Jean’s Story – Part 1 – In the Beginning

I wrote in this blog some years ago about Brad’s early journey to becoming a frugal gambler, 15 parts you can access in the “Archives” here on this blog homepage, starting in January 2011 and continuing for 7 months, through August. Many have asked if I would ever share details about my own early path.  I recently explained that I have shelved the idea of writing a whole book of memoirs, but here is the first part in “Jean’s Story,” which will be an off-and-on sharing of some of my life experiences before I became the “frugal gambler.”

Were there any clues in my early life that might give hints about my later life? I was the daughter of a minister and a former high school English teacher. I am now an author who writes books and articles that explain how to stretch your money in casinos.  Could anyone have predicted way back then that I would become widely known as the Frugal Gambler?

 “Frugal” From the Git-Go

Well, “frugal” could have been my middle name.  In fact, I wonder if I actually heard about that valuable concept when my preacher father asked the doctor who delivered me if he gave a “ministerial discount.”  (That was a common courtesy given to “men of the cloth” back in those days.) He did, and it was part of our family lore that I was a “bargain baby.”

Although the economy was doing better as the country was exiting the Great Depression when I was born in 1938, people remembered its pain, and thriftiness was the ruling virtue of the time.  My father was just starting out as a minister in a very small church with a very small salary, so I learned early from my parents the techniques of stretching your money.  My father put in big gardens and I helped my mother spent the summers canning fruit and vegetables for our winter meals.  My mother was a skilled seamstress who made all the pretty dresses for me and for my sisters when they came along later.  My father did most of the grocery shopping while my mother was busy with household tasks, and I loved to tag along to the store with him. Even at an early age I learned that “sales” and “discounts” were important words.

“Gambling” – A Big No-No

Although frugality was woven into every part of my life growing up, the word “gambling” was not only totally outside my environment, but in a forbidden zone I should never enter. My father was a minister in an evangelical fundamentalist denomination and I was raised in the closed puritanical environment of an extremely conservative church.

And being the “PK” (the preacher’s kid) I was expected to be a good example, following all the church rules and avoiding anything that was on their “sin list.”  Gambling was very near the top of that list. We had no cards or dice in our home since they were symbols of this evil. If a game that we wanted to play came with dice, we’d have to throw them away and use a spinner from one of our kiddie games instead. We weren’t even allowed to play games like Old Maid, because we were supposed to guard against even the appearance of sinful behavior. Someone might have seen us playing and thought we were engaged in a poker game!

But if you simply change the word “gambling” to “gaming,” you might have gotten a little glimpse into my future activities.

Our family always played games.  One of my earliest memories is begging my mother or father to play the “Uncle Wiggily” board game with me.  Many first-born children are resentful of their younger siblings, but not I! I was exceedingly grateful when my parents provided me with two sisters with whom to play games.  My sister June arrived when I was five and by the time she was two I was teaching her how to play “Chutes and Ladders.”

When our youngest sister Starr came along another 5 years later, June and I tried to teach her games as soon as she could talk. Then as we all grew older we graduated from the simple don’t-have-to-read-the-rules games to Chinese checkers, chess, and finally Monopoly, the ultimate of all board games, I thought.

My family played games almost every night except Wednesdays (which was prayer-meeting night); on Sundays we played religious games. My mother would pop up a big bowl of popcorn and we’d pull out a board game. When we three girls were old enough to play Scrabble, the family’s competitiveness really blossomed. Until my father developed Alzheimer’s in his early 80’s, one of his greatest pleasures in life was to get together to play Scrabble with his three girls (now a teacher, a doctor, and a lawyer) and often beat all three of us! Even though he oversaw a very strict and ultra-religious household, the gaming spirit was strong in the whole family.  Intense competitiveness, playing to win – early strong clues that perhaps made my current life not entirely surprising.