When I was real little I played various forms of card games with and against my grandmother. She was an unusually warm and caring nurturing type grammy, NOT! She had a very unflattering habit of calling various people around her Jonah if whatever game she was playing or watching went against her.
My first experience occurred when I sat down with her to watch the Sox one afternoon. I was about 8 or 9 and this day the Sox were up by 5 in the game. I was in the chair about five minutes and suddenly the Sox were now trailing by five. My grandmother being the kind forgiving understanding soul that she was suddenly announced that I was a Jonah and had caused the Sox to get behind. I complained of this designation to my mother who informed me that when it came to competition my grandmother basically had a screw loose and therefore I should disregard anything Grandma said no matter how insulting it might be.
As I got older I came to revel in the Jonah designation. When we played poker I would make sure I sat next to her or directly across the table so that I could good naturedly torment her by reminding her that I was her personal jinx and that she couldn't possibly beat me. I would say things like "that's the last hand you will win all night grandma cause you know who is here." I think that in later years she actually came to believe it because even in my early teens no matter what card game she had taught me I would soon consistently beat her.
Thoughts of this designation came to mind Friday night as I went into the Garden to watch the Celtics take on the Utah Jazz. The Celts were on a nice winning streak having won ten or so in a row as well as beating the Western Conference 11 times in a row.
The preivous night's game had the Celtics playing against Seatle giving 18 1/2 points. I placed a small theoretical adult wager on the Sonics thinking that nobody should give up 18 1/2. The Celtics killed them covering by almost double that amount.
So when I met my friend Jay Trey and went in to the Garden Friday night I felt comfortable that I would see an efficient conquest. But noooo, it was a struggle all night and finally the game got completely away in the final minutes and the mighty Celtics playing wonderful ball prior to this game suddenly got smoked by 18.
My friend then proceeded to tell me that he had only watched about 7 games all season and the team that I had told him had championship potential had lost all the games he saw. It suddenly dawned on me that boy is a damned JONAH!
