18. With Gary Eastley, Mike James, Mike Stefanidis, Stan Wong, Paul Huyser, Mark Huyser, and Mike Coyne - Excalibur

• Gary paid for Mike James' and my airfare as a graduation present. He brought along his camcorder, although we didn't tape very much.

• On our last day in Vegas, Mike James, Gary and I ate breakfast at the coffee shop at the Dunes. We sat down and decided to play some keno. Gary and I both filled out a sheet with four numbers (mine, as always, being 42, 44, 46, and 56).

  Before the keno runner could get to us, I saw something interesting in the keno rules and mentioned it to Gary. "It says here that they have a special four spot that you can play for $2.50. There's no payoff for hitting two, and you only get your money back if you hit three, but if you hit all four you get substantially more money than a regular four spot."

  Gary decided to go for it. He asked Mike if he wanted to go in with him, and Mike said yes. Gary filled out the special four spot and then decided to play a special three spot as well. Their three spot consisted of three numbers that were also on their four spot.

  The keno runner came by, and finally our game started. I watched the board with disgust as none of my numbers was coming up. Then Gary said, "We've got two." Then suddenly, "Make that three!"

  I asked, "Are you serious? Is it the three that are on your three spot?"

  "No," he said, "We need number 7 on both sheets."

  We all sat there looking at the board chanting "Seven, seven, seven, seven...," and sure enough, 7 came up. They won $550.00 on the four spot and $125.00 on the three spot, so they split $675.00 which put them both up for the trip.

• My luck, up to the point where Mike and Gary had won their keno jackpot, had not been so good. I had lost about $500.00, and it just kept getting worse. Gary and I went to play craps at Caesars which put me in the hole for $800.00 total. I was sick about it when we met Mike back at the Dunes. I bought a shrimp cocktail and went around saying, "This shrimp cocktail cost eight hundred dollars. Mmm, mmm, boy is it good."

  Well, we still had a couple of hours before our plane left, so I decided to play a little more craps. I went up to a five dollar table at the Dunes and was up a little and down a little for about a half hour. There were some pretty high rollers at the table, including a couple from Poland who had asked for a $2,500.00 marker when they stepped up to the table.

  Finally, the fellow to my right got the dice and had a pretty good run. It put me up for the table, about $100.00. I thought there was no way I'd have as good a roll as he did, but of course I gave it a shot. I established a point of six and immediately rolled it back. I turned to the fellow to my right who had eventually sevened out with a point of six and jokingly said, "See, that's how you roll a six." The guy laughed. He had a lot of black chips ($100.00 each), and I thought, "All right. I made a high roller laugh."

  I proceeded to make another point and thought, "Hey, maybe I've got a hand going." On the next come out roll I rolled an eleven. The Polish gentleman to my left had had about $50.00 bet on eleven, and when I rolled it he tossed me a green chip ($25.00). Surprised, I thanked him and then thought, "Oh, man! This is what I've been waiting for my whole gambling life! A hot hand where I've got the dice and a high roller is tipping me!"

  Well, the hand just kept getting better and better. And every time I would win for the Polish man, he would give me a green chip, and eventually two green chips at a time. I threw out a bet on the eleven, $5.00 for me and $5.00 for the dealers… and I rolled it! I couldn't lose.

  Then, my point was six, and everybody was betting on the hardway. By now there were no red ($5.00) chips on the table, only green and black. I thought, "What the hell, the guy's tipping me," and threw out $25.00 on the hard six. A couple of rolls later, I hit it. The table absolutely exploded.

  When I finally sevened out, I had $1,000.00 in front of me. The Polish man thanked me, I embarrassingly thanked him back, and the pit bosses descended on the table to assess their losses. I was one of the more conservative bettors, so I estimate the table must have lost about $25,000.00 on my roll. I cashed out, and we drove to the airport to catch our flight.

  Mike James, Gary, and I all went home winners.

17. With Mike Stefanidis, Paul Huyser, Clayton Clark III, Ron Luce, and Greg Payne - The Landmark

• I was originally supposed to drive over with Stan on Friday morning, but at the last minute he said he couldn't go, so I rode with Mike, Clayton, and Ron. On the drive there, just before Barstow, we saw a crow fly by with a giant McDonald's bag in its beak. The bag appeared to be completely filled, and the crow could barely stay airborne.

• The Landmark was an absolute dive. We swore we'd never stay there again, a promise we'll definitely keep seeing as they've since blown the place up.

• On the second night, Greg and I decided to have a drinking contest. I matched him drink for drink as we sat there at the tables. Many people felt I won when, at the end of the night, I ordered a McChicken Sandwich and ate it. Others claim that I was not drinking as much as Greg, and some say that Greg had a disadvantage because he had been drinking the night before, but it's all just sour grapes.

