Shrewsbury resident uses playing cards to teach life lessons
By Lori Berkey Contributing Writer

Always ready for a card game, Shrewsbury resident Barbara DePalo enjoys playing socially around town and also teaches kids and adults how to play. PHOTO/LORI BERKEY

Shrewsbury - Shrewsbury resident Barbara DePalo keeps a deck of cards with her at all times. The Oak Middle School biology teacher learned solitaire from her grandmother when she was in fifth grade. Her parents taught her cribbage and pitch. Having grown up in a military family, DePalo moved frequently. Knowing how to play cards gave her an instant edge at making new friends. She taught other kids to play as a child, and now, as an adult, she uses cards to teach middle school students a host of life skills.

"It's really good for math," DePalo said. "It's good for thinking. At the seventh-grade level, it's a really good tool for learning socialization. Kids learn to be good sports and help each other."

DePalo enjoys watching students reap the intellectual and social perks of card playing.

"They teach each other some of the games, so it's a way for them to interact [and be] nonthreatening," she said. "There's no athletic ability involved; nobody has to be pretty."

She likes witnessing her students' success.

"There are some kids who are really good at it who might not be good at much other things, and they shine," she said.

DePalo teaches kids to play cards during an enrichment period at school.

"It actually has the skills that they'll use all their life," she said. "Playing cards is something you can always use no matter where you are."

She also off ers a card course for adults through the Shrewsbury Adult Education Program and teaches cribbage, pitch, bridge, king's corner and whist, and includes a workshop on solitaire.

DePalo joked that she majored in pitch in college and remembers skipping classes to play cards with dorm mates. She compared card playing to tai chi.

"Playing cards is relaxing," she said.

She likes the social aspect too, of talking and having fun with other players.

"I've never played a card game where I didn't laugh the whole time," she said.

According to DePalo, people around the world like the size and feel of playing cards and many have joined an international card trading ritual where people make artistic playing cards of their own and mail them off for trading sessions. DePalo has a collection of cards from such swaps, including cards with Halloween designs and inlaid flowers. The keepsakes are known worldwide as artistic trading cards (ATCs).

DePalo is also interested in the history of card decks. She has books with images that depict card decks from the 1500s in the pre-printing-press days, when each card was made by hand. She said individual countries around the world used to have their own special decks with their country's royalty being represented as the kings and queens on card decks.

Card making really became a folk art, she said, with the practice continuing through ATC swaps and collections of old cards.

Tuesday evenings DePalo can be found at the Knights of Columbus playing cribbage. She also gets her deck out to play bridge with members of the Welcome Wagon Club of Shrewsbury's card group.

Last summer, DePalo, who is 52, decided she was old enough to try out a bridge game at the Shrewsbury Senior Center. She said at first she was afraid to go because she didn't feel she was a good enough player. She was pleasantly surprised to be so welcome there and she encourages others to go to the Senior Center for the fun social outlet. They need players and are always happy to have more, she added.

DePalo said she'd like to get the world interested in cards and dreams of running a recreation room for card playing once she retires.