Blum on Bridge A Life Master
	Once every couple of years I devote an article as a tribute to the late Jerry Machlin, perhaps ACBL's finest chief tournament director and undoubtedly its greatest humorist. I loved my friend Jerry, who almost 50 years ago introduced me to Tournament Bridge. When I'm in the Washington, D.C., area I usually visit with his widow, Trudy, also a long-time director. One of Jerry's favorite stories was about one of ACBL's many improbable Life Masters. His favorite was Mrs. Mary Cochran of Raleigh, N.C., who became an LM in her mid-60s and continued to play tournament bridge until she was almost 90. She was affectionately nicknamed "trick or treat" by the Carolina players, which gives you some idea of what could happen when you sat at her table. Mrs. Cochran almost cost Edgar Kaplan the McKenney Trophy awarded for the most masterpoints annually. Edgar had the misfortune to draw her as a partner on the last round of the LMs Individual Pairs, which was then a most prestigious event paying 125 masterpoints to the winner. Actually Edgar may have been lucky. If he had drawn her earlier in the event, he might have become so unnerved he might have lost more than the two boards he played with her as a partner. Edgar is normally polite and gracious to his partners. He said nothing after the disaster on the 1st board and probably would have said nothing when the 2nd disaster occurred if Mrs. Cochran had not initiated the conversation. She spread her hand and said to Edgar, "Partner, I just didn't know what to do. I had 14 points. "It is all my fault, madam," answered Edgar icily, "I thought you had 300." Jerry states that the egotism of bridge players is beyond belief. At a party one night when the subject came up, he remarked that every good bridge player thinks he is better than he is. Tobias Stone agreed with him, with one exception. "That applies to every good player but me," said Stoney. "I couldn't possibly think I'm as good as I really am." Jerry gives another example that had to do with Lew Mathe. He said he couldn't vouch for the verification of the story, but it sounds as if it were true and Lew never denied it. Lew was a witness in a court case where the ACBL was being sued. He was put on the stand as an expert, and the attorney for the plaintiff was attempting to discredit him. Lew reeled off his incredible list of wins in regional, national and international competition and the attorney continued, "From your remarks, Mr. Mathe, you sound as if you consider yourself the greatest player in North America." Lew answered with his usual modesty, "I do." The attorney persisted, "And do you also consider yourself the greatest player in the world?" and Lew replied, "Yes." After he stepped down from the stand, Lew's wife, Genie, tore into him. "Lew, how could you get up on the stand in front of all these people and say you are the greatest player in the world?" "What could I do?" answered Lew, "After all, I was under oath." Another excerpt attributed to Jerry is an incident concerning Harry Fishbein, who once got into an argument with his wife, Ruth, and finally walked out of the room in disgust. The acrimonious discussion was quite disturbing to their opponents. In the dead silence that followed when Harry left the table, the lady turned to Ruth and asked, "Is that your husband?" "Certainly," snapped Ruth. "Do you think I'd be living in sin with that?" In Atlanta one time, an altercation at a table became very heated, and the lady, obviously inebriated, said to her opponent, "You're stupid!" His response was, "I won't take offense at that, since you're drunk." "Furthermore," continued the lady, "you're stupid, stupid!!" Somewhat nettled, her opponent responded, "And you're very drunk." "Not only that," persisted the lady, "you're stupid, stupid, stupid!!!" Even more irritated, the man retorted, "And you're drunk, drunk, drunk!!!" The lady had the last word. "Well, she said, "at least tomorrow I'll be sober." After Jerry's death, the Washington Bridge league held a memorial in his honor, where all in attendance had a story to tell about Jerry's influence on their life. Mine was among them.