The Great Motorhome Adventure of 1988

I know that I said that this would be mostly VEGA$ memories, but the Great Motorhome Adventure of 1988 has very little to do with that town, except for two small cameo appearances.

It was the Fall of 1988. I'd been in San Luis Obispo for about a year and a half, and I was about to make a substantial career change from an entry-level position at a tiny automated "elevator music" station, to becoming Operations Manager for a mid-sized public radio station (where I’m STILL employed!) and I needed a little break.

The VEGA$ Club boys and I had been talking about taking a longer, non-VEGA$centric trip, and Roger had an acquaintance that owned a motorhome that he was willing to rent to us for cheap... so the planning began! Roger, Charley, and I were going for sure and we were looking for a fourth traveling companion. There was a friend I’d met while going to school in Stockton (We’ll call him Breck) who was up for it. Breck was of the personality that would normally make him a shoe-in as an official member of The VEGA$ Club, but for reasons that have never been satisfactorily explained, he doesn’t care for gambling!

Roger, having a bit of Travel Agent gene in him (check out his cool travel website here!) sketched out a rough itinerary that would depart from L.A. (where we would pick up the motorhome), through VEGA$, continuing on through the great southwest. The excitement and anticipation mounted during the weeks preceding the trip, I easily conjured up visions of Charley manning the galley whipping up a platter full of tasty sandwiches, Roger and I playing Canasta at the dinette, while Breck piloted the mighty beast across the desert. It would be heaven! To commemorate the trip, I decided to present my fellow travelers with useful gifts! I had recently come across an amazing bargain on men’s dress wingtip shoes, made of a thick durable leather-look vinyl. I was able to get 4 pairs for less than $40 total! There’s nothing more important to take on a pseudo-camping trip than formal men’s footware! I surreptitiously gathered the shoe sizes of the boys, and made my purchase.

The big day began with an early morning news shift at the new radio station, which was over at 8:00 a.m. Then I hopped in my 1984 Honda CRX and headed south, stopping in Montecito to pick up Breck. I presented him with his new pair of shoes, which he gratefully and enthusiastically accepted. We then continued south to Irvine, stopping at my parents house for a short lunch. Then we headed across town to Charley’s, where he accepted his travel gift with much less gratitude and enthusiasm than Breck. In fact, he was downright confused. We transferred our growing pile of luggage and passengers into Charley’s larger car and headed back up to the Los Angeles area, where Roger was living. With Roger’s permission, we broke into his house by jimmying the back door with a swiss-army knife and waited for him to get home from work. As I recall, he was pretty impressed with the wingtips, so overall I had a 66% approval rating on my gifts (75% if you included me!).

We gathered our sizable amount of luggage, coolers, snacks, TV, VCR, blender, toaster-oven, etc. into a staging area in Roger’s living room and headed off to pick up our rig! We had decided to christen her “Pegasus” after the great winged horse, that with a stroke of his hoof caused the fountain Hippocrene to spring forth from Mount Helicon. Plus, it sounded cool… like in, “C’mon fellows, get back in Pegasus!”

Do you remember the movie Stripes? The great 1981 Bill Murray / Harold Ramis film? Remember the “Urban Assault Vehicle” in the later part of that movie? That’s the same model of RV that would become Pegasus. It was manufactured by GMC in the late 70’s / early 80’s and had a very “rounded” look. Kind of like an AMC Pacer on a much larger scale. Ours was an attractive pastel yellow. The owner handed us the keys after a very half-assed explanation of how to work the thing, and we were on our own. Some of the things that he neglected to tell us about:

The fresh water system

Treating the sewage (aka “black water”)

Emptying the waste tank

The self-leveling system

The furnace/air conditioning systems

How to convert the dinette into a bed

Connecting to the hookups at campsites

Turning on the hot-water heater

Operating the propane-powered refrigerator and stove

Operating the on-board generator.

The various electrical systems (AC vs. Battery vs. Generator)

And the list could go on. I’ve been camping a few times since, but at the time, none of us had ANY experience with this kind of equipment. We were a bit nervous, but determined just the same. As Roger started the engine, a buzzer sounded on the center console, and a small yellow light came on, illuminating some sort of printed warning, as he leaned over to try to read what it said, it promptly went out, and the buzzer stopped. We all looked at each other and shrugged. Roger carefully piloted us back to his house where we loaded up the supplies. About an hour later we were on the road! Once again, Roger started the engine, and the buzzer/light combination came on for a few seconds, then went off. By now it was nearly 8 p.m. and the plan was to spend the night at the marginal Circusland RV park, next to Circus Circus in VEGA$. I had been up since about 4:30 that morning, so I crawled into the large rear bedroom area for some shuteye. I was rudely awakened somewhere around Barstow by what felt like Roger trying to swerve around a dead coyote. I thought we were lucky we didn’t roll the damned thing two hours after picking it up. Then I heard a chorus of “Woo Hoo’s" from the cockpit, so I stumbled forward to find out what the hell was going on. It turns out that Roger and Charley had switched seats while doing 60 mph on Interstate 15! Charley was now driving, and Roger was in the Navigators seat. Jesus!

Everything went fine until we were about 20 miles south of VEGA$ when a loud high-pitched screaming sound started coming from the right rear wheel area. We pulled over and Charley and Breck went out to see what was up. It was quite cold out there, so I stayed inside Pegasus. They determined that the top of the wheel was scraping on the frame of the vehicle, but couldn’t figure out why. Without getting too technical, we finally discovered what the little buzzer/light combo was trying to tell us. The suspension system had two modes, “Travel Mode” and “Camping Mode” or something like that. When in “Camping Mode” there are heavy-duty rubber “pillows” that inflate or deflate above the rear wheels to keep the home level. When in “Travel Mode” they inflate to keep the wheel off the frame. The little warning buzzer/light said something to the effect of, “SET SUSPENSION TO TRAVEL MODE WHILE DRIVING”, which of course we didn’t do. Driving 200 miles in “Camping Mode” had blown some sort of gasket on the rubber pillow. Since it was now around 2 a.m. and freezing, we limped into town at about 40 miles an hour in the breakdown lane, and managed to get checked into Circusland. No one slept very well, because we had no idea what our next move was going to be. The next morning, we got out the yellow pages and found a mobile-mechanic that said he could come over and take a look. He was just a regular auto mechanic, not an RV mechanic, but he certainly knew more about it than we did! He quickly found the problem, which was a rubber gasket about the size of a quarter that was broken. It looked like a very specialized part that your local Kragen probably wouldn’t keep in stock. The mechanic (we’ll call him Our Savior) shook his head dejectedly, and took a large coffee can out of the back of his van. The can was filled with miscellaneous nuts, bolts, washers, screws, etc. About a minute into his search he exclaimed, “Well, I’ll be damned!” and pulled out the exact gasket that we needed! He charged us something incredibly cheap... like $40, and was on his way. The mood of the group improved immensely! After a Circus Circus breakfast, we were on the road again, in what was undoubtedly the shortest VEGA$ trip in the history of the club!

