It is a grind. I was thinking about the parallel to poker. If you play the game the way you’re supposed to play it, it isn’t any fun — or so the saying goes when you’re playing poker. I wonder… Life is pretty much a grind but if you play it the way you’re supposed to play it, you end up with a lot less bruises and dings in your body, character, and finances. Unfortunately for most of us, when it comes to life, we have to jump off the cliff and flirt with disaster as our parachute manages to shred on the edge of those damned pointy rocks on the way down.
I saw five big-assed motor homes today pulled over at a fuel stop – each had a vehicle in tow behind it – and for the most part, they looked like a carbon copy of the one next to it. It had me thinking. First I contemplated the cost of fuel to take one of those things out on the road, then the cost of the MH and the cost of the vehicle behind it, and did a “Oh Shit!” thing because these people must have taken good care of their finances to be able to do that or they won the lottery or they had wealthy parents or great jobs and investments or some such kind of things that include a lot of money.
Where did I go wrong? How much time do you have? The only answer I can give you on short notice is that my parachute got shredded. The only reason I wish I was extremely wealthy is freedom. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to just take a day or 365 of them and drift off to parts unknown — or not — and not have to be anywhere or do anything that didn’t suit your fancy?
On the subject of life, a thought popped into my head about two weeks ago and it’s come back now and then to tease me, waiting for an answer. This isn’t suicidal or death thought gone wrong/right/or otherwise, just a question. I wondered if I knew that I would die on a certain day, how I would prepare my body for the crossing. My body has been an incredible vessel that has carried my conscious being and spirit through many a year and I’m exceptionally thankful that I’ve been blessed. Since my body is my house, it is, to an extent, my entry and exit point to this existence and deserves to be honored for the fantastic job it has done to bring me as far as it has. I’ve grown to appreciate many things through the use of this incredible vessel and perhaps I never would have experienced them if I were always plagued with pain and a physical handicap.
What would you do?
And on the subject of dying, Danny Robison passed. There isn’t much on the internet about it. I saw a post on Facebook from a friend. I searched for information but didn’t find anything other than a short article at PokerFuse.com.
I dealt to him at the Mirage on a pretty regular basis back in the 90s. The one thing I could never quite get over with him was watching him and his wife hold a short prayer session outside the poker room by the bathrooms, and grabbing hands to do a kind of cheer or fist pump, just as he went back to play poker. Once he became a born-again, he lived it, he thought it, he ate it, the whole thing. This isn’t a negative on him, just interesting to me that he was right in the thick of trying to take his fellow man’s money every day and working hard at preaching religion to everyone. It somehow seems incongruous. He held bible meetings and spent a lot of time trying to get people to see life as he did.
After the Mirage I rarely saw him at Bellagio. I believe he was playing mostly in California in Larry Flynt’s games. Danny was one helluva character and entertaining to deal to too. Here’s hoping that his passing took him to what he envisioned would be waiting for him after this life.
G’nite world…time to sleep so I can get to grinding life tomorrow.