• When we were all having lunch at the Stardust, Mike said something off-color, and it caught Clayton in mid-swallow. He was only drinking water, but as he started laughing he also started spitting up water and gasping for air. Initially we were all laughing at him, but the water just kept coming out of his mouth. It was dripping all down the side of his face and onto his clothes and onto the table, and pretty soon people started staring. I got embarrassed, said "That's it! I'm outta here," threw down the money I owed for lunch, and left. Apparently, after I left, he got worse and worse as if he were choking, and Mike was afraid he'd have to give Clayton CPR.^*

• While playing craps at the Landmark, somebody threw one of the dice off the table. Paul bent over to get it, and when he stood back up, he just sort of froze with a weird expression on his face. Behind him, a couple of girls had started laughing. I said, kind of annoyed, "Paul, give the dealer the die!" He did, and then said, "Greg, give me the keys to the car. I need to get at my suitcase. I just ripped my pants."

• During trip 15, we'd had a very good dinner buffet at the Dunes. So, I recommended it to the boys for breakfast on this trip. Well, apparently it was one of the worst buffets in history, although I thought it was fine. I went up to Paul and Greg and said, "I don't know about you boys, but I'm having good buffet." They looked at me like I was crazy.

---

^*Clayton eventually stopped spitting up and he was fine for the rest of the trip.

16. With Bernie, Boppa, and Mary Thrasher - The Las Vegas Hilton

• Mary brought her camcorder with her, which was nice. Unfortunately, not much happened. I had one good roll at Nob Hill (now Casino Royale) where, starting with $3.00 place bets on the 6 and 8, I won $300.00.

15. Junket with Dave Johnson, Mary Thrasher, Holly House, Linda Oldenburg, and Heidi Miller

• In order to call yourself a true Vegas person, you have to at least once go on an up-and-back junket on a bus. Why? So that you can tell all your friends what a living nightmare it is.

• This trip marked the first time I saw a craps player make a place bet on the point by putting his chips on the outside line of the Pass Line. By now, I thought I knew everything there was to know about craps, so I was surprised I'd never seen it before.

14. With Bernie, Boppa, Mom, and Sue - Las Vegas Hilton

• This was Sue's first trip to Las Vegas.

• When I got to Vegas, I had maybe forty dollars in all. I knew this wouldn't be enough, but I had no money in my checking account. Of all my credit cards, only my Visa had any room to get a cash advance, but I had destroyed it a while back so I wouldn't use it for the very thing I now wanted to use it for.

  Well, as it so happened, I had one of those goofy Visa credit card checks with me that I hoped I would be able to cash at one of those check-cashing places on the Strip. I dropped Bernie and Boppa off at the hotel (Mom and Sue were coming on a later flight), and went to two of these sleazy places.

  While I was waiting for them to make some calls and decide if they were going to cash my check, I felt as if I was committing a crime or something. These places are the worst, and I hope I never step foot in one again. Anyway, neither place would cash my check, so I was out of luck. I didn't know what I was going to do. Vegas doesn't offer much for the vacationer with no money.

  Later, Bernie and Boppa and I went to the airport to pick up Mom and Sue, and afterwards we headed downtown to the Horseshoe for prime rib dinner. It was about 11:30 p.m. We sat down at the table, and I decided, "Well, I might as well play keno. I probably won't be able to afford anything else this trip." (Can you see where the story is headed now?)

  Numbers were starting to be called out for a game, so I grabbed a keno sheet and marked the first four numbers called (42, 44, 46, and 56). Luckily I'm not the kind of person who thinks, "Oh, God, the chances of the same four numbers coming up again are astronomical!"

  I lost the first game I played, but on the next game all four numbers came up. $112.00 pay-off. Suddenly, I had money to play with, and it lasted me until the morning of our last day in Vegas.

• So, what did I do once I ran out of money on that last morning? I thought, "Well, I might as well play keno. I probably won't be able to afford anything else before we leave." I played one game with the same four numbers -- and they all came up again. This time, however, the payoff was $168.00 because I was playing the card for $1.50 instead of $1.00. I had more than enough money to play craps until we left.

13. With Dave Johnson, Marc "Phil" Phillips, Mary Whelan, Mary Thrasher, Mike James, Barbara Hewick, and Greg Payne - Circus Circus

• This was a particularly stressful trip for me as I had taken it upon myself to plan everything for everyone. Mary Thrasher and I got the ultimate boning, though, when everybody else on the trip volunteered to take a later flight and got free tickets to anywhere Southwest Airlines flew. Mary and I were in the gift shop when this happened.

12. With Bernie, Boppa, and Greg Payne - The Las Vegas Hilton

• This was by far the best trip with Bernie and Boppa. Greg won and I lost, but I didn't lose much, and we had a blast.