Next stop: Arizona’s magnificent Grand Canyon! I quickly discovered that the reality of life on the road didn't quite live up to my dreams. The ride was far too bumpy for Charley to do much work in the kitchen, other than to grab a bag of chips, or can of soda. And to my dismay, none of us knew how to play Canasta! Another thing we quickly learned was that Pegasus guzzled gasoline like there was no tomorrow! We had agreed to take turns paying for gas, and my first turn came at a small Shell station in rural Arizona where the attendant informed me that after the first $50 was pumped, he’d have to run my card, then start pumping again to finish the fill-up! It was beginning to look like it would’ve been cheaper to rent a car and stay in luxury hotels the entire trip. This feeling would be reinforced over and over as the vacation continued! The campground at the Grand Canyon was the opposite of the awful Circusland! Beautiful pine trees, deer walking about freely… finally a touch of the great outdoors! As we entered the park, we noticed that the little ranger hut at the entrance was unmanned. Charley was driving, and he took note of a sign saying that the ranger was off duty for the night, and to please pay the next day. We got all set up, and were enjoying the afternoon when we noticed that there was a small gage that seemed to indicate that our wastewater tank was near full. Apparently 4 showers, a couple of dishwashings, and a few uses of the restroom were all it took! This was another thing that none of us had a clue about dealing with. Roger had some recollection of seeing dump areas at certain gas stations, so we vowed to keep an eye open for such a place. In the meantime, I took a tour of the exterior of Pegasus, taking note of a multitude of controls, connectors, cords, cables, and hoses. I was looking for the wastewater valve to no avail. Finally, I got down on my hands and knees behind the rig and saw a large round fitting that had the look and smell of a sewer connection! I gingerly fiddled with it for long enough to realize that I probably shouldn’t fiddle with it anymore if I wanted to avoid a rude surprise.

We had decided to have dinner at a nice restaurant we had heard about in within the park area, and we quickly realized that since it was not in walking distance, we would have to disconnect everything in order to drive to the restaurant. What a hassle! As we drove up a small hill on the way to the restaurant, I noticed that from the back window of the RV it appeared that a river of blue liquid was running down the middle of the road. I soon realized to my horror that by driving up the hill we had somehow opened up the wastewater valve (thanks, in part, to my fiddling, I’m sure!) and were draining our holding tank onto the pristine Grand Canyon National Park! I told the guys and the reaction was a strange mix of laughter, embarrassment, and fear as we looked around for witnesses, or worse... park rangers! When we got to the restaurant, I checked the control, and sure enough the tank was empty! We had a nice dinner, and I think we all slept quite well. We’d figured out how to fire up the furnace, and we were able to keep the interior comfortably warm. There was really only room for three people to have real beds, unfortunately. Two people comfortably fit on the large rear mattress, and one person on the dinette. The fourth person had to sleep on the floor in the kitchen area on a foam pad that Charley had wisely brought along. We rotated sleeping positions so nobody was stuck on the floor for more than a night or two.

The next morning we packed up, and headed out to see the sites of the Grand Canyon. At this point Roger was driving, and was unaware that we hadn’t paid for the camp site on the way in. As he approached the ranger kiosk, a park ranger stepped out and held up his hand, indicating that he wanted us to stop… Roger gave him a friendly wave back and accelerated down the road! We all screamed, “What are you doing? He wanted us to stop!” Roger replied, “Nah! He was just waving goodbye!" We kept an eye out the back window fully expecting pursuit, but I guess they figured that we weren't worth it. So, not only did we empty our sewage in the park, we ripped off the campground for the price of a night’s stay. We did enjoy the views of the canyon, but I kept looking over my shoulder for the long arm of the law.

We continued driving east, making a brief stop at the famous Meteor Crater tourist attraction. When we discovered that it was $6 per person to see the crater, we decided to pass, and be content looking at the photos of it in the gift shop. We stopped for the night in a cold, desolate, town called Holbrook, AZ where we found a mediocre KOA-style Kampground. The high-point of the kampsite was the fact that they had cable TV for a small extra fee. We paid the fee, and the clerk handed a 20’ coil of coax cable that connected to the electrical post at our kampsite. We snaked it through one of the front windows and attached it to the back of our entertainment system. It was my turn to sleep on the floor that night, and I’ve never been much of a floor sleeper. As the night wore on, the temperature dropped like a rock. Memory puts the overnight low at about 12°, but in reality it was probably in the low 30’s. For some reason, the furnace refused to stay lit. At some point we noticed that the pilot light kept blowing out, due to the fierce arctic winds that were blowing into the external furnace vent. One of the geniuses on board (it very well could have been me) decided to seal up the vent with aluminum foil, in order to aid with keeping the pilot lit. After the foil was in place, Roger bent down to light the pilot… the flame touched the unvented buildup of propane gas, and a gunshot-like BANG! rocked the poor Pegasus, as a cone of flame shot out of the pilot-light access hole. Luckily, Roger was using one of those BBQ lighters with a long handle, so he wasn’t killed. We went outside to check on the piece of foil, and it had been blown about 15 feet away! It was going to be a long cooold night! Charley had done some backpacking, and had a fancy sleeping bag that was rated to stay warm down to 0° or some damn thing like that. My bag was a “slumberjack” more suited to pajama parties in the bonus room. Roger, Breck, and I had joked about slicing Charley open and warming our hands in his innards, but by about 2 a.m. it really didn’t seem like bad idea. I spent the entire night trying to light and relight the furnace, but it just kept going out. I finally got up around 5 a.m., broke the icicles off from under my nostrils, and ran to the main building where I stood under a hot shower for about a half-hour. What a miserable night! When the little kamp store opened up, we asked the friendly clerk if he could tell us what might be wrong with the furnace. The first thing he asked us (which, in hindsight, seems obvious) was, "Did you run out of propane?" Sadly, the answer was yes, and none of us was smart enough to realize that. All it would have taken was a $5 fill up the night before, and we could have avoided one of the worst nights of my life!

