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Roll Those Galloping Dominoes!
As you already know, NAPA’s high rollers will convene next July in Las Vegas. Reliable Shampane sources tell us that Jim Kapplin, for example, has sold his unique collection of foreign language types and placed the money in a special gambling fund. He has canceled reservations to fly to Swahili, or maybe it’s Zimbabwe, where he intended to research inter-tribe communication accomplished in that African nation by throwing type at a drum head. All of this will come as a surprise to his wife, the long suffering Norma.
Jake Warner, that inveterate bicycle roadside roundup artist, has been riding with extra caution. He rationalized that everything he would have spent in emergency rooms and on ambulance rides can go into his slot machine kitty. (Note: the news this morning indicates that there is a serious shortage of pennies in this country. The mint is falling behind demand by 30 percent. Jake’s penurious pinching of roadside pennies is responsible for the penny shortage in the east where the problem is the most acute.)
Guy Botterill is drooling. (The dancing girls will have him hyperventilating.)
A record of attendance at the convention is anticipated, as all the non-participants in the hobby whose only goal in life is to be entertained, will crawl out of the woodwork.
Gale Sheldon will bring all his silver and gold to Las Vegas, hoping to double his holdings.
The building inspector from Redding – he knows who he is – will bring a stepladder to Vegas so he can inspect the roofs and seats of all the outhouses.
Hopkins, Rich, from Punkin’ Creek
Lugged in a bag of lead.
“I cast my quarters for this machine,”
The West Virginia gambler said.
Bill Boys has raised his rates for conducting wedding ceremonies and funerals to enable him to feed the slots. “Preachers aren’t paid very well,” Bill told this publication, “and all us preachers have our little ways of getting by without raiding the offering plate.”
Jack Oliver, convention host and former air traffic controller, will be giving hands on instructions on the art of craps and the proper method of inserting quarters into slots via the speed method. “Speed is essential,” says Jack. “You’ll know your vacation was a flop if you go home with any unspent money. You have to get rid of it fast if you’re here for only three or four days.” (Will your money last past the first day? – ed.)
Blaine Lewis dropped a quarter;
It rolled beneath a chair.
“Never mind it said the doctor,
I have another pair.”
“The way you drop them in the slot,”
Said Belle, “means we are going broke,
And you’ll be back in mask and gown,
‘Cause our budget’s up in smoke.”
It’s only a rumor, but we hear that Louise Lincoln can’t wait to have Wayne Newton croon in her ear. (Or is he in Branson? Who can keep track of these birds?) Will A. Walrus turn green with envy? Will he hyperventilate too?
Doc Davids plans to set up his portable optometry testing equipment. “I will fit the blackjack players with new specs so nobody misses a count while they’re building to twenty-one. Limit the time you spend watching barely clad females on stage. The eyes are very vulnerable when they are bugged out. If you can see pasties on the showgirls at fifty feet, there’s nothing wrong with your eyes.”
Sonya Davids will be wearing two pairs of Doc’s glasses, watching him closely while he tests (clinically, of course) such scenic views.
From out of the winter freeze
Came sprightly Duffey, Susan
“I’ll beat this quarter-snatching bandit
‘Cause I’m not happy losin’.”
Tom Parson will be present but will not be reading Scriptures to the gamblers. “I’m a Parson, not a parson,” he told Shampane.
Words to Live By
A wise gamester ought to take the dice
Even as they fall, and pay down quietly
Rather than grumble at his luck. – Sophocles
Colophon
In a charming state of modesty our noble editor, Alvold Seck, declined to have his by-line appear with the lead story in this issue. He hinted that we might use his initials on the verse, but we convinced him that this would not enhance his reputation as a poet. Doing the menial manual labor for No. 90 on a Mac and a PC: Har Segal, Philly resident and Philly fan, and Al Fick, domiciled adjacent to the historic but now defunct iron mine in Cornwall, a sister community of the aforementioned Philly. Put your caustic comments in the bundle.