Monthly Archives: October 2010

Dear Diary

The road to Las Vegas

It seems that I’ve been there more lately.  Friday I had the honor of picking up the Rioteer and bringing him home with me for a few days.  It was a pleasant surprise but he was demanding and knew everything and his ears are painted on.  They simply do not work.  He’s been this way before and if I didn’t love him so much, I’d be forced to tie him to a chair with a kerchief stuck in his mouth for a half a day just to get him to slow down and SHUT UP! Continue reading The road to Las Vegas →

Dear Diary, Montana Days - and Nights

Thinking back

Even after a few days of trying to think about the order of how things happened, where I started to recognize the fact that there was a game in the back room, it still eludes me. I’m sure there was a game in the back room, along with the two pan games that ran every day, but I really wasn’t aware of it. Continue reading Thinking back →

Dear Diary, Montana Days - and Nights

One step back

I feel the need to add a small glimpse of my history to the ongoing Oxford story. In order to appreciate my own insanity and addiction with poker, it might be easier to explain (without going into too much detail) that my earlier life was fraught with family death, family illness, (more than one family member in both circumstances), and the eternal struggle to put food on the table and pay the rent – in other words B-r-o-k-e, a lot of moves to different states, and general quicksand traps along the way. I won’t even begin to say that I handled anything well, in truth, I really didn’t know how to handle anything and that was another issue that surfaced for me years later. I never had options although I did have choices and I made some bad ones. But those were more related to husbands and relationships and since I never had two thin dimes to rub together, I didn’t make bad financial choices…until I became a poker junkie. Continue reading One step back →

Dear Diary, Montana Days - and Nights

Get ready for the ride

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I can’t remember putting my thumb out but somehow I was a hitchhiker in a world I knew nothing about and I managed to catch a ride with a busload of poker crazed lemmings heading for the coast. There’s something to be said for staying home, quietly raising children, cooking and cleaning, paying your bills, and slipping quietly through life in a comatose state with no mind ripping memories. That something is “FUCK IT!!” Continue reading Get ready for the ride →

Dear Diary, Montana Days - and Nights

The haze of history

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At times my ability to recall events and even words spoken, is amazing. At other times I find it difficult to put things into any order and decipher when certain things happened. The time spent behind the Oxford bar seems to roll into one dark pool of disgust and loathing. At first I was barely aware of the poker games that were going on in the establishment. Continue reading The haze of history →

Dear Diary, Montana Days - and Nights

Despair

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Today I went into Pahrump with my son.  He went to a couple of the casinos looking for work.  I sat down at a 5c keno machine for about an hour while I waited for him to fill out an application and take it back.  It was strange.  I used to play keno machines every day.  Way back when the Mirage first opened, I went every night after work and played – the frequency became less and less.  Now it’s been about 4 times in 3 years – and I have no desire.  That’s the whole answer to the perplexity of gambling MOI thinks…desire.  The sickness of addiction is what pushes the desire and makes it so paramount that you have to do it.  Literally, some people HAVE to do it.  I’m not sure what drove me at the time, but it left a long time ago. Continue reading Despair →

Dear Diary

Back to the present

Things seem a bit hectic but maybe it’s me, maybe it isn’t, I’ll just go with the thought that they seem hectic whether they are or not.  I made a trip into Las Vegas on Friday – that was yesterday – to pick up my oldest son Dan.  He’s going to be staying with me for a bit and look for work out here.  His flophouse lifestyle of living was getting to him I suppose…hell if I know.  The things my kids do/have done and their lifestyles are not mine but it’s certainly a peek into a completely different world than I live in.  I like to know I have a place to live that no one else will show up at any time of day, and that my stuff is reasonably protected and I don’t have to worry about someone taking it out the door to trade/sell it for their next fix, and a variety of other things, like a hot shower and clean sheets.  Maybe I’m just too picky. Continue reading Back to the present →

Dear Diary, Montana Days - and Nights

Behind the bar

This bartending job was my first experience with people that had serious drinking problems and forced others to share their problems in public places. I had been a cocktail runner some years previous at the Elks Club in Sandpoint Idaho (on the weekend) but I was exposed to people who came in on Friday and Saturday night, mainly married couples, that wanted to dance and party, not sit at the bar and bludgeon their bodies and brain with alcohol.  This was a very harsh environment and spiritually depressing but it was a job and I had kids at home and rent to pay. Continue reading Behind the bar →