Twenty years ago I sometimes played cards with a deck of six suits: the extras (both blue) were boat-wheels and pairs of tennis racquets. Recently I thought, if I were designing a deck with new suits, they’d be heraldic favorites – crescents, stars, fleurs-de-lis – to go with the lozenges, trefoils and hearts that also appear often in armory: all more recognizable than those blue thingies.
And that in turn reminded me of Saturday morning advertisements for Lucky Charms breakfast cereal: “pink hearts, yellow moons, orange stars, green clovers.” Today at the grocery barn I looked for a box of Lucky Charms to check my memory, and found the stars and shamrocks replaced by rainbows and – oh come now – green leprechaun hats. How long has this been going on?!
