Winter Bridge Game

General Bill's Jet

Winter Bridge Game

Mom and Dad were both bridge fanatics. Bridge in the 50's was an in thing to do in University society, and both of them were really devotees. The bridge club they belonged to rotated from home to home, and it was my parent's turn that Saturday night. It was January-bitter cold, as only it can get in the South, in the Piedmont. It had snowed earlier in the week, and there were patches still on the ground. A kind of heavy frosty fog had settled into the night.

Inside, it was toasty warm, with only the windows cold, covered with melting and reforming frost. We had a floor furnace, gas, centrally located in the hall, which paralleled the living room and heated the small house we lived in at the time. It sat square in the entrance from the living room to the hall.

The bridge game was going full blast, bridge talk, laughter and chatter filled the room, smoke from cigarettes and pipes drifted through the house. This was the 50's, and it was totally tacky to criticize smokers. Neither Mom nor Dad smoked, but most of the people that were there did. There were probably 20 people, 5 tables, crammed into the small living room. Mom was busy, passing out snacks and coffee whenever she was dummy. Dad was concentrating intently on his game.
All of us kids (7 of us at the time) had been banished to the bedrooms (4 boys in bunk beds in one room, 3 girls in bunks in the other). We listened to the noise, unable to sleep, except my younger brother Bill, who was 5 or 6 at the time. Bill could sleep through almost anything. Bill also walked in his sleep, and sometimes woke up in closets, out on the front steps, and other strange places like the laundry hamper. The rest of us boys were talking in whispers, playing the pretend games boys played before TV. I have to say here we had no TV, though it was becoming increasingly popular. Dad didn't approve of it, and his word was law.
Bill rose from his bed, obviously sleepwalking. I tried to grab him just as he passed through the bedroom door, but missed.

"BILL!" I whispered loudly and urgently.

I could just see him wandering into my Mom's bridge game in his skivvies, totally embarrassing her. Bill kept on down the hall, stopping at the floor furnace.

"BILL!"

My brothers and I tried to grab him and pull him back, but we couldn't reach him, not without putting on a skivvies show for the club.

The warm air went up Bill's front as he stood there. The skivvies dropped and the pee began to flow into the floor furnace. I collapsed in helpless laughter and horror, but the bridge game rolled on, oblivious. My older brother stepped quickly out and snatched Bill back into the safety of the bedroom. Then the smell of roasting pee began to waft down the hall and out in the living room. The chatter slowed then stilled, then there was dead silence. The games were suddenly over as people began to notice the lateness of the hour, made their excuses and left hurriedly.

Bill is now, some 45 years later, a very serious Brigadier General in the Air Force. He is in command of an Air Force base in the Southeastern US. I really think he has gotten as far as he has on the strength of that night, because my father swore for years after he would never amount to anything, and Bill just had to prove him wrong.

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