• One night we met up with Holly House and some of her friends who just happened to be in Vegas the same weekend. Holly was afraid to play craps by herself, so I joined her at the Las Vegas Club to play. Previously, the dealers there had been kind of rude, but I had just thought, "Well, you're going to get rude dealers every once in a while no matter where you go." Well, sure enough, they were rude this time too, so I swore never to set foot in there again. And I didn't… until trip 44.

• Holly's friends weren't too keen on playing any table games, but they were absolutely enthralled by those goofy mechanical horse racing machines where a bunch of people sit around betting quarters on little metal horses that go "galloping" around a track.

• One night we ate at a very fancy seafood place off the Strip. The food was terrific, and I hope to go back there sometime (but when I have money; it wasn't cheap).

• Amazingly, this was the first trip I played roulette.

11. With Dave Johnson and Marc "Phil" Phillips - The Stardust

• Although I really was only just getting to know Dave, and I hardly knew Phil at all, we decided to go to Vegas one weekend. I drove my Jetta for the first and only time.

• We were just about to leave the Stardust to go play at Caesars when I said to Dave and Phil, "Hold up." I went to the crap table and placed the six and eight for $6.00 each. The shooter, who never did make his point of ten, proceeded to throw an amazing number of sixes and eights. I started pressing them and betting the hardways and making bets for the dealers. I ended up cashing out for $150.00. Not bad for a $12.00 investment and about five minutes of play.^*

• Phil wasn't 21 yet, so he didn't shave for a couple of days in order to look older. He had no problem in the casinos. In fact, he rolled such a good craps hand at Caesars that he got a round of applause afterward.

• While at Caesars Dave got pretty drunk and insisted that he wanted to tell a particular cocktail waitress that she was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen. I'm not sure what his motivation was, but I managed to talk him out of it.

• By the last night of our trip we were all losers, so we decided to buy beer and donuts. We went back to our room to enjoy our feast, and Dave decided to call one of the numbers listed in the "Entertainment" section of the yellow pages. He asked about rates, and the woman said that a stripper would come to your room and perform for, like, $50.00 per half hour. Then Dave said something like, "And as far as sexual activity goes...," and the woman immediately cut him off and told him that prostitution, although legal in some parts of Nevada, was not legal in the city of Las Vegas. All in all, the phone call amounted to a pretty good night of jollies for three guys sitting around in their underwear eating donuts and drinking beer.

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^*Immediately prior to this win, I got a cash advance on my credit card for around $200.00, thus proving my theory that you always win right after getting a cash advance.

10. With Bernie, Boppa, Mimi, and Mom - The Las Vegas Hilton

• Mimi had recently broken her hip, so she was in a wheelchair. But that was okay, because all we had to do was wheel her up to a slot, lock the wheels, and she was happy for three, maybe four hours.

• This trip marked the last of the great Las Vegas Hilton Christmastime deals. For about $17.00 per person per night we got our rooms (which right there is pretty good), and dinner at any one of the restaurants. Well, we ate at their expensive prime rib place and had a great meal which normally would have totaled (for the five of us) well over $125.00.

• Everybody I knew had been coming down with this vicious 24-hour flu which, according to Mike James, made you feel sicker than you've ever felt in your life. Well, Mimi had gotten over this flu just before we left for Vegas, and it looked as if none of us was going to catch it.Then on the second day of our trip, Mom, Bernie, and I went shopping in the big mall on the Strip. We stopped to rest on a bench, and I went to get us all lemonades from the Hot Dog on a Stick stand. I came back with the drinks, and Mom took one sip and said, "I need to go back to the hotel. Now."
  We ditched our drinks behind a big pillar in the parking garage, and I drove as fast as I could back to the Hilton. The thing is, the traffic signals in Vegas take forever to change. Mom had the window open with her head sticking out, and, if I may use a phrase she often uses, I thought we were going to have a problem.
  Finally we got back to the hotel, and after a tense ride in the elevator, Mom rushed into the room and got sick. Honestly, I have never seen her as sick as she was that night.
  And then, as with everyone else who had it, the next day it was gone. Mom asked me, "Could you hear me throwing up last night?" and I said, "No, you had the bathtub running," and she said, "Good."

• On Sunday morning, we decided to eat at a nice buffet, so we went to Caesars Palace. When we got there, I noticed that the buffet was $6.95, so I stepped up to the crap table that was nearby and told the dealer to place the six for $6.00. The next roll was a six. I collected $7.00, told the dealer to pull my bet down, and walked up to pay for my buffet. I'm sure the dealers loved that.

9. With Gary and Tammy Eastley overnight

• We weren't able to convince Mike James to go along with us, but Gary, Tammy, and I left for Vegas at about 2:00 a.m. for an up-and-back.
  
  Not too much happened, but on the way there, Tammy took over the driving chores when we got to Barstow. Gary and I said, "Wake us up when we get to Stateline," and we both fell asleep.
  
