Club 34 saw a near record crowd yesterday afternoon when 29 die-hard scrabblers showed up at the IHOP for a battle of the tiles. Our afternoon record has been 32 so we are fast approaching those numbers. I was very happy to see a new to Club 34 but an old Scrabbler in terms of the local Scrabble scene make her inaugural appearance. Donna Dewallabee(I’m sure I didnt spell that right) showed up yesterday afternoon for the very first time. In fact she was one of the first to appear and I was sure happy to see her. Donna is a regular at Gary Moss’ club in Laguna Woods and known to many of us for many years. Now that her husband is playing golf on Tuesdays, hopefully she will be a presence at Club 34 for many years to come.
Its amazing to me to see so many players come from so far away! For the third time in the last 4 weeks, Paul Rickoff made the trek down the 405 FW from Santa Clarita. We are talking Magic Mountain territory; now that is quite a schlepp. Alan Kait returned from Santa Barbara. James Kitchens finally got off the slopes and away from the middle of the Pacific where he is known to deep sea fish on many occasions. Jim is one of our Meetup success stories who has stayed the course and comes all the way from San Diego. Then of course we have the regulars Jeff Polan from the San Fernando Valley as well as Nancy Douglas and Najat from Riverside, Bruce D from LA, Jim Porter from Covina and Cindy Helphrey from Duarte.
It was a sad day however when we had to say goodbye to Nancy Douglas who will be returning to Wisconsin to manage a BEE exhibit in a small town there and do other stuff. So she may not return to us until next June. We had Nancy Douglas Day and 4 lottery tickets given out for 4 games. Nancy picked the category and the eventual winners. BTW we did see 11 players for the evening session. Jeff Polan did a wonderful job directing last night.
I started writing this Blog 3 years ago. It has many purposes, all informative, from discussing the rules of Scrabble to the events of last Tuesday to any major accomplishments by any of our members. Today I have to mention something done by one of our members and it happens to be yours truly. I think most Scrabblers would rather win than lose a Scrabble game. There’s no doubt about that. I recently completed a 46 game consecutive win streak at Club 34 and at Gary Moss’ club! It was alot of fun but hats off to the mailman, David Postal, and to Amnon Meyers for being spoilers. David is really becoming a very good player and a regular at the evening session. I am very thankful for this since it was just a few months ago that he moved to San Francisco to find fame and fortune. But he returned to where he is really loved and appreciated and I couldnt be happier to see him as a regular of Club 34 now.
Then there is Amnon Meyers, a very good friend of mine to say the least. Amnon has made it very clear to me that he has a Scrabble quota every week. That quota was met last week but when he knew I would be at Gary’s club last Thursday, he couldnt help but show up to try to break my 24 game streak. I pleaded for him not to come but he ignored my wishes, showed up and accomplished his goal…
Dont forget some exciting events next month. October 24 at Lorry’s and October 29 Blankheads. I will have some sign up sheets for all of you in the playroom in a few weeks. Lorry can have 25 maximum and Desiree can have up to 40 players.
I can sense that Club 34 will reach its goal of 30/20 for 2018 very shortly. All of us seem to really have a good time on Tuesdays and a family atmosphere which I envisioned all along is taking fold.
David Poder, Director
Advertisements