Next stop, Santa Fe, NM! We continued east, taking note of highway signs listing mileage to the confusingly named Las Vegas, New Mexico. It was soon time to empty the tank again, and we were determined to do it the right way! We found an RV- friendly gas station, and asked the cashier about dumping our waste. He directed us around to the back of the station where there was an unassuming black plastic drain plug screwed into the ground. We found a flexible hose stored in Pegasus’ rear bumper, and one end fit snugly in the hole in the ground, but not one of us four college-educated young men could figure out how to attach the other end of the hose to the nasty outlet at the back of the 'home'. We finally broke down and asked the gas station clerk for assistance. He took one look at the hose, and proclaimed that there was a part missing! We were ecstatic that it wasn’t stupidity that was keeping us from dumping our load! He directed us to a nearby Autozone, and we were back in business! A couple of hours later we made a pit stop to stretch our legs, and take in the beauty of the desert, when we noticed a green puddle forming under the engine of the mighty Pegasus. “Jesus Christ, what next???” I asked. We opened the hood to find that one of the cooling hoses coming from the radiator had shifted a couple of inches and was rubbing against the fan belt. The abrasion had eventually burned through the hose… hence the leaking! We filled the radiator with all of the water that we had, and limped into a nearby town. Once again we lucked out and found a mechanic willing and able to replace and re-seat the hose while we had lunch in a quaint western diner. We made it into Santa Fe without further incident. Our campground was walking distance to downtown, where we took a nice walking tour of the city. We looked pretty snazzy in our matching wingtips, if I do say so myself! We found a video store and decided to rent Stripes for the evening’s entertainment! We got back to the campground where (from a payphone) we ordered a pizza to be delivered right to the door of the RV! Pretty cool. So, that night we had pizza, beer, and a movie.

The next morning we had a general meeting where we concluded that the overall delicacy of Pegasus had us all in fear of what would break next. We were afraid of being stranded in the middle of the desert, as well as the mounting repair bills. We got out our U.S. map and decided to quit heading east, and head north to Denver instead. Roger knew of a luxurious hotel in the heart of the city, we called and easily booked a couple of rooms. It was the beginning of Thanksgiving weekend, and when we arrived, the hotel was practically empty! We were able to park the piece of shi… er, I mean Pegasus in a large lot behind the hotel. As we were checking in Roger worked his magic with the desk clerk and managed to get us a HUGE corner suite with a wet bar, living room, and two large bedrooms for something ridiculous like $75. What a change from the miserable accommodations of the RV! To top it off we were just in time for the free “Happy Hour” with free snacks and cocktails! Not just beer and wine, but a full bar… FREE, I tell you! Breck and I filled up on snacks and booze, and Roger and Charley went off in search of a traditional Thanksgiving dinner, which they found at a nearby hotel restaurant. The next day we walked the clean, abandoned, downtown area of the city, and I bought an electric space heater for what would be our final night in Pegasus the following night. We also gathered supplies for our in-room wet bar and spent the afternoon making Margaritas and watching a Thanksgiving “Leave it to Beaver-thon” on TV. It sure beat the hell out of camping!

The next day we bid a tearful farewell to our wonderful suite, and piled back into Pegasus for a treacherous journey through the Rocky mountains. I'll admit right now, that the day we left Denver, (the Saturday after Thanksgiving) is very much a blur. The only real highlight that I can recall is driving through a blizzard in the Rocky mountains while listening to truckers on the CB radio talking about where they were going to stop to put their chains on. Obviously we didn't have chains. We were praying that the substantial weight of Pegasus would keep us from sliding across I-70. At one point during this period Breck was driving, and a deer ran out in front of us. He did amazingly job, he said, "Oh Shit!" and gently applied the brakes and kept the steering wheel straight. All I remember is that the deer didn't get hit, and we didn't slide. The other amazing thing about that day is that we drove 750 miles, and burned nearly 100 gallons of gas, ending up in VEGA$ some 16 hours later. I'm sorry to say that I didn't pull my weight when it came to driving. I had trouble enough in Pegasus' pilot's seat on a wide open interstate, but when you throw mountains, snow, and darkness into the mix... no thank you! By the time we checked back into Circusland, we were dead tired, and it was a very cold night. Not wanting to mess with the furnace anymore, I plugged in my brand new Black and Decker electric space heater, and drifted off into a deep sleep. I woke up about 11 hours later; Breck was still asleep, Roger and Charley had gone for breakfast and some gambling and it was about 93 degrees in there. Boy did that space heater work!

The drive home from there was fairly uneventful, we were all in sort of a strange mood. We kept saying things like, "Boy, in a few years we're going to look back at this and laugh!" Well, now it's been over 16 years, and I have to say that it's true. I look back on that trip fondly, and it's amazing what little details come back to my mind as I was writing this entry.

The Wedding Capital of the World

The romance continued nicely throughout the rest of 1997, with me spending 90% of my time at Dara's large house out in the country. After a couple of weeks I even took the step of moving my satellite dish from my house to her's! (she was only receiving one channel (NBC) over the air). One weekend we decided to spend the afternoon in touristy Solvang pretending we were Danish. Mmmmm Danish! We were eating at an outdoor cafe when the topic of moving in together came up. We both agreed that it would be a good idea, and decided to make the big move sometime in January of 1998. Since I owned my condo and she was renting the house we decided that she would move into my house. I've only moved a few times in my life, but boy does it suck! We soon found that we were going to have to do a LOT of thinning out since we both had full sets of furniture, washers and dryers, refrigerators, 3 VCR's between us, and an unimagineable number of cordless phones! We started out with a large storage unit, whittled it down to a small one, then finally got rid of it altogether.

In March of 1998 I decided that I wanted Dara to be my wife, so I consulted with a local jeweler who had made jewelry for her in the past about an engagement ring. A couple of days later, he called me and said that he had something ready. It was Tuesday, March 31st, 1998 when I picked up the ring. I was going to wait until the weekend, go to a nice restaurant and propose over dinner but I'm an impatient man. We decided to go out for dinner that night at our favorite restaurant, a cozy little Mexican restaurant called Vallarta's in Pismo Beach. I was able to keep my nerves in check throughout the meal, then as we were finishing up I started fishing around in my pocket saying, "Oh, I almost forgot, I got something for you!" A couple of days earlier she had asked me to pick up a bumper sticker from the radio station at which I work, and she assumed that I was pulling out the sticker. I handed her the ring in one of those little velvet boxes, she opened it, then we both started crying. I managed to blubber out a "Will you marry me?" and thankfully she nodded in the affirmative!

A few weeks later, we started discussing the nuts and bolts, and I eagerly brought up the idea of getting married in my favorite town, which just happens to have a number of wedding chapels liberally scattered throughout the city! She thought that sounded like a good idea, and we decided to make it exactly one year from when I proposed, March 31st, 1999.

