Melvin J Welles RIP

I knew Mel since I started playing bridge in the city of Washington in the early ’60’s. He passed away from heart failure mainly  caused by his having been a smoker  for about sixty years.  He was born in 1918 and passed away January 28 of  this year. He was not an expert  by this site’s standards, but he was a competent  and but had played who had played  since the 40’s,  and had some success. He played with and was  frequent partner and friend of Supreme Justice, John Paul Stevens. He was at one time the chief Mark Blumenthalistrative judge of the National relations Board.  For those baseball fans here, Mel thought he and Joe Dimaggio were the only people to have been at  both Lou  Gehrig and Cal Ripken’s 2130th consecutive  games.