridge.  My mother used to go up there and play bridge with them.  They played every Sunday for years. 

Sometimes it would be Uncle Tom, Mrs. Lilla, my mother, and one of Uncle Tom's daughters, Mrs. Isabel Enright Foster. 

Another time it would be Uncle Tom, Miss Lilla, my mother, and old man Zeb York.  Old man Zeb York lived up around Peck.  They would play bridge on Sunday evenings way on into the night.  

Joe Enright lived up there with his mama and daddy.  When WWII started, they were up there playing bridge and Joe got the report on the radio about the Japanese bombing Pearl Harbor and sinking all the ships.  He went in there to the bridge game and told them, "Well, we're in a war.  The Japanese just bombed Pearl Harbor and sunk a lot of our ships."  Joe said they all stopped playing bridge and asked a question or two.  He heard, "I declare!" a few times.  In about a minute or two, Mr. York said, "Well, deal the cards, Tom."  They went on with their bridge game.  Ole Joe was mighty perplexed.  I guess they figured there wasn't anything they could do about the war so they went back to playing bridge.

It wasn't long after that Ole Joe found out about the war for himself.  Joe Enright ended up on Guadalcanal in the South Pacific.  There was some terrible fighting out there.  He came home safe and lived a good many more years.

Note:  Francis Joseph Enright was born on June 24, 1907 and passed from this life on October 1, 1976.  He enlisted in the military on May 19, 1942 and after serving his county in WWII was honorably discharged on October 25, 1944.




(Parts 1-7 of 'The Stories That Should Be Told' can be found in the Tags List on the right-hand side of the blog.)