3 VEGA$ Trips + 1 Wife in 14 Days!

The summer of 1997 was an interesting, transitional time for me. The year before I had discovered the world of on-line dating, and found it mostly disappointing. On the other hand, the previous nine years found me with absolutely zero social life, which was no picnic either. A few months earlier in April I had ended a very self-destructive relationship that at times made me consider my sanity! By August, I was rebounding, repairing, and healing. I still didn't like being alone, so I cautiously was sticking my toe back into the online pool again... I wasn't going to blame the bad relationship on the fact that it started on the computer; I'd met a couple of perfectly normal women that way as well! Anyway, if you've read the title of this entry, you know it has a happy ending. I had been corresponding with this woman (we'll call her Dara) for a couple of weeks, starting with online chat sessions, moving into the phone call phase, and things were progressing nicely.

There was a spin-off group from THE VEGA$ CLUB headed by Leung's brother Wayland, and made up of several of his friends. They were always nice enough to invite me along during their trips, and I went a few times, although the seven hour drive from San Luis Obispo and the fact that I was (and still am) working for a non-profit organization, and living on my own, kept these trips to a minimum. One of these guys was a big enough gambler to warrant comped rooms at Caesars Palace, so the enticement of free room at "The Palace" was enough to get me to drive out there in late August of '97. I was still recovering from my previous bad relationship, and not quite ready to meet Dara in person yet, so a trip to The City seemed like just the thing! We had a standard meeting place for when I arrived, which was directly under the voluminous breasts of Cleopatra at the front of "Cleopatra's Barge" within Caesars Palace. I arrived at the appointed time, and met up with the boys. We played a little Blackjack, which at Caesars is generally too rich for my blood, then went up to the room. I'd never seen a room quite like it. It was a pretty standard size for a hotel room, but I'd say that a full 30% of it was bathroom! As you walked into the room, there were swinging glass doors to your right, and inside those doors was a full-size Jacuzzi, big enough for 2-3 people and a large marble counter with two sinks. Being all straight guys, we used it one at a time! In a separate room there was a stall shower, and in yet another little private room was the toilet (with telephone, of course). In the non-bathroom part of the room, two queen beds were kind of crammed into the remaining space. It was a bathroom lover's dream! Since I had most recently taken the 400 mile drive across the desert, the boys offered me the use of the Jacuzzi, while the rest of them watched TV and prepared for dinner.

I should take a moment now to let you know that some of these guys are quite competitive. On another trip once, one of them managed to eat 144 shrimp at The Mirage buffet, just so he could say that he ate a gross! We decided to dine that night at Battista's Hole in the Wall (see my glowing review, below) My motivation for drinking a lot of the cheap wine that they serve, is that it's free, and I generally enjoy the effects of alcohol. The motivation of ShrimpEater was to drink more glasses of wine than me! Faithful readers of this POJ have probably gotten the idea that I'm not a small man. It's true. Sadly, ShrimpEater weighs at least 100 pounds less than me, and had no business trying to keep up with me on something like alcohol volume. I wasn't counting, because I didn't care, but was informed later that I drank 22 glasses of wine, and S.E. had to outdo me by drinking 23. Okay, so at this point it sounds like he beat me, but at the end of the meal, he threw up in the bathroom, and walked back to Caesars, while I gambled for the rest of the evening. Yes, I WAS hung-over the next day, but there was no puking, and in fact, that was the most profitable night of my entire gambling career! Immediately after dinner, we walked next door to Maxim's where they had a low limit craps game going on. I was too drunk to really know what I was doing, but I had a guardian angel with me named Mikey. He would patiently make sure that I wasn't behaving too stupidly, and adjust my bets accordingly. He told me the next day that I was continually attempting to put $20 behind my $2 pass-line bet (10 x odds) when Maxim's only offered 2 x odds. In the course of a couple of hours, I had sobered up enough to know what I was doing, but not sober enough to get stingy with my betting. We went to the Desert Inn, which is where we found the hottest craps table I've ever seen! It wasn't just one hot shooter, we were all hot! People were throwing hard-ways left and right, holding the dice for 10-20 minutes each hand, it was magical. I've never been a hard-way bettor, and I'm sure I could have made a lot more money if I had been, but I did increase the size of my bets the way you're supposed to. At one point I tried to count all of the money that I had out there and got really scared when it was over $200! But the numbers just kept rolling. Things finally cooled off about 2 hours later, but I'd turned $80 into about $800, and was briefly in possession of that beautiful pastel yellow $500 DI chip.

We had another good run the next night at the Frontier, where Mikey held the dice for at least 25 minutes. During that run, some poor sap at the next table, seeing the excitement at our table actually offered Ken (another of Leung and Wayland's brothers) $100 to take his place at the table. Ken declined, and started counting his winnings from that point on, to see if he'd made the right decision. When Mikey finally sevened out, Ken had pocketed about $150 additional dollars, so he was happy. At last, a profitable trip to VEGA$!!!

I drove home the next day, knowing that in just a few days I would be coming back, this time with my boss and his elderly father.

Over the course of working where I do for almost 17 years now, I've developed a close friendship with the General Manager of the station, Frank. On several occaisions we have had the pleasure of attending the National Association of Broadcasters convention in VEGA$ together, and we are both very fond of the tasty meats offered in Las Vegas' stew. Free booze, cheap food, gambling! You get the idea. We have fun there. In late August, 1997 Frank's elderly father Frank Sr. decided he wanted to go to VEGA$. He was in his eighties, not in great health, and pretty much confined to a wheelchair. Initially Frank balked at the idea; then Frank Sr. suggested that I go along to help out. He went so far as to pay for my plane ticket as well as my own room at The Mirage. How could I turn it down? The flight went well, and I instantly felt like I was earning my keep by being the wheelchair pusher during the LONG walk from the tarmac to the taxi stand when we arrived at McCarren, and then again when we got to The Mirage.

Meanwhile back on the Central Coast, things were going well with my correspondence with Dara. We had discovered that her manicurist (and good friend) lived right across from me in the condo complex. Dara had quizzed her about me, and luckily her response was along the lines of, "Hank is the greatest guy ever!" Now, I could have told her that, but in the world of online dating, independent verification is often necessary. We were ALMOST ready to meet in person, but first there was the required "exchanging of the photos". We had been putting it off, both of us afraid of the other's reaction.

