What we learned from the Spurs series-clinching beatdown of the Minnesota Timberwolves

I was seven years old when my father first taught me how to play blackjack.

Whether that is a particularly normal thing to teach a child of that age is perhaps a conversation for another time, but it is, for me, a formative and happy childhood memory.

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Having spent the better part of a week vacationing at my father’s boss’s coastal vacation home, we were beginning to run out of card games to play. Old Maid, Go Fish, Kings In the Corner, Spades, Cheat, Spoons, and Uno had all been played ad nauseam, and the beach-house (very purposely) lacked a television set, much less a VCR.

We had only ourselves, and our diversions, and the ocean at the shore. It was, in retrospect, a remarkably lo-fi moment in our lives, preceding the technological onslaught to come.

We read books out loud, and wrestled on the living room floor, and spent time on the beach until our burgeoning sunburns drove us back inside like vampires fleeing the dawn. We marinated in the scent of spices and fresh crustacean boiling in the cavernous kitchen, and sprawled about the dining room table telling all the jokes we knew, and making up worse ones. And then, after the meal, it was down to business.

“Remember, the dealer has to take a hit on 16 or lower”, my father reminded me, as I asked for a somewhat inadvisable hit on a 17 of my own.

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“What’s a hard 17 again?”

“A 17 with no aces.”

“Oh, I have an ace. What does that mean?”

“That means you have a soft 17. Your ace can be an 11 or a 1.”

“It’s a 1 if I go over, right?”

“Right. But right now I’m showing a 6, which mean I’ll probably have to take a hit unless I have an ace too.”

“Because the dealer has to stand on 17, right?”

“In our game, yes. But not in all games. In our game, if I have an ace, we’ll push. We’ll tie.”

“I don’t wanna tie. I wanna win. I want a card.”

The card came off the deck and revealed itself as a 2.

“Ok, that’s 19. Do you want to stay?”

“The next card will be high, right?”

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“Maybe. It’s not looking good for me.”

“Yeah, I’ll stay.”

My father flipped his second card. It was also an ace.