Euchre and Me

I was at a JET party last weekend when someone yelled at me, “Hey, Joel, you’re from Michigan, right? We’re trying to find a forth person for Euchre.”

Euchre! I hadn’t played Euchre for years. The last time I played it was almost 5 years ago, when a bunch of us Michigan JETs got together at the Detroit Orientation for a few Euchre games the night before we flew out to Tokyo.

I was lead over to a corner of the room, where two other Midwesterners (one guy from Ohio, and one girl Indiana) were trying to teach the game to a girl from California. The girl from California did not want to play.

“It’s not fair,” she kept saying. “Why should I be at a disadvantage for this stupid game just because of where I’m from?” We tried to explain the game to her, but she complained the whole time. Eventually we found someone else from Indiana.

The geographics of Euchre fascinate me. None of the British, Irish, New Zealand, Australian, or Canadian JETs know about it. Among Americans only, the mid-westerners seem to know.

In high school I spent hours and hours playing Euchre, but all of that time was with friends from my church youth group. I don’t think I ever played Euchre with friends from Christian high or Calvin College, or at any family gatherings.

The first time I played was the summer I was 14 on the youth group bike trip. Everyone else knew how to play, and I alone in the group was clueless. The first few hands it can be a confusing game to get your head around, and my partner kept getting furious with me. (14 is not an age when people are very sensitive.) But once I figured the game out, I had a great time.

Although my family has its roots in the Dutch CRC tradition, the church I attended growing up was evangelical covenant, which is Swedish in origin. Because I never played Euchre with my Dutch CRC friends, and because I was the only one in our church youth group that didn’t know how to play, this indicates to me that Euchre isn’t part of traditional CRC circles, but is popular among other ethnicities in the mid-west.

Of course that’s just my experience. So I’m throwing the question out to everyone else. Did you play Euchre growing up? Where and who with?

Update: Wikipedia Encyclopedia says that Euchre was once considered the national game, but now is primarily limited to places in the Mid-West with large German-American populations.

Link of the Day
Japan Times is always a good source for the more interesting aspects of Japans culture.
In this weeks Japan times: Salarymen go for bust in hostess heaven, The fairer sex fight back, and Sifting through the geeks to identify the perverts