A key part of the male psyche is formed by war, even if–as in my case–war was something that only happened in the movies. My hunch is that all boys learn that they may someday be expected to kill or be killed at the behest of the powers-that-be. This can happen a number of ways. Generally, societal pressures will communicate the “war expectation” to children. Then there’s the draft. And during the Cold War the possibility of nuclear holocaust.

I often thought that my own awareness of the war expectation was formed by my father’s being a drill sargeant during Vietnam. A draftee, he found the experience helpful, and he sometimes took me to his old army base for some reminiscing.

But no, not actually the case. During a holiday game of Trivial Pursuit, I remembered that the key to my psyche’s formation by the war expectation was not my father’s army posters but his poker lessons. Whenever the Trivial Pursuit game slowed down–someone forgetting it was their turn to roll or to read–I found myself saying, “You know, in the Old West, that’d get you killed.”

That bit of Old West trivia came from none other than my father. He taught me to play five-card draw when I was ten; some rule-bending was in order for my fifth grade poker playing. My father was concerned that I know the difference between a friendly game with him in the living room and a “real” game of poker. So everytime we decided to break a rule, he would wink and say, “But, you know, in the Old West that could get you shot.” It was funny. It created a safe space and an inside joke. And it taught me the rules of the game even as we broke them.

I in turn taught my friends to play poker at recess. One condition of my father teaching me poker was that I was forbidden to place money bets; he didn’t want to create a fifth grade card shark. We debated the merits of other bets–candy, pencils, probably rocks–but in the end we always just played to play.

As I remembered my recess poker games, my thoughts on the “Old West ethic” resurfaced. I felt then as though I had learned a terrible secret, one that I both cherished and feared: some games are for keeps. On the school blacktop we could decide to share a friendly game, but, someday, we might have to play a game where a stray glance or a surprise hand could get us killed. Or mean we would need to kill. Which meant we had best learn to play the game to win.