Bridge and Bob Hinkle go way back.
He started playing as a teen on a farm in the Midwest and upped his game after moving to Tucson.
As the Arizona Daily Star’s new bridge columnist, Hinkle will share his love of the game in the newspaper every Sunday starting this week.
This summer, the Star removed the syndicated bridge column to devote more resources to local content. At the request of readers, bridge is back, and with it comes Hinkle’s enthusiasm.
“Fifty years of experience comes in handy,” says Hinkle, who spent his career in special education. “I’ve got the message of how much fun it can be, and then on the other side is the intellectual challenge that’s available.”
The game also kept Hinkle going when he learned he had multiple myeloma.
“Let me tell you my story,” he says. His doctor’s diagnosis, that he only had two or three years left to live, knocked him from his feet and made work difficult.
“I have been involved in Tucson bridge for over 25 years, and so I was much younger than all of the (regular) crowd. Well, eight years ago, I was diagnosed with cancer … The group collectively gathered money to give to me to just pay the rent and get the food. That was fantastic.”
After a successful stem cell transplant, Hinkle says, the cancer is in remission. Today, he is the director of the Adobe Bridge Club and a nationally registered bridge instructor recognized by the American Contract Bridge League.
Hinkle estimates the Adobe Bridge Club has roughly 80 people showing up to play each day during the cooler months. That drops to about 40 players when the heat rolls in. With the club’s average age around 75, and some members closer to 95, Hinkle, now 67, calls himself “one of the babies.”
He has taught bridge through Tucson Parks and Recreation and Pima Community College, teaching around Tucson and in Green Valley. Hinkle says he has about 2,000 masterpoints, which are earned through playing and winning American Contract Bridge League tournaments, making him a Silver Life Master in the top 10 percent.
So, before Hinkle starts challenging readers on a weekly basis, here’s a bit more background about this lifelong bridge player.
Getting started: “In 1964, I was in high school and I lived on a farm in Illinois, and the neighbors wanted to play bridge. That’s how it all started. My dad was a farmer, and by 8 in the evening it was bedtime for him, so my mother said, ‘Okay, let’s go,’ so we started talking with them. They didn’t know how to play either. … I was a game person. I had (two) younger sisters, and we played all kinds of card games, and it would give us something to do. We lived on the farm, so the neighbors’ kids weren’t anywhere close.”
Through the years: “I got lucky in terms of playing bridge that I could play seven days a week. By the time I was 25, I knew that I wanted to be involved in bridge in my retirement, so I decided that what I would do would be to retire to my own bridge club. I did that in Tucson in 1996. … I didn’t have the family responsibilities that lots of people do. The typical pattern is that you learn to play bridge in the late teens and early 20s and then go do family and career and at age 60 you begin to think about retirement … I have just played as much as I possibly could.”
Socializing: “You have become part of the bridge community, so you’ll have clubs you’ll go to and then you’ll go to people’s houses: ‘Let’s play bridge on Saturday night!’ It has gone on to the Internet, and that’s all the rage right now. I have a friend of mine in her late 60s who can’t get out and around who plays on the Internet, and she can play night and day. I played with this gentleman in Turkey, and I don’t think we understood each other too well... but what’s happening is I’m hearing people say, ‘We’ll play Tuesday,’ and then they’ll play on the Internet. It’s worldwide.”
Dealing with cancer and writing a bridge column: “I had no energy. I was just absolutely pooped. I would walk down to the mail box and come back home and sleep for three hours. For about two years, I was out of it. I would drop in (to the bridge club) and say hello, but I couldn’t survive the afternoon without taking a nap. But I got back to it as fast as I could, because since 1972 when I played in my first tournament, I’ve tried to play as much as I could. Bridge for me has just been an excitement. Some people play their golf and that kind of stuff, but it’s bridge for me, and that’s part of why, when a friend of mine had a connection to do this, I said, ‘Oh yes, that would be fun — to tell people about the excitement I have had all these years.’”
