There I was, I had finally gotten my tiny hands on my first-ever deck of cards. Looking at the red and white box with a huge spade symbol on it, surrounded by a fancy-looking border. At first, I didn't know what they were or what to do with them. I set them on a table for a couple of days, until a day when I was bored and it was raining outside. I took the cards and went to sit down to figure out what they were. I flipped open the tab and out fell 54 different cards. Every card was different, except for the joker cards with the jesters on them. I tossed them to the side and watched them float down like feathers in the wind. I started to split the deck into two and then put the two halves back together in a different order so that they come to mix up all of the different cards. At the time, that's all I really did with the cards. I didn't know any tricks or how to play any games, but I knew that over time I would learn more about different card games to play and tricks to do. 

Over time I learned the basic card games like war, go fish, and even solitare, but there was one card game that was a staple to learn in my family. That card game was and still is the game of Euchre, a Michigan specialty. After I learned the basics, I got to play with my dad, my cousin Jake, and of course my Papa. He was one of the best players that I ever played against, and you would be surprised at how good he is if you actually knew him. My papa wore a lot of blue and white striped polos and cargo shorts to carry around all of the things he needed for the day. He had short, white hair that was mainly covered under a bucket hat. He had kind of a squinted face that made him look like he was grumpy all of the time even though he really wasn’t. But his eyes were usually covered on sunny days with sunglasses. Anytime he had free time he spent it on the lake fishing. He was also a huge sleeper, anytime you give him a comfy chair, he will be out by the time you look at him again. But even when he is sleeping, if you mention Eucher, he will wake up faster than a scared cat waking up from a nap. My papa, for as 

good as he was, never told me any of his secrets, only his do’s and don’ts. He told me to never cut the deck whenever someone offers you the deck and he told me to never get caught dealing under the table.

Although I do love card games like Euchre, they aren't my favorite thing about playing cards. My favorite thing about playing cards is the tons of card tricks that I have mastered to fool my friends. I had always liked card tricks, I still remember the first card trick that I saw when I was 6. It happened in a small, purple room with yellow lighting to make the area look “mysterious and magical”. The carpet had little stars on it, leading up to a wooden stage where the magician in all black stood. The Magician had picked on me to go up on the stage in front of everyone. He told me to pick a card from the deck, I slid my fingers across the fanned-out deck and selected a king of hearts. He then told me to put it back, and after that, he gently placed the deck on the table and told me that he was going to pull the card out of thin air, he then did what he said he would do. Ever since that day, I knew that I wanted to learn how to do the card tricks that he did to show my friends who were far more talented than me at things like video games and sports. Card tricks let me do something that my friends didn't know how to do and thought that it was the coolest thing ever, that feeling to me was one that I had never really felt before. Still, to this day, I can show anyone the same tricks that I learned before and get that same feeling that I got all those years ago.   Playing cards have always been one of my favorite things to have around. They can help turn a quiet room into a loud one, they can help someone impress another person, and they can even help cure one's boredom. Most importantly, they are one of the few things that make me happy whenever I am sad or down. Not only that, but they also helped me remember my papa, who sadly passed away this year. His love for cards and Eucher will live on with me and my deck of cards forever.