A letter from the Editor:

Beginning with hayrides and apples to changing leaves and pumpkins, harvest season is a time to give homage to what has been cultivated. To some that is family and friendships; to others it is reaping the benefits of a good crop for which we all enjoy. Traditionally, a successful harvest of a crop meant the time for celebration.

In most cities around the world, during the harvest moon, people gather for festivals filled with local produce, products, hand crafted items and activities for all ages. With the fall equinox upon us summer is becoming a distant memory. This time of year takes on a routine of its own: school is in session, warmer clothes come out of hiding, and our televisions present “season premieres”, all while the days get shorter and the weather cooler.

Kelly Rose Pion

*TO EVERYTHING THERE IS A SEASON A TIME FOR EVERY PURPOSE UNDER HEAVEN*

Latest News:

Have we got some news for you!!! Our online community is up and running www.buncospace.com. Here you can build your own Bunco website, post photos of your group, find others across the country that are as crazy about the game as you are. You can also post your fundraisers for which so many of you are passionate about, and share your ideas with the rest of us that live in the world of bunco. Next, if that isn’t enough to get your heart racing we have fabulous new products, including the beginning of our holiday items on www.ebunco.com. Then we are proud to present, drum roll please, an interview with Charlene Baumbich the fantastic author of the Dearest Dorothy series (Penguin Books). You may be asking yourself: Dearest Dorothy? Bunco?  Oh just wait you will be very excited. So sit back and enjoy, you deserve it.

Leslie Crouch

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It's Bunco Time:

As I interviewed Charlene I got a sense of nostalgia and understood the popularity of her books. Charlene has the valuable gift of telling a story in such a way that allows you to feel as if you are there. Charlene Baumbich is a wife, journalist, mother, daughter, friend, admired speaker and talented author. Her books have something for everyone and of course she has incorporated a bunco group, how could she not after all, she grew up around the game.

Just to give you a little of Charlene’s Bunco history, over 53 years ago her mother started a Bunco group playing with eight women. It was their time to get together, support each other, roll the dice, and “whoop it up”. Although her mother passed on in 1975 as well as another of the original players, two subs which everyone knew, replaced them, and the group that was started all those years ago is still going strong. When Charlene published her first book she dedicated it to her mother:  Don’t Miss Your Kids! (they’ll be gone before you know it). Charlene proudly states “my mom did not miss out on her kids”. When her first book went to print: it was both a happy moment and a sad time, sad because she was not able to share it with her mother. The closest Charlene felt she could get to her mom, was her mothers Bunco club members. They were not just her mother’s best friends, but they had watched Charlene grow up. So, she called and asked if she could attend their next Bunco meeting in order to give them each a copy of her new book, of course they said yes. "We laughed and cried, cried and laughed, we celebrated my mother, shared many stories, AND I got to PLAY", says Charlene.

When the idea for her Dearest Dorothy series began, Charlene knew her fictional town; Partonville (a.k.a. Pardon-Me-Ville) would not be complete without a Bunco club. These books are funny and warm coupled with the character of small town values.

Now for a little bit of fictional history, back in the day, years ago there was a group of women, the youngest being 50 that hooked rugs. One day they got tired of hooking rugs and decided to play Bunco as an alternative. They named their group The Happy Hookers with the youngest member of the group being in her fifties. The Happy Hookers, in the Dearest Dorothy series get together for Bunco time at least once, in each of Charlene’s books: and just like the rest of us players they share about their lives, they snack on all sorts of goodies, and roll their way to prizes.

Charlene’s history as well as the Bunco club in Partonville has a lot in common: the moments in life you look forward to creating memories with cherished friends.

However cliché this might sound, Charlene Baumbich has created a series of “must reads” the type you can’t put down.

I’d like to personally THANK YOU for sharing your talents with us Charlene, and for inviting me to Partonville.

Leslie Crouch

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*Ask Babs:

babs@worldbunco.com

Hi Babs:

Does the WBA hold tournaments in other areas of the country other than the championship in Las Vegas? If so would you consider other sponsors?