I had brought my laptop computer to VEGA$ so that I would be able to continue 'IM'ing and emailing Dara during the trip. We got checked into our rooms at The Mirage, agreeing to meet up in about a half- hour for lunch in the coffee shop. I got the laptop booted up, looked up the local access phone number for AOL, and signed on. The little man told me that I had mail, and I saw that there was an email from Dara, AND it had a photo attached! It was about time to head downstairs, but I couldn't put it off any longer, I started downloading the photo and it seemed to take forever! Finally it arrived, and I eagerly clicked on it. She looked exactly the way that she had described herself, which is rare in the world of online relationships. Beautiful green eyes, dark red hair, and a kind, gentle smile greeted me on the laptop screen. I stared at it for a few minutes, trying to burn the details into my mind, then signed off and went down to the coffee shop to meet up with Frank and Frank.

After lunch, Frank Sr. decided to try his luck at video poker. To my surprise The Mirage had a large selection of brand new nickel poker machines (Frank Sr. happily shelled out the money for 3 round trip airline tickets, and 3 rooms at The Mirage for 3 nights, but never played anything other than nickels!). We got him all set up at a machine, then sat on either side of him to play for a bit. The first thing he did was ask me to go get a change girl. I pointed out that these machines would take paper money and give him credits, and that change girls were getting pretty hard to find. He slid a twenty into the bill slot, and I pointed out the 400 credits that showed up, and showed him how to bet however many nickels he wanted to by pressing the appropriate button. Instead of pressing the appropriate button, he pressed the "Cash Out" button and watched as 400 nickels began to spill into the tray. Frank shouted, "Dad, what the hell are you doing? You haven't even played yet!" Frank Sr. didn't care for playing on the credit system. He liked to physically drop the nickels into the machine, and after each winning hand he would "cash out". Of course about 150 nickels into that initial cash out, the machine ran out of coins and we had to wait for an attendant to come and refill it. I soon got bored with the nickels and walked over to the craps pit, where I quickly won about 80 bucks! It seems that my luck from the previous trip was still with me!

The next day was spent searching for nickel video poker machines, within walking/pushing distance of The Mirage, that didn't have currency slots, and didn't "hold on to your money" after a winning hand. We finally found success deep within the bowels of the Imperial Palace, WAY in the back. That worked out well for me too, since the IP had several $2 craps tables going, unlike most of its other, ritzier neighbors. We dined that night at the wonderful William B's Steakhouse within the Stardust casino (see my restaurant review section) After dinner, we were wandering around the sprawling casino floor of the Stardust when Frank Sr. spotted a row of nickel slot machines that were calling his name. We got him settled in, then found a carousel of quarter video poker nearby. Frank and I were having a good time, drinking free cocktails, chatting, comparing video poker strategies, and generally enjoying ourselves, when he glanced over to where we had parked his dad. "Uh, Hank. Either my Dad has just won a jackpot, or there's trouble!" I looked in that direction and saw a small circle of people standing at the machine where Frank Sr. had been, and no sign of Frank Sr! I cashed out our quarters while Frank trotted over there. For whatever reason, Frank Sr. had fainted. There was a heavyset woman playing next to him, who explained that he had just sort of slumped into her, then down onto the floor. I think most people would have stopped to summon assistance, but her response to an old man keeling over next to her, was to keep on playing that nickel slot! She CONTINUED to play as the paramedics arrived and administered oxygen to him! The patrons of Las Vegas can be amazing! He regained consciousness about 3 minutes later, and seemed fine. The paramedics helped us get him back into his wheelchair, let him breathe the oxygen for another few minutes, took a report, and were on their way. We never found out exactly what happened, but some combination of the big dinner, the smoky casino, and the general excitement caused him to conk out for a moment. Frank and I were both quite shaken up, and as we wheeled him onto the sidewalk, he clapped his hands once and said, "All right boys, where to next?" We looked at each other, "To bed!" Frank quickly demanded.

Frank Sr. died about a year later, and I am so glad that I got to accompany him on this trip. It would be the last "pleasure trip" that he ever took, and I'm honored to have been there to share it with him.

The following weekend was Labor Day weekend, and Dara was going to be out of town... so I was again at loose ends and decided to drive down to Orange to visit Charley and his wife Pam. We spent the Saturday doing one of their favorite things, visiting a microbrewery! I have never met two people that love microbreweries as much as Charley and Pam; they are truly connoisseurs. That afternoon was spent drinking lots of beer, eating lots of food, and reliving lots of memories. The next day we were sitting around in the living room, watching old Simpsons episodes from Charley's large collection, and talking about VEGA$. As often happens, when 3 fans start talking about things they are passionate about, the excitement level tends to rise. I regaled them with the exploits of my two recent trips, and that was it! We made a hasty hotel reservation (not an easy task, given the fact that it was Labor Day weekend.) at a hotel that we'd never heard of, in a section of the city that we didn't know existed, we piled into Charley and Pam's Neon and we were on the road again! Shortly past Baker, the cell phone rang and who should it be but Roger! He was living in Scottsdale, Arizona at the time and he knew of my plans to visit Charley and Pam, so I figured he was just checking in, but unfortunately he was the bearer of bad news; there were preliminary reports on CNN that Princess Diana had been involved in a very serious car accident. We talked for a bit as he updated us on the news. He called back in a half-hour or so with the news that she had died. This put the occupants of the Neon into a bit of a somber mood, as you can imagine. We managed to locate our hotel, the Texas Station without too much trouble. It was in a nice part of town that I'd never been to before. At the time, it was one of the newest properties in The Station Casinos empire, next to another brand new place, called The Fiesta.

We got checked in, and tried our gambling skills at the T.S. without much luck. The news of Princess Di had hit Pam pretty hard, so she wasn't really in the gambling mood. Charley and I took the short drive over to the Frontier where I had had such recent good luck, and the craps dealers all greeted me enthusiastically (I'm a pretty good tipper when I'm winning). Sadly, lightning didn't strike twice so Charley and I nursed our wounds at the casino bar, enjoying free beer with our video poker. Dara was always in the back of my mind, and we had agreed to meet the following Saturday, so not even an international tragedy, or a losing trip to VEGA$ could get me too depressed. We drove back to Orange the next morning, with me continuing back up to the Central Coast that evening, exhausted!

I talked to Dara a couple of times that following week, discussing what we wanted to do, where to meet, etc. and we decided on her house. Since she had "checked me out" via her manicurist, and trusted her opinion, Dara's safety concerns were minimized.

Saturday, September 6, 1997 was the day of Princess Diana's memorial service, and my first date with Dara. She lived south of town, kind of out in the boonies, but she gave me excellent directions. I arrived at the agreed on time with a rented movie to watch, and a bottle of champagne (her drink of choice). There were the inevitable butterflies in my stomach as I pulled into the driveway. I took a few deep breaths and got out of the car. She had seen me pull up, and came out of the house to greet me. She looked just like the photo she'd emailed me, and was wearing a comfortable brown sweat shirt. We hugged, and went into the house. I can't say that the butterflies left completely, but I was as comfortable as was humanly possible considering I was spending the evening with a woman that I'd never seen before. We talked for a couple of hours, and never did watch the movie. We sipped champagne, and then I made the smoothest "move" of my brief romantic career. The topic of conversation had gotten around to Karen, the manicurist, so naturally I asked to see her freshly manicured nails. As she held up her hand for my inspection, I grasped it (as if examining the quality of the manicure) and voila! I was holding her hand! Pretty good, eh?

