A group of men in Washougal, Washington, probably have a pretty good read on each other at the poker table. These eight players have been part of a regular poker game at the Orchard Hills Golf & Country Club for almost six decades.
The game began in 1968 when a few of the players were looking for some fun and found a few high school friends to play with.
“My math says that’s 56 years,” 77-year-old Bob Haley told KGW-8 News. He’s one of the founders of the game and adds of the low-stakes affair: “It’s about bragging rights!”
Social Game
Playing that long together has allowed for many changes in the men’s lives. Several are military veterans, including Marvin Doering, who was shot at while flying a U-2 spy plane during the Cuban Missile Crisis. At 94 years old, he’s the oldest member of the group, but also one of the most recent to join, having been added to the game in the mid-1990s.
“I’d just like to say there’s hardly anything I’d rather do than play poker with this group right here,” he told KGW.
The group doesn’t discuss politics at the table but there are plenty of war stories to be shared along with laughs, cigar breaks, and more. The game’s stakes are irrelevant, with pots full of spare change, but the action has become about much more than dealing cards and moving chips. After so many stories, so many pots, and so many laughs, they consider their game a brotherhood.
That is certainly true for Jim Kenney, 77, who served in Vietnam and was spared when a bullet hit his M14 rifle magazine instead of hitting him. He became part of the poker group in 1970 after returning home from war.
“I appreciate these guys,” he said. “We share the memories. We share the concern.”
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