Thanks a lot, Sophia

Hi Sophia:

Yes, we absolutely do. We are in the process of planning our 2008 tournament schedule and will post the information on www.worldbunco.com. In regards to sponsors and other participants, we would entertain any type of sponsorship.

Thank you for asking, Babs

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Dear Babs, 

After an online search, I see there are several sites claiming to be the "official" Bunco site. Can you tell me who holds the actual copyright to the game?

Thanks!

Julie- Pinconning, MI

Julie,

Thank you for inquiring about which Bunco® site is in fact the "official" Bunco® site? We, the World Bunco Association hold the copyright as well as the registered trademark for Bunco® and Bunco® products. We have an ecommerce site www.ebunco.com , our community site is www.buncospace.com. All of these fall under the WBA. If you have any other questions regarding, trademarks, copyrights, or licensing please feel free to contact: 
Leslie Crouch / Founder at (800) 786-9456 or leslie@worldbunco.com.  

I hope this helps, Babs

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Let the Good Times Roll:

mac@ebunco.com

October Recipes

Monster Mashed Potatoes

Makes 24 4 cups chopped white potatoes 1/4 cup milk 1 garlic clove crushed 2 tablespoons cream cheese or grated cheddar cheese 1/2 tsp salt 1/8 tsp pepper 1 19-oz can black beans, drained

Place the potatoes in a large saucepan and cover with water. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to low. Cook for about 15 minutes, or until soft. Drain the water, then add the milk, garlic, cream cheese, salt and pepper. Mash with a potato masher or beat with an electric mixer until creamy and lump-free. Scoop the potatoes into a Ziploc bag without a cut medium size piece of corner off. Squeeze the ghosts onto a lightly buttered cookie sheet so they stand upright. To create ghastly eyes, press two even-sized black beans (or peas) into each ghost's head. Just before serving, warm the ghosts in an oven preheated to 350°F for about 5 minutes.

Creepy Cheesy Fingers

Makes 24 12 Mozzarella string cheeses 1 green bell pepper 4 oz. cream cheese

Wearing plastic gloves or sandwich bags over your hands to keep the cheese as smudge-free as possible, use a paring knife (parents only) to cut each string in half and then carve a shallow area for a fingernail just below the rounded end of each half.

Mark the joint right below the nail as well as the knuckle joint by carving out tiny horizontal wedges of cheese, as pictured.

 For the fingernails, slice a green bell pepper into 3/8-inch-wide strips. Set the strips skin side down on your work surface and trim the pulp so that it's about half as thick. Then cut the strips into ragged-topped nail shapes and stick them in place at the ends of the fingers with dabs of cream cheese.

Blood Thirsty Cocktail

Makes 12 12 sugar cubes 12 fluid oz. pomegranate juice 36 fluid oz. dry sparkling wine Pomegranate seeds, optional

Place sugar cubes in the bottom of champagne flutes. Pour the pomegranate juice over them, then the sparkling wine. Drop a few pomegranate seeds into glasses. Serve.

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Featured Bunco Group:

We began in 1979; a bunch of ladies who wanted “adult” conversation and time away from the little ones.  We have been together for almost 29 years, known as the Buncoettes.  

We have raised our children together, held each others hands when they got their driver’s licenses, shared Prom pictures, the worries of a mother with teenagers and all that entails. Gotten our kids through colleges, marriages, grandchildren and divorces.
 
We’ve been their for each other when marriages had problems or for illnesses (cancer) or for aging parents.  And over the years people have moved away with others replacing them, but our group goes on. We joke that we’ll still be there for one another when we’re pushing our walkers and STILL playing Bunco.
 
We’ve kept a photo album of yearly pictures of our group and you can see us all changing, losing weight, gaining weight, growing older and becoming closer.

This is the Buncoettes and our most recent picture from our Tea in May 2007 (I’m in the green outfit)”. Lynda McGrath