We continued seeing each other about once a week for about 3 weeks, then I began spending more and more time at her house, and shortly after Christmas that year, she moved into my condo!

This is a bit off the topic of VEGA$, but one of my fans wanted to hear the whole story, so there you are!

In the next installment: Where to get married? Do you even have to ask?

THE VEGA$ CLUB Goes North!

In 1985 I left Orange County (aka The O.C.) to go to school up in Stockton, California at the University of the Pacific. This put a bit of a damper on VEGA$ CLUB activities, but Roger, Charley, and Leung were able to make several road trips up to see me, which was good. Inevitably the topic of gambling came up and led to a few trips to nearby Reno and Tahoe. Tahoe was beautiful and all, but in the winter time it was pretty treacherous to get to, and Reno offered more gambling opportunities, and really cheap rooms!

One such trip to Reno had been planned for a couple weeks, we had reservations at Circus Circus Reno (ugh), and unfortunately there was snow in the forecast. A little bad weather wasn’t about to stop us from a fun weekend in “The Biggest Little City in the World”. We stopped at a local Kragen, and got a set of chains for Roger’s VW Jetta, and we were off!

Somewhere this side of Truckee it started snowing, and shortly we were directed to the side of the road to install our chains. None of us had ever put them on before. It was really cold, so I stayed in the car while Roger and Charley put the chains on, and we were back on the road. It seemed very noisy, and we weren’t really able to go any faster than 45 or so, but what the hell did we know, maybe this was normal? As we began to descend from the Sierra Nevadas the snow turned into torrential rain, and we were informed that we were leaving the “Chains Required” area. This time it was REALLY wet and muddy, so I again stayed in the car while Roger and Charley removed the chains. It wasn’t until we parked the car in the Circus Circus parking garage that we noticed that a strand of the right front chain had come loose during the trek, scraping a semi-circle of paint from Roger’s fender! The storm increased in ferocity through the night, forcing us to spend the evening at the “Pinkest Casino in Northern Nevada”, only adding fuel to my coulrophobia. When we got bored with the gambling, we took a walk through the circus midway, gawking at the carnies etc. We played a few games, including the one where you shoot water into the clown’s mouth, inflating a balloon attached to the clown’s head. At the end of the night, we had each won at least one troll doll. Speaking for myself, I continue to treasure my little guy (I call him Keith).

The next morning we turned on the TV news, only to find that there was no end in sight for the storm. Interstate 80 had been closed overnight until further notice, and the Truckee River was in danger of overflowing its banks. This was a Saturday. I had to be back at school on Monday, and the others had to be back at work. With I-80 out of commission, getting back to Stockton by car was out of the question. Roger, Charley, and Leung got out the map and plotted a course back to Orange County (via Las Vegas, of course) and I got on the phone to American Airlines and reserved a seat on the next day’s Reno to Stockton flight. Things seemed more or less under control, so we bundled up and hit the town! The breeching of the Truckee River seemed to be the hot topic of conversation around town. Being accustomed to gambling in the blistering heat of VEGA$, it was a nice change to frolic in the fiercely cold freezing rain. I specifically remember sitting at a 50¢ roulette wheel at the Cal/Neva club that day, and watching workers seal up the entrances with sand bags. That’s when I began to be concerned with this whole Truckee River thing.

Reno reminds me of a slightly older, somewhat seedier, downtown Las Vegas. It obviously doesn’t have as much money, although Harrah’s and the Hilton are pretty nice. It’s telling that the huge expansion of Las Vegas in the 90’s didn’t make up to Reno, and Reno never experienced the Steve Wynn-ification and maintains an old western charm.

The next day, we packed up the damaged Jetta and said goodbye to the soggy Circus Circus. It was still raining hard, but apparently the Truckee River was no longer in danger of flooding the town. The boys dropped me off at the airport, and were off. I waited my turn at the check in counter. When my turn came the clerk looked up my reservation number, and said, “Oh, it looks like you cancelled this!” I most certainly had NOT cancelled my only way out of town! We went back and forth for a while, and finally determined that I was supposed to have come to the airport the day before to purchase the ticket. They had neglected to tell me that. I said, “They told me on the phone that I could buy the ticket when I got to the airport!” Of course the flight was full, but not having anywhere else to go, I stood my ground and kept repeating, “They told me on the phone that I could buy the ticket when I got to the airport!”. Finally, she took pity, booked me on a flight to San Francisco, with a connecting flight back to Stockton. I was elated! The night after I got back to my dorm room, I got a call from the boys who had managed to get a huge suite at the Holiday Casino (now Harrah’s) Charley was talking to me from the phone by the toilet!

Looking back, it was a memorable trip, but I sure didn’t like the feeling of being stranded in Reno with no money, no airplane ticket, and no vacancies!

Fremont Street Experiences

Downtown has always felt a little more familiar to me than the Strip. Downtown VEGA$ people are my people. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy classy things; I'm in awe every time I enter Caesars Palace, but I'm just a little too... informal for most of the fancy strip places. I'm most comfortable wearing a Hawaiian shirt and no pants. Because of certain societal conventions, I'm usually forced to at least wear short pants when I'm gambling. I also hate the whole distance thing on the strip. Say you want to go from New York, New York to The Mirage, first you have to locate the valet (I don't even consider self parking!) wait for your car, battle the impossible strip traffic for 40 minutes to go the ½ mile to the Mirage, then do battle with ITS' parking lot! You're liable to waste the better part of the day just dealing with your car!!! When staying downtown, you park your car upon arrival and that's it! Want someplace seedy? El Cortez, The Plaza, The Golden Gate and many others are right there waiting for you. Want a step up? Try Fitzgeralds, Fremont, or the Four Queens! Hankering for a classy joint? The Nugget is smack in the middle of everything.

I am heartsick over the recent events related to my all-time favorite place to shoot craps, Binion’s Horseshoe. Binion’s is easily worthy of an entire posting all to itself, so stay tuned.

