Mr. Bingo ready to call it quits
Health concerns not only him, but the penny players

By Aldrich Tan/Staff writer

July 29, 2005
For two years, Fred Lewis has been trying to find someone to take over the twice-weekly penny bingo games he has run at the Visalia Senior Center for 18 years.

This week the search became more urgent. Tuesday's game was cancelled because Lewis was in the hospital.

More than 50 weekly bingo players were disappointed, recreation coordinator Juan Mendoza said.

The games resumed Thursday with Lewis calling the bingo numbers, but it was clear to the players that a replacement is needed soon to keep the game running.

"I don't want this game to die because I know how much it means to the people who come to play bingo at the center," Lewis said.

At a penny a card, the game is a bargain. The average player will spend only $3.50 per tournament, Lewis' wife, Helen, said.

Nina Webb, 81, is one of the oldest penny bingo players. She said she would be watching television if she weren't playing bingo.

"I don't know what we would do without Fred," Webb said.

Mendoza also sees the value of the game for local seniors.

"If they aren't doing something just to get out of the home," he said, "then they are stuck at home, which can be very boring and depressing."

Penny bingo does not only attract seniors. Carmen Mendoza, 52, and her friend Barbara Thomas, 41, play bingo in Lemoore, but they favor the senior center's penny bingo. Thomas drives from Exeter to play.

"It's something that I can do in which I don't have to spend a lot of money," Mendoza said.

Lewis doesn't know how long he will last as a bingo caller. He has been through operations for a throat hernia, to remove gallstones, to install a pacemaker and to repair a broken leg.

Throughout those operations, he never missed a game.

Lewis has missed games for a brother's funeral, a brother's stroke and his wedding anniversary, Lewis said. But he found a replacement so the games went on.

But Tuesday, Lewis had to shut down the game, and for the first time there wasn't a replacement available.

"I hope someone younger will come up and help us, knowing that the game makes people happy," said player Chuck Phillips, 78, a retired Bay Area police officer.

The reporter can be reached at atan@visalia.gannett.com.

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