Hello, and welcome to the table. My name is Virginia Stalcup. I'm seventy-one, I kept the books for a lumberyard in Queens for thirty-one years, and in 1987 my Frank and I retired to Delray Beach like half of New York. Frank passed in 1995. The Thursday game did not, and I don't know what I would have done without it.

My grandson set up this page for me when he came down for Presidents' Day weekend. He said I could put anything I wanted on it. What I wanted was the game.

It started in the spring of 1988 with a card on the bulletin board at the clubhouse in our development: "Fourth wanted for mah jongg, Thursdays." Jo put it up. Three of us answered. Eleven years later the same four of us are still at it, every Thursday from one o'clock until five, at whoever's turn it is to host.

Josephine Levine (Jo), from the Bronx. The card on the bulletin board was hers, and so was the first set we played with, which was her mother's. She taught me the Charleston, and I've been passing her the wrong tiles ever since. Famous for her rugelach.

Beverly Corey (Bev), from Brooklyn. A retired school secretary, and the best player at this table, which she will tell you herself. Bev can see a hand coming from across the room. She has finished ahead every year since 1993 except 1996, which was mine, and I'd like that noted.

Lillian Densmore (Lil), from New Jersey, the baby of the group at sixty-eight. Lil learned the game from us, which means she learned all our bad habits, and she still mumbles her discards. She makes a key lime pie that has converted at least two people from New York.

And me. I'm the one who keeps score. Thirty-one years of bookkeeping, and now I keep the books on mah jongg. The tote board below adds up. I've checked it twice.

We play American Mah Jongg, the way the National Mah Jongg League in New York sets it out. People who learned the Chinese game are always surprised by two things. First, there's a card: every year the League issues a new card of the hands you're allowed to make, and the hands change every year, so every spring we all have to start over. We each buy our own card. Second, there are jokers, eight of them, and they will make or break your afternoon.

The short version: there are 152 tiles, in three suits (bams, craks and dots) plus winds, dragons, flowers and the jokers. Everybody builds a wall, East breaks it, and you each take your tiles. Then comes the Charleston, where you pass tiles you don't want to the other players, right, across and left. Then you take turns drawing and discarding, saying each discard out loud ("two bam," "four crak"), until somebody's tiles match one hand on the card exactly and she calls "Mah Jongg!" You can call another player's discard to finish a group of three or more, or for mah jongg, but never just to make a pair.

That's the outline. The details are on How to Play American Mah Jongg (the Basics). I won't type up any of the hands for you. Buy a card from the League. It's a few dollars and it's the least you can do for a game that's given us this much.

1. A quarter a game. We don't pay what's on the card. Whoever makes mah jongg gets a quarter from each of the other three, and that's that. We tried paying by the card in 1988 and spent more time arguing about the payment than playing the hand.
2. The hostess makes the snacks. We go around: Bev, Jo, Lil, me. Nothing store-bought unless you're sick, and if you're sick we'll bring you soup and play at somebody else's.
3. No talking politics until the game's over. Adopted in November 1992. It has saved at least one friendship at this table and I won't say whose.
4. Say your discard so we can hear it. This one is for Lil.
5. No coaching, unless someone is new. Then all the coaching she wants.
6. Jokers never go in the Charleston. That's the League's rule, but we enforce it with feeling.
7. The hostess's thermostat is the hostess's business. Bring a sweater to Jo's.
8. At five o'clock we finish the hand and add up. No "one more." There's always one more.

Eleven years of Thursdays is a lot of baking. These are the ones that have earned a place on the wall.

Games won, by month, through this afternoon. Wall games (when the tiles run out and nobody makes it) don't count. We skipped two Thursdays: April 29, when Lil was at her son's in Atlanta, and July 8, when I was up in Queens for my sister's eightieth.

How the money works: every game, the winner collects a quarter from each of the other three. So a win is worth seventy-five cents and every game somebody else wins costs you a quarter. Do that 277 times and you get the bottom line, which comes to zero across the table, the way it should. It's Bev, again. I am up seventy-five cents for the year and I want it on the record.

Floyd had us filling bathtubs and taping windows early this week, and thank God it turned north. We played today as usual. Our prayers are with the people up in the Carolinas tonight.

The Tuesday Canasta Club, Since 1951. Four players who have kept a canasta game going every Tuesday since 1951. If you think eleven years of Thursdays is devotion, go and read about them.