On the Coat Tales of a Gambler
I am back in my old hometown for a visit. Robstown, Alabama, should have been nicknamed Pretenders-Ville. After all it is smack dab in the center of the Southern Bible Belt. Down here, when you met someone, the first words out of their mouths asked, “Where do you go to church?”
During my years in Robstown, there were poker games and gambling happening regularly right in their holy hometown. Hell, right in their own damn homes. Gambling had a great disguise, having many of the town’s leading residents pretending to oppose gambling. Of course, paying off the cops had a lot to do with it too. Yes, the general population was convinced of Robstown’s middle America purity. It is laughable that the loudest protesters spent the most time in the gambling joints. You’d see them out at the farmhouse too. If any of their good church going friends ever found out about the gambling, they’d all been in for a shock. How the town’s biggest secret never got out is more than a mystery. I guess that could be why, when I come back for these visits, it all looked the same and no one seemed to know anything about gambling behind closed doors. Hell, as a kid, I even knew about it.
I admit I still play a legal game of blackjack now and then, but I don’t go very often. Even when I am in Taos I don’t play much, except for the occasional blackjack tournament. Not any mobsters there, but I swear sometimes that those Indians spend all night in the Kiva praying for their casino to make money. As I travel around this beautiful country of ours, I see a lot of casinos these days. I have to admit, eventually I will have stopped at all of them. However, I usually don’t play. Call it window shopping, I guess. Being on the road, traveling as I do, casinos are always good for inexpensive meals, clean restrooms and okay, sometimes a quick game for gas money.
Henceforth I am going to try to limit my visits to Robstown to the months of autumn. The weather is best here in the fall and at sixty-eight, the best weather is good for me. I have to admit I feel and get along as if I were forty. I will be heading west for Taos maybe on the first of the month. I may even stay there through San Geronimo Day. It’s a good way to see everyone I know in one place.
Well now this news… my youngest and only daughter that I have left, is forty-three. Sadly, my oldest girl died at thirty-nine. She would be forty-seven had she lived. As it turned out, Military service is in the blood. My youngest daughter, Janie, joined the Army Reserve when she was seventeen. She was gung-ho right from the get-go, and she was commissioned while she was still seventeen. Next month she will have twenty-six years in the service. Her rank is Lieutenant Colonel which she earned about four years ago.
Once your kids grow up you have to give them the space and respect that they earned from you. Nevertheless, after Janie put in her twenty years, I urged her to retire, and I have done so ever since. Well, you can guess what I am about to say next. Last Thursday Janie received orders by email. Next month she is being sent on active duty to Afghanistan for at least a year and maybe more. She is none too happy about it and neither is her husband. Goes without me saying how I am feeling. They do protect female Lieutenant Colonels pretty good. In the old days the husband went off to war and the woman stayed home with the babies… progress?
I know it has been a while since I have had any stories about Scarpone. I have another story for you but as I no longer have my own computer, my library time is up, and I have to sign off for now. Hope to see you down the road, maybe in Taos this fall.
Anchors aweigh!
Sailor
On the Coat Tales of a Gambler continues with Episode – 10 Amarillo Slim
My days of legal gambling came after the service when I made my way west to Las Vegas. But before that, I spent some time in Amarillo, Texas. – Sailor