Trip down memory lane

"A year in the Life" is an entertaining blogs by a guy in London with an equal mix of poker and life stories. The ex-Snowman's latest post has him reminisce on leaving his hometown which reminded me of a similar experience back home recently. If you don't know me you may wish to move to the next post now, even if you do, you still might.

For what it's worth, I grew up in a town called Downpatrick in Northern Ireland, population 9,000. Then "The Troubles" started and almost overnight the town grew to a population of 17,000 as people were moved out of their homes in Belfast to satellite towns like ours. It changed the culture of our wee town overnight. No longer did we know everyone. Those that we didn't know were displaced and often to be feared. Over the years, it has all become fully integrated, but our wee town has never quite been the same.

I had the chance to take my 17yo daughter around last month for pretty much the first time. We parked tha car at the house where I was born and starting walking. My mum and dad moved there only weeks before I appeared. Back then it was all families and fun; now it is all broken glass and many would find it intimidating. I wanted to show my daughter the back lanes that we played in but they have been all bricked up, presumably to stop sniper movement at one point. Doesn't look nice at all with angry barking dogs everywhere.

From there we walked up the back to my old school which has hardly changed. I naively thought that as an ex-pupil from the other side of the world that I'd be able to stroll about the school but I felt like rip van winkle. Ireland has caught up with the rest of the UK with its pervasive and over-zealous regulatory compliance that conspires to take the fun out of life. Having signed a Child Protection document, I was allowed around the corner to see my year photo. I'd forgotten a lot of my classmates but with the photo the memories all flooded back. From there we walked through the grounds which now sported a very high perimeter fence coated in Anti Climb Security Paint. I'd never heard of such a thing, seems like a pretty cool product, check it out.

Passed my house in "Cornflake Hill" (GBP3,900 in 1970, I really do need to find the pound symbol), so named because everyone else ate toast for breakfast. Then walked Aunt Sally's. She always had an open door policy and kept all of us cousins, neighbours and friends fed between our adventures. From there on to Samson's stone (Samson threw it from the Mournes years ago (folklore) / Glacial movement (science)). The Council have tried to make tourist spots with nice stone walls and paths. The alcoholics, druggies and glue sniffers seem to find them quite homely. Then on to the local hospital where my Aunt was being looked after by my cousin with another cousin in the neighbouring room. It was around about now that it was really sinking in what you give up when you leave a small town to the other side of the world with no extended family.

From here I visited Brother Justin, an aging Christian Brother who inspired many of us with his love of mathematics. He's losing his memory and spent most of the time trying to recall me. He did remember that Stevie Stockdale was a one-footed footballer though and I very much enjoyed his company. He was always a relatively gentle man unless you didn't hold the corner of the paper exactly 1.5 inches each side when he was stapling for the class. That was one of my earliest introductions to real pressure with a task where there is really no excuse for getting it wrong. We all loved the tension of queuing up and on average there were about 1.7 clips around the ear per queue.

Scotch Street was also the home of Allie M where we had our first big regular poker school. We would have been 9 or 10 at the time and played for all of our spare coppers. Allie was no good at maths or poker (great soccer player) and always done his dough. The pub next door was always full of old guys playing darts and Allie was great at darts. The same routine played out over the years. Allie lose his money, I'd lend him some, he'd go next door and win heaps playing darts with the old guys (in retrospect they may have let him win) and he'd return with more money for the game which he'd duly lose. Needless to say, this is where I built my first illicit bankroll that I hid in the base of my Seiko watch. The role of notes eventually bacame so fat that it wouldn't fit. That was about when I turned 14 or so at which point we all proceeded to spend it on alcohol. It's funny, even then I never used any of the profits, the winnings was always just a scoreboard. Another +EV regular is now a doctor. He was a top chess player so we never gambled at that. What we did do though was teach ourselves backgammon solely for the purposes of heads up gambling - earliest introduction to extreme variance with our loose doubling gambles.

Now this is a great tip for any golfers out there. Next time you want to gamble on the game, introduce the concept of the doubling cube on each hole. Starting at only $1 per hole, you'll be amazed at how many $64 putts you'll need to sink. Give it a go, you'll love it!

On to the St. Patrick Centre which tells the story of Patrick who is buried in Downpatrick. Was very interesting except for leaving out the part about where they decided to bury him. Not sure if this is folklore or I made it up, but my story goes that when he died, they couldn't agree where to bury him, so they put him on a donkey and where the donkey stopped that was it. Unfortunately for the poor donkey, each time he slowed down the neighbouring villagers would come and create a commotion to keep him moving toward their town. Eventually the poor donkey died in Downpatrick with Patrick still on his back. As an aside, buried with Patrick are St Brigid and St Colmcille. From there, we went up to see his grave which is covered by a stone that I'm told my great grandfather helped transport. Again be wary of Irish folklore.

Walking down the hill, we popped into Denvirs a traditional pub/hotel where I would play chess representing our town as a schoolkid against the adults. I always played Black in seat 3 or 4, and always tucked myself in for the night with the Kings Indian opening. I was aware back then of table image and took forever pretending to think about my moves (40 moves in 90 minutes timed, with an additional 15 to finish the game if required). I'd complicate the middle of the board and offer a draw around move 30 which was surprisingly accepted way more often than it should have been. I was a grinder back then inching my rating up, 1 draw at a time.

Then back to pick up my car. As it was getting dark, I was pleased that it was an old Toyota that my sister had lent me for the week.

No place for this kind of post in a poker blog I know, but one day I'll be even older than I am now and may stumble it myself. Thanks to the ex-Snowman for the inspiration and apologies to anyone who made it this far. Almost as boring as folding 84% of hands, I'm sure. Back to poker next time where I ran really good last night 4-tabling Omaha with a PLH Tourney on the side.