A tiny story involving my father and gambling

The other morning on our walk, Kathy told me a story which triggered a childhood memory involving my dad and a pocketful of quarters.

On one of our many, many, many trips across the Nevada desert--we used to get our teeth fixed for free by a dentist practicing in the Bay area who played football with my dad in college--we stopped at a coffee shop/casino somewhere in Winnemucca. For whatever reasons, my mom stayed in the car while my brother and I followed our dad inside who handed us a bunch of quarters and told us to hit the slots for a few minutes while he picked up some lunch for the family.

That's how things were if you were a kid in the mid-sixties. You didn't wear seat belts, and you played the slots even though you were only nine and your brother was only seven. DUDE! EXCELLENT TIMES! And also LUCK BE A LADY!

Anyway. It didn't take long for one of the Casino Suits to buttonhole my dad (in my mind's eye I can see him standing there with a bag of sandwiches in his hand and a look of profound surprise on his face) to tell him he'd better get those damn kids out of the casino. Which he did. Pronto.

Oh, there are no words to express how much I love my dad and all the happy memories for which he is responsible.