Roxie Reynolds has been playing bridge for a long time. Now a resident at Southern Oaks Assisted Living Facility, it’s not as easy for her to find a game, but that’s OK. Her friends bring the game to her.

Her friends — Tom Compton, Claudia Moseley and Evelyn Mackey — visit Reynolds every Thursday for a weekly game of bridge. The friends play throughout most of the week at their clubs.

“We usually play on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and most of the time on Friday,” Compton said.

Bridge reached its highest popularity in the 1940s and ’50s and was popular into the 1960s, but has seen its popularity drop off in the next generations.

Anyone who plays spades, hearts, rook, euchre or any other card game that uses trump cards would be able to pick up on the rules of bridge fairly quickly. Like those games, the rules for bridge are fairly easy

The foursome said that they find bridge to be a challenge, helping to keep their minds sharp.

“It’s got a lot of logic to it,” Moseley said. “If you’ve got that in your mind, you play better.”

“You have to remember the cards, too,” Reynolds said.

Each of the players learned how to play bridge at an early age.

“We grew up out in the country, and my mother had two sisters who were old enough to learn to play, and I did it,” Compton said. “When it would rain or we couldn’t do something else, Mama would get a deck of cards out, and we’d play bridge.”

Compton said he learned to play bridge when he was 9, while Moseley said she was in fifth grade when she learned how to play.

“We had two tables with eight girls, and we were just going to play a game,” she said. “All of our mothers were in bridge clubs, so we decided we’d start playing bridge.”

“I was in high school, about 15 or 16, when I learned how to play,” Reynolds said. “I wish young people would start playing. They don’t really play like they used to.”

No card game has had the following that bridge has had.

For a fun, partner-based game for four people, nothing can beat it, and for those who would want to learn it, there are several people like the foursome at Southern Oaks who would be glad to teach.