At the Table
A Midlands group grows to hundreds of players at Mahj on Main
A Columbia station visits a Lexington County table that welcomes beginners and experts, and asks a speech and hearing scientist what the game does for the mind.
WLTX in Columbia, South Carolina, visited Mahj on Main in Lexington County, a group open to beginners and experienced players alike. One organizer told the station the Columbia area group has grown to "over 600 or 700 people."
Founder Filomena Heaton told WLTX she went looking for ways to sharpen her mind after a stretch of brain fog, and that the group became about community too. The station describes the American game as 152 tiles and a yearly card of winning hands, and reports that $7 from every card goes to charity, with Lighthouse for Life named as this year's beneficiary.
For the science side, WLTX spoke with Dr. Jean Neils-Strunjas, who chairs Communication Sciences and Disorders at the University of South Carolina. She told the station that isolation has a negative effect on brain health and that "if your mood improves, your memory improves," while adding that a challenge helps only up to a point. The story cites no clinical study, so read it as a feature on why people keep coming back to the table.