My mom's side of the family was never doing too well with money. My grandpa had died when my mom was 9, and my grandma had to work her ass off to raise her 3 children.
My uncle, who was 20 at the time, would oftentimes have other guys from the neighborhood over and they'd play Rummy for money. Of course I was not allowed to interfere, but I wanted to play the game so much, I was fascinated by how concentrated everyone in the room was and how I wasn't allowed to interfere.
So whenever I told my mom I want to play (the rummy game was not my uncle's, so I couldn't use that one) she told me I'd have to raise money in order to buy one. She'd send me to get stuff from the shop downstairs and allow me to keep a small part of the change in a piggy bank. One year later I had enough money and I went to the library with a huge, heavy bag of coins and bought the game (470 coins, to be precise).
The currency changed A LOT since then. It was worth 47.000 lei - I was raising 100 lei coins. I don't know what was the conversion rate back then, but I can say that based on how I felt it, it probably cost something like 40 lei noawadays, which is like 10-15 us dollars.
That's about right for a game like that. Tell me... did you start your own underground gambling ring with the game? If so, how much money did you make back? :D
Haha, I wish. I was playing with my mother, aunt-to-be and uncle. I became really good at it, I was playing against them competitively at that age but I never got into gambling :(
Now we live in different cities, but whenever we meet for Christmas or Easter or whatever it's tradition to play at least a game or two.
I remember I was 5 or 6.
My mom's side of the family was never doing too well with money. My grandpa had died when my mom was 9, and my grandma had to work her ass off to raise her 3 children.
My uncle, who was 20 at the time, would oftentimes have other guys from the neighborhood over and they'd play Rummy for money. Of course I was not allowed to interfere, but I wanted to play the game so much, I was fascinated by how concentrated everyone in the room was and how I wasn't allowed to interfere.
So whenever I told my mom I want to play (the rummy game was not my uncle's, so I couldn't use that one) she told me I'd have to raise money in order to buy one. She'd send me to get stuff from the shop downstairs and allow me to keep a small part of the change in a piggy bank. One year later I had enough money and I went to the library with a huge, heavy bag of coins and bought the game (470 coins, to be precise).
It was an incredible feeling of achievement.
Now THATS dedication. BTW, how much is 470 coins exactly? A dollar amount would help tremendously here :)
The currency changed A LOT since then. It was worth 47.000 lei - I was raising 100 lei coins. I don't know what was the conversion rate back then, but I can say that based on how I felt it, it probably cost something like 40 lei noawadays, which is like 10-15 us dollars.
That's about right for a game like that. Tell me... did you start your own underground gambling ring with the game? If so, how much money did you make back? :D
Haha, I wish. I was playing with my mother, aunt-to-be and uncle. I became really good at it, I was playing against them competitively at that age but I never got into gambling :(
Now we live in different cities, but whenever we meet for Christmas or Easter or whatever it's tradition to play at least a game or two.
I was trying to be funny :D It's cool you still have a tradition going even after all that time. Good for you!
I was trying to be funny too, I never actually considered gambling. Yet...
The only way to win is not to play.