Playin’ poker with ‘the girls’

Jennifer Kho

There is a rare moment of silence as the players search each other for

the telltale signs of a bluff.

They reach for their chips under the cover of their cards.

They open their hands.

“Two chips,” says Kathy Munson, holding out an empty hand and shaking her

head.

“I want three cards,” Linda Jackson says, handing over all her cards.

“One,” Kathy Conte says, putting one card face down on the table.

“Jackson and Conte glance at their new cards and throw their cards down,

face up.

“I win,” Jackson says, gleefully scooping up the pile.

The game is trump and the group only plays the game once a night because

of the relatively high stakes -- $1.

The rest of the group members move onto the next game quickly, undaunted

by their losses.

All in all, the stakes are not high -- they usually use nickel and dime

chips -- and they have all had their share of winning and losing.

The eight players and one substitute, all women in their 50s, have been

playing poker every other Tuesday for years. The poker group started more

than 30 years ago. Conte, Munson, Joan Guy and Linda Deutsch live in

Costa Mesa, while Diane Johnson and Irene Atkinson live in Huntington

Beach and Jackson and Teresa Charpentier live in Santa Ana. Linda Ingram

lives in Laguna Hills.

A SURE THING

Although they all like to gamble, they said at a March poker night at

Guy’s home that the poker group and their friendship has been a sure

thing since the beginning.

“This is a sounding board for all of us to talk about whatever’s bugging

us -- our children, or our husband or whatever,” Linda Ingram said.

Over the years, they’ve shared hundreds of recipes and off-color jokes.

They’ve enjoyed graduations, weddings and births together.

They’ve also helped each other through the deaths of friends and family,

the illnesses of their husbands and the troubles of their children.

“I lost a daughter-in-law,” Munson remembered. “I couldn’t have made it

without my friends here. There’s a lot of holding together, of sharing

our sorrows and joys.”

The group members said they have even managed to avoid having a single

argument in the 30 years.

Even though they each have a different favorite poker game.

Even though half voted for Al Gore for president and half voted for

George Bush.

Even though half are USC fans and half are UCLA fans.

“We always have been a tolerant group,” Atkinson said.

PRANKS AND JOKES

But that tolerance doesn’t keep the group members from playing pranks on

one another.

The night before the big UCLA and USC football games, they toilet paper

one another’s houses.

When Ingram had a baby, 13 years after having her last child, the group

dressed up in baby clothes for her baby shower.

“We’re really not old bags,” Ingram said. “We still have youth in us.”

As a rule, they tell jokes at every poker night.

“There are three old ladies sitting on a couch in the living room,”

Atkinson said. “One goes upstairs to take a bath, runs the water and

says, ‘Am I getting in the tub or out of the tub?’ Another one goes to

check up on her and, halfway up, stops and says, ‘Am I going up the

stairs or down the stairs?’ The last one sitting on the couch says,

‘Thank goodness I’m not like her’ and knocks on wood. Then she says to

herself, ‘Is that the front door or the back door?”’

Four of them are original members -- Conte, 58, Atkinson, 56, Ingram, 56,

and Johnson, 57 -- and the others, Linda Deutsch, 58; Guy, 57; Jackson,

58; Munson, 57; and Charpentier, 51, have replaced former members who

have moved away.

THE BEGINNING

Conte and Ingram began the group in December 1970, gathering up the rest

of “the girls,” all of whom had small children and most of whom chose to

give up their jobs and stay home.

Now, with most of the children out of the house, “the girls” have all

gone to work, at least part time.

Eight of the members play every time, and Charpentier is a substitute

player who sits in whenever another player can’t come.

Aside from their love of poker, a series of connections ties the group

together.

Their children went to school together, they spent time together in the

Parent Teacher Association and on baseball teams.

Ingram, a Hallmark retail merchandiser, is married to Conte’s brother,

Jim Ingram.

Munson, a customer service representative and supervisor at Bank of

America in Irvine, convinced Conte and Guy to get the same job at the

same company. Guy works at the same branch and Conte works at the Costa

Mesa branch.

Munson and Guy graduated from Hoover High School in Glendale together and

lost contact, but became friends again after they both moved to Orange

County and met Conte, who reintroduced them.

Conte’s husband also went to the same high school, as did Guy’s husband

and Jackson, a florist.

“A lot of us went to Glendale, but most of us didn’t know each other

then,” Jackson said. “We met again later, after we all moved here.”

When Guy and her husband were visiting Conte and her husband, they

noticed the house next door for sale and moved in. They have been

next-door neighbors ever since.

Atkinson’s husband was in Johnson’s wedding.

Atkinson, a service representative with Continuing Medical Education

Company, remembered that Johnson, a security guard at Edison High School

in Huntington Beach, had mentioned at the wedding that she played poker

and invited her to join the group.

Deutsch, a part-time employee at the Elder Care Referral Agency, once

worked with Atkinson at Edison High School.

TAKING TURNS

The full-time group members rotate houses so they each get a turn to play

host.

Seven out of eight poker nights, Ingram drives a half hour each way,

because she lives the furthest -- Laguna Hills.

“The eighth time all of them have to drive to my house,” she said. “It’s

worth the drive to get out with the girls, to get away from the kids and

husband to see my friends. I love it. I live for Tuesday every other

week. I don’t cook, I just get out of there because it’s poker night!”

Men are not allowed, except for on Couples’ Night, when the group -- and

their husbands -- play Trivial Pursuit, “boys vs. girls.”

At poker night a few weeks ago, the group members said they could hardly

believe they have been playing poker together for so long.

“When we started this, we were younger than our kids are now,” Conte

said, receiving gasps of astonishment from the rest of “the girls.”

THE OLD AND THE NEW

They said a few things have remained the same throughout the years.

The music -- now called “oldies” -- that they listen to while they play

has always included the Beatles, Elvis Presley the Everly Brothers and

the Beach Boys.

And the babble of talking that fills most of the meetings has also been a

constant.

“We never stop talking,” said Joan Guy. “There are always three or four

conversations happening at once.”

Munson nodded.

“One husband put a recorder under the table,” she said. “We came out

sounding like a bunch of cackling hens.”

But the group members said many things have also changed with the times.

“We used to smoke at the table, now we don’t,” Munson said.

The makeup of the conversation has also changed.

“We used to talk about our little kids, then school, then marriages,” she

said. “Now it’s our aches and pains and hormone intakes. And there’s

e-mail. And we’ve learned a lot of off-color jokes.”

Another difference is their bedtimes.

They used to play until 2 or 3 a.m., Conte said.

Now, at exactly midnight, they fold the cards, tally the score and tell a

last joke as they say good night.