One trip we were lured into the horrible Coin Castle Casino. This was one of those slot joints between The Golden Gate and The Pioneer Club, in the same vein as Sassy Sally’s with all sorts of gimmicks to get you inside. We were lured into the bowels of the Coin Castle with the promise of a free key chain or some other doodad, and Charley decided to waste a few quarters at an ancient slot machine. Amazingly enough he quickly lined up 3 plumbs and the quarters just started pouring out of that thing like there was no tomorrow! Charley quickly filled up one bucket, and was reaching for another one, when the security guard / slot mechanic / manager on duty came up and told Charley to get out of the way. He explained that Charley was the victim of a “runaway jackpot” and that he was only entitled to 25 quarters! Charley was crestfallen! He was of a mind to dump the bucket of quarters onto the geezer’s head, but he took his meager winnings and we left, never to return for our key chains.

On another trip we were staying downtown at Fitzgerald’s. It had been a hectic day and we were up in our rooms relaxing in the late afternoon. There was an advertising card in the room talking up the Fitzgerald’s Personal Pizza room-service special. For only $9.99 you could have an 8-inch, “pizza for one” delivered to the room. We were hungry, and contemplating making a call to room service, when I remembered seeing an ad across the street at Sassy Sally’s for a 12 inch “Family Sized” pizza for $3.99! “Why don’t I just walk across the street and get 4 big pizza’s for $16?” The boys laughed at me, which only made me want to do it more! I picked up the tray that was underneath our ice bucket and water glasses, tucked it under my arm and headed out! I waited my turn deep inside the nightmarish Sassy Sally’s (Where it’s Double Jackpot Time every 10 minutes, and they’re not afraid to let you know it!) When I got to the front of the line I ordered my four pepperoni pizzas. The surly order taker looked around, “Who are all those pizzas for?” I told her they were for me and my friends. She explained that the pizzas were for people who were there gambling, that they didn’t do take-out! We went back and forth, and finally I told her that my buddies were on their way, that I’d just been sent ahead to order the pizza. She grudgingly took my money and placed the order. When they called my number, she looked around the casino searching for the 3 additional gamblers that I had promised her. I quickly balanced the four pies onto my tray and got the hell outta there! I did receive a lot of strange looks walking down Fremont Street with a tray full of pizzas, and one man offered to buy one from me. I was met with more dirty looks as I traversed through the busy Fitzgerald’s casino floor towards the elevator. It was all worthwhile when I got back to the room and received a standing O from my fellow VEGA$ CLUB members. We had a cooler full of cold beer to accompany the pizza, and it was one great meal! The pizza itself wasn’t the best, as you can imagine, but that didn’t matter. We had said “SCREW YOU” to both the price gouging room-service people, AND to greedy Sassy Sally who was attempting to lure in hungry slot players!

Kojak, and Late Night Fun

Sometime in the heyday of THE VEGA$ CLUB (mid 80’s) an organization called Players Club International burst on the scene with a group of enticing late night TV commercials starring Telly Savalas. For a small up-front fee, you could swing like Kojak! I forget the details, but for the price of membership you were entitled to substantial discounts on hotel reservations, plane tickets, shows and meals. Roger signed up in a heartbeat! The rest of us were envious of his shiny gold Players Club official membership card, and luckily he readily shared the benefits bestowed upon members.

One of the hotels that offered benefits to PC members (possibly the only one in Vegas) was the Riviera, so we stayed there several times, enjoying the deeply discounted room rates, free buffet coupons, discounts to shows, etc. We went to “an evening at the improv” there and the headliner was KNBC Los Angeles’ TV weatherman Fritz Coleman. He wasn’t very funny.

The Riviera was okay, it’s kind of got that “old Vegas” feel that is getting harder to come by as the years go by, but we didn’t spend much time gambling there. After a few late-night gaming sessions along the strip, Roger and I would be walking back to the Riv, only to be drawn in by the midnight Steak & Eggs special at the nearby Westward Ho!

On another trip we found ourselves trying out late night breakfast specials at Foxy’s Firehouse. This place had the atmosphere and clientele of Little Caesar’s, but no craps table, so I had no interest in it. I guess it was a small step up from LC’s since it had a restaurant and a security guard. On this particular visit, the lone security guard was posted near one of the entrances… playing video poker! The joint was located just north of The Sahara on the strip, across the street from The World’s Largest Gift Shop, where the Holy Cow Brewing Co. is now located. The thing I remember most about the $1.99 breakfast special is that it was way yucky. It was served on Styrofoam plates with plastic knives and forks, and the “chef” working the graveyard shift at Foxy’s almost seemed like he didn’t want to be there! When breakfast was over, Roger eyed the single blackjack table and decided that he wanted to win the price of his breakfast back! I was too tired to gamble, plus after a day of cheap beer, free hotdogs, the world’s largest taco, a buffet lunch, free margaritas, and a $1.99 midnight breakfast I was a little green around the gills. Roger plopped down 2 bucks on the blackjack table and was dealt two face cards. I was relieved. “Let him win the price of his damned breakfast back so we can get some sleep!” I was thinking. The dealer was showing a 3, and turned over a 2, hit with a 3, then a 4, another 4, then a 5. Roger and I stared at the spread of cards trying to add them all up. The dealer was only marginally faster and announced “21!” while picking up Roger’s $2. Would you believe it, the same thing happened for the next three hands? By the fifth hand, Roger was getting pissed. He plopped down a $10 spot for one last hand. He got a respectable 19. The dealer was showing a 5, but at this point we weren’t breathing easy. She turned over a 6, (shit!) then pulled out a 4 (yay!) then an Ace (double yay!) then… another 5 (Oh, Jesus!) Roger lost it. “I can’t believe it! This is bullshit!!!” he screamed! The security guard glanced over his shoulder from the poker machine, then went back to his game. Roger stood up, lifted the blackjack stool over his head, and before he had a chance to crash it down onto the table, a short, squat woman came running over, “SIR, PUT THE STOOL DOWN RIGHT NOW!” He gave her a menacing look, “Who the hell are you?” he snarled. “I’M THE PITBOSS AND I WANT YOU TO PUT THE STOOL DOWN AND LEAVE THE CASINO , NOW!” He looked her up and down with a sneer, “Pit boss? You look more like a Pit Bull!” He finally put the stool down, and we beat a hasty retreat. When Foxy’s Firehouse closed down, nobody shed a tear!

In the next installment… Downtown Fun!

P.S. The above anecdote has possibly been embellished by many retellings over the years. In truth, he lifted the stool about 2 inches off the ground, and had no intention of crashing it down onto the table. He also never uttered the “Pit Bull” remark, but he wanted to, and the security guard never glanced over his shoulder. That incident also added a new phrase to our vocabulary. From then on, anytime a dealer got a total of 21 with 5 or 6 cards, it became a “Firehouse 21”

P.P.S I just “googled” Telly Savalas to see if I could find out more information on the Players Club, and I found a website dedicated to celebrities that are missing parts of their fingers! Telly is apparently missing part of his left index finger! Other digitally challenged people include James “Scotty” Doohan (right middle finger), and Daryl Hannah (the tip of her left index finger) Isn’t the internet incredible?

