Peanut!

My cousins and my grandmother used to sit around her kitchen table with cheese straws, three decks of cards, and a scoresheet. The youngest, and only girl grandchild, I would peer behind each chair, making my way slowly and quietly around the table, so as not to be a nuisance and risk getting shoo'ed away. I would continue to circle like a buzzard, for the hour or so it would take, trying to make sense of this card game that caused Stewart's hands to fly rapidly in a blur from stack to stack.

This crazy game in which the concentration on H.B.'s face would become fierce, and so, so serious.

This curious pastime that would frustrate my Grandmother so, to the point of suddenly and piercingly squealing,

"Slow down! You are going too fast; I'm old!"

The big boys would grin and slow their Speedy Gonzalas hands a little. Grandma would cut a sly look out of the corner of each eye at each boy and proceed to cheat. Taking advantage of the boys' kindness, my sweet, loving, devious, mischevious Grandmother would manipulate those cards and her grandchildren terribly. Oh, yes, there was some serious cheating going on at that table, but we all loved the game, and I was fascinated.

I began to teach myself to play. Really, it was only abbreviated games of solitaire being played off of one another. The first to win their solitaire hand would scream (if that someone was Grandma) or squeak like a timid mouse (if it was a cursed grandchild who knew they were about to cause a dark cloud to ascend),

"PEANUT!"

The first step beyond simple observation was to teach my hands to soar. I played solitaire until I was FAST, until my hands could be blurs as well. Next step was to resume my position behind the chairs, namely Grandma's chair, and proceed to tell her where to place her cards. She permitted this for a short time, only because I was the only granddaughter, therefore preferred, and definitely the favorite. The boys never would have permitted this as I was, to them, an annoying little bug whose only positive trait was that I was incredibly ticklish and, therefore, capable of providing them with several minutes of entertainment. However, even to Grandma, I eventually bacame too much of a pest, and she finally became aggravated enough to spit out the words I had been waiting to hear,

"Quit telling me what to do, child, and sit down! Stewart, get her a pack of cards."
In that moment I realized that I had my own chair; I would forevermore be asked to play, at every visit, every holiday, and every sweltering summer afternoon.

Every now and then I won, most often I lost, and sometimes, even I...(gasp) CHEATED...a little.