Raspberry Days: Hell cards

My side of the family has a wicked, super competitive, lots of cursing induced card game that has been handed down for generations.

Hell.

Imagine Solitaire on crack cocaine and you might get the gist of what goes on.

It's insane and anyone who has been privy to watch a round of Hell in our family will know what I'm talking about. Not many friends have had the privilege of learning how to play it. You have to build up decades of practice before you can even hope to compete with my Dad and his sisters. They are ridiculously fast. I swear they'd just slap the table and flip through their cards at lightning speed to intimidate you. I remember as a kid staying up until the wee hours of the morning watching my Dad and Aunts play Hell. My Grandma never played but she instigated every single game. She's quietly clean up dinner then set out the box where she kept all the playing cards on the table. She loved watching everyone laugh, slap the table, scream at each other in good competition of course, while she refilled everyone's drinks and kept the snacks coming. My normally quiet, reserved, mild mannered father would turn into this speed demon who could make a rancher cringe with some of the language that came flying out of his mouth in the heat of the game. It's still some of my fondest family memories as a kid. I love those Hell cards.... their worn out edges, bends in the middle and corners from too many games of Hell, bright colors and patterns, and breaking in phase when Grandma would add a new deck to the box. I remember every single deck. You know what? I've never noticed these were in a cigar box until I took a picture of them! Don't tell any of my Tobacco Prevention and Control friends. You've got to admit though, the box is pretty cool looking. I'm guessing with the "It's a boy!" sticker on it that it was either a celebration when my cousin Jason or Zac was born.During our 4th of July Bear Lake trip, my siblings convinced me to stay up way past my bedtime to play a game of cards. Not Hell... Phase 10. But I'll get back to Hell in a minute. The teasing from my little brothers and sister that I was the "prude" sister and "no fun" got the best of me and I agreed to stay up the half the night to teach those three a lesson. I will not lose a game of cards to them. This lead to the now infamous (plug your ears), "Eat it b*&%#@$" line. Please don't think less of me! It's a genetic defect all of us Jewkes' have when cards are placed in our hands.

The game wasn't going in my favor at this point. I had sternly warned my siblings that it was late, my kids were the only ones who got up at the first break of sunlight even on vacation, and that if they didn't let me go to bed I was going to be a (plug your ears again) "b*&%#@" in the morning. Sorry Mom and Dad... I know you two definitely heard that one. But they kept up the teasing so I kept playing. I wanted to hurry up and loose so I could go to bed but by the time I got to the last phase, it was a dead heat between Kimmy, Jesse, and I. The winner of the last phase took home all bragging rights. I was so tired at this point, that when I looked at my cards and saw they were all the same color, I figured I had won! I mean can't you have a run in cards if they are all yellow? Duh! I smacked them down on the table and yelled, "Eat it b*&%#@$"! I almost got away with winning too, with the shocked, jaws-dropped to the floor, bug-eyed expressions followed by the most gut-wrenching laughter my siblings and I have ever had before. Then Jesse had to go and figure out that I had inadvertently cheated with my run of yellows instead of numbers. Kurtis was laughing so hard I thought he was going to stop breathing. He barely squeaked out, "that was the funniest thing I have ever heard. My stomach hurts so bad I can hardly breathe." My sister said I was instantly elevated to the "coolest sibling ever" status. And Jesse was just dumbfounded. Not one of my finer moments and I apologized profusely for days afterward (as well as the entire time at Raspberry Days) that I'd now corrupted my sweet 16-year-old brother and set a bad example for him. I still feel guilty about it and really hope my parents didn't hear that line at 2:30 in the morning!

Back to Raspberry Days now.

For fear of profanity in front of small children, we opted to not play Phase 10 and instead play Hell. What were we thinking? The game's name in and of itself should have been a clue that we'd be no different playing than older generations in our family. And while no "eat it...." line came out, my siblings eagerly awaited my every word. Don't get me wrong there was plenty of cursing to be had by all, except Kurtis... he's going to be exalted someday. Jesse dubbed a classic Jenny move when I'd get frustrated. I'd always smack the table with the card I'd wanted to play at least three times. Hands were flying. Cards were flying. Snacks were flying. And it was a lot of fun. We actually kept score, mostly because Kurtis is a math whiz, and Kimmy and I beat the boys. The Hell card genes must be handed down on the x chromosome.

I can't tell you how much fun it was to play with just my brothers and sister. We never do that. The last 8 months have really been hard on our family and sucked a lot. We've had feelings we'd never thought we'd have towards each other, and this was a way to release some of the tension and remember that through it all, we're still family.