![]() ![]() "We just have a lot of pinochle players," he said.īut the problem with so many players around the state is that no one is quite sure who's the best, but Okemah players have the answer. Not only does it draw the townspeople of Okemah, there are others from Okmulgee, Tecumseh, Oklahoma City and Castle, Amos said. ![]() It's a good community relationship," Amos said. When a game is in progress, "it's pretty involved," players say.īut when someone's knocked out of the game, that's when the laughing and talking begins. "I've known how to play since I was knee high. Fox said her father taught her to play the game when she was young, so the transition to tournaments and weekly matches in Okemah was an easy one. "Everybody just gets together and gathers around to play dominoes or pinochle." "In a small town like this there's not a whole lot to do," said Pat Fox, a pinochle player since childhood. Mostly, though, the townspeople say the game passes time. In other words, "You really have to put your mind to it," Mrs. "Seems like the more you think when you get older it keeps your brain working good." "There's more skill in playing pinochle than any card game I know of," Amos said. "I guess there's more in our family than anybody else's," Amos said.Īnd pinochle is the perfect family pastime, Amos says, because the game keeps a person's mind in shape. "It's a concentration game, and every game is different."Īt any given pinochle match in these parts, Amos is almost always joined by his wife, Edith his son, Freddy and his daughter-in-law, Brenda. "A lot of us played when we were in the Army and Navy," said Marion Amos, head of a family with at least three pinochle enthusiasts. In the tradition of park-side domino playing, pinochle is passed along within the family. "It's just like a banquet."Īs the players tell it, most of the men taught their wives to play the game. "These ladies who have them, I mean they cook and work for days," Mrs. They take to the back room in players' homes where the shuffling, bidding and counting points sometimes lasts for 10 hours at a time. "There's no drinking or cursing or carrying on," said third-year player Betty Danenhour. The pinochle capital of Oklahoma that's what they're out to claim in Okemah by challenging anyone they can. When it comes to having fun, a lot of people in this small Okfuskee County community think there's nothing better than the clean and wholesome type.Īnd hour after hour they work to prove that they're the best in the state at their kind of fun. ![]()
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