Richard Nixon was president. Metropolitan Tucson had 350,000 people and seven drive-in theaters. Old Tucson Studios was still cranking out Western TV series.
And Tucsonan Cathy Bird was at her sister's house one day in 1970 when a friend called and asked the sister how to play the dice game bunco.
Bird's sister didn't know, but Bird did.
"I'm not going to tell her how unless she'll let me join," Bird recalled saying, between dice rolls at a recent meeting of the bunco club that resulted from that phone call.
Three of the group's original members, including Bird, still play together. Others in the group have been playing with the women as long as 34 years. Some are relative newcomers, having joined the club - which meets primarily on the northeast side - a mere five years ago.
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"We have all gone through divorces. We've all survived children's deaths. We were all there. We've survived illnesses," said Evelyn Corrales, another founding member, as she played a round at hostess Pat Green's home on April 14. The 12-woman group meets at a different member's house every two weeks.
"It's the cheapest psychiatrist around," Green chimed in.
The other original member is Sharon Sanders.
The women were all in their 20s back in 1970, and in the beginning most were married to police officers, Sanders said.
"We were so quiet and naive that the first gal who got divorced didn't tell anybody for three months," Corrales said with a laugh.
That changed as more of the women became single and suddenly had dating stories to share with each other and with their still-married bunco buddies, she said.
There's a lot of physical movement in bunco - 12 players sit at three tables of four for each round, and at the end of a round at least two players move away from each table.
Among all the flurry, the women share bawdy humor and good-natured ribbing over their dice-rolling skills.
And underneath runs a current of sincere concern and appreciation for one another.
In recent years, the husbands of two members have died. The women have become travel partners.
When group members are asked what professional walks of life they come from, they tell stories of being receptionists, bookkeepers, teachers, seamstresses, stay-at-home moms - until someone loudly announces that someone else used to be a stripper, setting off a laughter-filled argument over who in the group really could have been a stripper.
Some of the women asked Green about her plans to retire from Emily Gray Junior High School. Green said she was torn about how or whether to celebrate when unforeseen expenses have popped up.
Her bunco club strongly encouraged her to take a cruise she's been dreaming of.
And the entire evening is filled with moments of seriousness followed swiftly by moments of extreme silliness.
No men are present - "Mine hides," said Bird of her husband's whereabouts when she hosts the game - but there are couples groups around town.
For this group, the evening usually begins with dinner together, frequently with the hostess doing the cooking, but not always. Then they play 24 rounds of trying to get the same three numbers on their dice. And then it's time to give out prizes, which vary by hostess.
After dessert, the friends go separate ways, until next time.
"What's said at bunco, stays at bunco," Corrales said.
DID YOU KNOW
Bunco, which has been enjoying immense popularity nationwide in the past several years, is a dice game played with three tables of four players. The goal is to roll three of a kind or rack up 21 points per match.
Prizes vary depending on the bunco club but range from cash to scented candles and movie tickets. They are given to players with the most wins and losses as well as players in other categories chosen by the bunco club.
Contact reporter Shelley Shelton at sshelton@azstarnet.com or 807-8464.