Little Caesar's... R.I.P.

On one of those mid-80's summer trips, the boys of THE VEGA$ CLUB were wandering around mid-strip after attending another breathtaking presentation at Caesars’ IMAX theater. We were walking around in the sweltering heat redeeming coupons at most of the little souvenir shops that used to be abundant in that neighborhood. Those little shops and strip malls have all been torn down now to make room for places like The Monte Carlo, The New Aladdin, and Paris. I understand that the stubborn little Tam ‘o Shanter Motel will soon be a thing of the past as well. Oh well. We were walking through an especially seedy looking strip mall next to Bally’s (Where Paris is now) when we came across Little Caesar’s Casino. You entered through a sliding glass door where someone had wrapped the metal door handle with about 25 layers of duct tape, in an attempt to keep the handle from inflicting 3^rd degree burns on the casino guests. A hand-written sign was taped to the door sternly reminding everyone to close the door behind them! The hard-working air conditioning system succeeded in lowering the indoor temperature by about 10 degrees from the outdoor temperature. Unfortunately on that day it was about 105 outside! I have since learned that Little Caesar’s was nicknamed “The Toilet” (according to legend, during a particularly hot roll at the craps table, the shooter didn’t’ want the dice to cool down if he paused to use the restroom, so he just peed at the table!) On that hot afternoon, with the exception of a bustling craps game, the place was pretty much deserted. Charley had wandered off towards the dingy gift shop, and he called us over, “Hey, look at this! Penny slots!!!” Sure enough, off in the corner were 4 ancient penny slot machines with a top jackpot of $50. I walked over towards the craps game, where there were many unsavory characters 2 deep, and the layout was COVERED with beige chips, which I later discovered were worth 25¢ each! Yes, we had found a quarter craps game! There was also a “double exposure 21” table with no players, and one open blackjack table with no players. Standing behind the other blackjack table was an old man in a $60 rumpled suit that had to be the pit boss. Roger nudged me, “Check out what that old guy’s doing!” We looked closer and discovered that he had a deck of cards spread out across the table and he was wiping each card down with a damp towel! This was astounding to us! We’d all played enough blackjack to know that most places replace the cards with brand new decks every few hours, but at Little Caesar’s, why waste money on new cards, when you can just wash off the old ones! We got the impression that at Little Caesar’s, every dollar counted! On another visit, I saw the pit boss groan in agony, yell the “F” word, and kick his little desk when a guy won a $40 pass line bet.

For reasons unknown to most of my friends, I grew attached to “The Toilet”. Nobody ever wanted to go with me, so I spent a lot of time by myself in there. First off, I liked the idea of 25¢ craps. I felt like a high-roller betting $1 chips, amongst all the 25¢ bets of the degenerate/homeless men gambling around me. One morning I happened to notice that there were no cocktail waitresses, nor was there a bar. I asked the dealer if they served drinks. “Cocktails!” he shouted, raising my hopes. A short heavyset bald man who was also the change person came waddling over to me. “You’re the cocktail waitress?” I asked. He rolled his eyes at me and asked me what I’d like. It was about 9 a.m. so I asked for a Bloody Mary. He actually scoffed at me, then said, “Coffee or beer?”. I’ve never been much of a coffee fan, and I can just imagine how horrible a Little Caesar’s cup of java would be, so I ordered a beer. He went over to a little area next to the cashiers station where apparently they had a keg set up. He brought back an 8 ounce paper Dixie Cup of what I swear had to have been Hamm’s beer. I tipped him the usual $1 chip and got a very polite, “Thank you, sir!” in return. I’m guessing that that was the biggest tip he’d received all week, because the Dixie Cups just kept comin’!

Another reason that I kept going back to LC’s was that I almost always won a few bucks there. The craps game there was something called “Crapless Craps” which I believe he got from Bob Stupak’s Vegas World, which could only mean that it was a total rip-off game. I haven’t studied the statistics of this game, but if it was offered at Vegas World, then it had to have a bigger house percentage than standard craps. The game, as the name implies, has no craps rolls, everything except seven can be a point. Roll snake eyes, and 2 is the point. Roll an eleven, then that’s the point. It was kind of weird to begin with, but you got used to it.

On another night when the craps table was totally full, I decided to try out some $1 blackjack to kill some time until a spot opened up at the craps table. The whole table was losing, but at a buck a hand, it wasn’t too bad. One guy at the table was playing with a stack of $20 bills instead of chips, betting $20 and $40 per hand and losing consistently. After quickly losing his entire stack, he cursed and pulled out two $100 bills, and slapped them in his betting circle. As you can imagine, this kind of action tends to draw the attention of the Pit Boss at a place like LC’s! The very young, non-English speaking break-in dealer nervously glanced over to the supervisor, “Money prays?” and got the nod from the boss. True to form, we were all dealt 15s and 16s, with the dealer showing an Ace. Mr. Big-spender took a hit, busted, cursed and quickly grabbed up his two C notes and started to get up. All hell broke loose! The dealer screamed, “HEY!” the Pit boss clamped his left hand down on the players arm, while pulling out a can of mace with his right hand. The player lamely tried to explain that he wanted to stand, not take a hit, and that the dealer misunderstood him. He looked to the fellow players, “You saw me wave my hand back and forth, right? I wanted to stay!!!” In return, he got four icy stares. The boss increased his grip on the guy’s hand, “Either you put that money back on the table, or you’ll get a face full of pepper spray, and a trip to jail!” It was then that I realized that in addition to not having cocktail waitresses, they also didn’t have any security guards! I also realized that I was probably taking my life into my hands coming into a place like this after dark.

A few years later, I was in town by myself on one of those spur-of-the-moment weekend getaways. I was actually staying 20 miles south of town in Jean, NV. I’d arrived in Jean late Friday night, getting a room at the Gold Strike. Then the next morning I drove into town, deciding to start the day with some quarter craps. I pulled into the strip mall, and there was a white paper placemat scotch taped to the inside of the sliding glass door. With a black Keno crayon, somebody had scrawled “CLOSED”. I can’t say that I was totally surprised, but it was still the end of an era. I stared at the placemat for a few minutes and possibly shed a tear, but at the same time smiling about how fitting the crayon and placemat announcement was for such a place as Little Caesar’s.

In the next intallment... Foxy's Firehouse, midnight steak & eggs, and The Players Club International!