A curiosity thing with me, posed on the ‘discussion/poker forum’ I share with pokersearch.com and onlinepokerrooms.com. At what age or time in your life, did you learn or become interested in playing poker?

I was a late bloomer. Poker was a total taboo in my family life. My mother hated it with a passion, felt that anyone that played poker was a ‘slacker, liar, degenerate’, and a few other unmentionables, and yet…my dad played the game. It was never a pretty site.

I can remember being so distressed when I was a little girl and my mother walked the floor, crying and swearing over my dad, I woke up in the night, more than once, to hear her crying, and I sat beside her and cried because she cried. I didn’t need a reason…she was reason enough. She was my mom, my mainstay, my life line and reason to be. I don’t believe that the only reason she cried was over poker play. Only a fool would believe that, but it took some years of seasoning and learning to understand the foundation of the tears.

Yet, my dad did play poker, and many times he put everything we were about in jeopardy. We grew up as a bunch of rag tag brats, moving from town to town, traveling from state to state, in the back seat of a car, jammed to the top with belongings and whatever we could take with us. We lived in the easiest to find rentals, shabby accommodations with outside plumbing and wood stoves most of the time. We always wore hand-me-downs, and in this day, would almost be classed as Street People.

The long and short of it is that my mom and dad were divorced after 29 1/2 years of marriage, never a happy, comfortable, or loving marriage. That was a long time ago. I gave up trying to understand why and how people spend their lives together in a sexual, living relationship, when they aren’t happy. I realize that things were much different in that era than they are now in terms of ‘staying together’.

When I finally landed in the ‘poker arena’, it was in full tilt, ready to gamble mode. It was the wildest rush I’d ever experienced in my life, packed, tamped, and shoved down my throat, ready to blow out through my eyes and nostrils, the most addicting experience I’d ever had.

But I didn’t step into this ‘arena’ until I was 32. I know a lot of people grow up playing poker. It’s played at the kitchen table, a weekly home game, a private barbershop get-together, and anything and everything else…yet I’d never experienced it before. I always felt that it was something off limits until I stepped into it for the first time. Upbringing? Ah…yes!

Amazingly, I come across people that have been playing poker since they were little kids, people that used it to fund their college education, people that have ran their own games for years, people that utilize it for income and people that have no idea what they are there for…even though they are there every week.

Yes, I’ve also come across people that don’t play…how in the hell is that possible? They don’t know the first thing about it, where it came from, anyone that plays it, or how it’s played! Let’s hear it for the WPT, it’s bringing in all those people!!!

Would my dad be happy with where I am? Probably. Do I care? Not really, he was never around and did not serve as a guidepost or strength in any part of my upbringing and life. I really never learned about poker until long after his time on Earth was over.

Would my mom be happy with where I am? I believe the answer is yes. If she knew I was happy with myself, as a person, she would be satisfied with that…so am I.