Pennies



When I was younger, I used to spend the night at my grandmother's house all of the time, sometimes along with my older sister. We always used to play card games, easy stuff like Old Maid or War.

But one day my grandmother was in the mood to play poker. She taught my sister and I how to play five-card stud. Since she didn't have any poker chips, she got her old coffee can that was filled to the brim with pennies. She took a few handfuls out and let them go on the wooden kitchen table- it was really loud. Then she carefully counted out the amount that we all had, so my sister and I couldn't argue over who had the bigger pile.

When I was eight, I knew all the poker hands- Full house, Royal Flush, Two of a Kind. She also taught us how to bluff when we had a bad hand, how many pennies to bet when we had a really good one. She always let us win.

We stopped playing after my grandmother left us. My sister and I would try to play later at home, but we had forgotten some of the rules and neither of us could shuffle very well. The similar penny jar that my Dad had was left virtually untouched.

When I joined a poker game several years later, I found that I still knew all of the hands.