  As is often the case while in a car, I didn't sleep that well, and every once in a while I sort of woke up and got the sensation that we were driving very slowly to pass another car while a strong desert wind was blowing us around. I thought, "Well, at least Tammy is being careful when passing."
  
  Finally I heard Tammy say, "Mark, I think this is it."
  
  I woke up, saw that we were approaching the Strip, and said, "Yeah, this is it. Pull off here."
  
  I forced myself to wake up and asked, "How come you didn't wake us up when you got to Stateline?"
  
  Tammy said, "I didn't see it."
  
  "Didn't see it?!" I said in disbelief. "There's a giant sign that says 'Welcome to Nevada' and a huge hotel called Whiskey Pete's!"
  
  Then I looked at the time. Only about five minutes had passed since we left Barstow. "What the---" Tammy estimated that her average speed was about 100 mph.

8. Gary Eastley's bachelor party with Mike James and Ken LeFlore - Riviera

• Mike, Ken, and I decided to take Gary to Vegas seeing as he was marrying Tammy soon. We rented a big car in San Diego, and took it to Vegas, with Mike driving. At one point somewhere between Barstow and Stateline, Mike yelled, "Hey, look at this!" He had managed to drive so fast that the needle on the speedometer had gone all the way to the right and disappeared behind the dash.

• We picked the Riviera because we thought we should take Gary someplace nice. (Was the Riviera nice? What did we know?) It was decided that Mike and Gary would share a room, and I would share one with Ken.

  We checked in at about 9:00 or 10:00 at night, we took the elevator up to the second floor (where both our rooms were), Gary and Mike went one way, and Ken and I the other.

  Ken and I were looking for our room, #286. The only door that had #286 on it also said, "Executive Suite." We tried the key, and sure enough, we had been given a suite with a living room, two TV's, a wet bar, and a Jacuzzi in the bathtub.

  Once Ken and I stopped laughing, we called Gary and Mike and said, "How's your room? Why don't you come over and see ours?"

  The crowning moment to this whole thing, though, came late that night when Ken returned to the room and I was already fast asleep. He could hear the couple in the next room, and the woman was yelling at her husband saying, "How come we didn't get a suite? You promised we'd have a suite! I expected a suite!" Then a pause and, "I hope you're happy in there, 286!"^*

• As Mike was paying for the prime rib we had just eaten at the old Palm Room at the Stardust, Ken decided to dump the quarters he had into the row of slots that used to be right outside the restaurant. He managed to line up three 7s diagonally: $250.00.

---

^*Looking back, Ken and I should have traded rooms with Mike and Gary, seeing as it was Gary Bachelor party. We were young and insensitive. Sorry about that, guys.

7. With Michelle Reichelt (now Michelle Lane) - Stardust

• This was an extremely uneventful trip. There was one interesting thing on the way home though. Michelle and I had met when we were attending the University of Oregon in Eugene. Eugene and Springfield are two towns in Oregon that are very close to each other and are often referred to together, as in Eugene/Springfield. Well, on the drive home, I was flipping the radio around and stopped on a song I was particularly fond of. After the song the DJ came on and announced the radio station's location: Springfield, Oregon! This was a pretty nifty coincidence, considering that it's hard to get any radio while driving home from Vegas.

6. With Paul Huyser and Mike Coyne - Circus Circus

• On the drive to Vegas, just before the Cajon Pass, the Highway Patrol stopped us and said that chains were required to continue. It was about 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning and we had no chains, so we just pulled off to the side of the road to wait until the road was clear. Mike was already asleep, but Paul and I couldn't doze off; it was too cold. Finally, after sitting there a good half hour, we noticed that all the Highway Patrolmen had left, so we continued on. The thing was, Mike slept through the whole thing, despite the Highway Patrol making announcements with bullhorns and the commotion of people putting chains on.

• As we approached Barstow, Paul and I woke Mike up. "Come on, get up. We're gonna have breakfast." After pulling into the Barstow McDonald's, after getting out of the car and walking into the actual restaurant, after ordering our food, after taking our food to a table, and after actually starting to eat -- after all that -- Mike asked, "Is this Las Vegas?"

• We got to Vegas too early to check into the hotel, so we went to the Stardust to play. I had a little over $300.00 with me and had written up a schedule for how much I could lose per hour. I went to a crap table, bet $32.00 across, and immediately lost on a seven-out. I thought, "Okay, that's all I can lose for the next three hours. Time to go sit in the keno lounge." After about a half hour of Las Vegas's fastest and most exciting game, keno, I thought, "Ah, what the hell. I might as well go play some more." One hour and ten attempts at winning "$32.00 across"^* later, I had lost my entire bank. Keep in mind that we hadn't even checked into the hotel yet. In what was to become one of the classic moments from Vegasdom, I found Paul in the poker room at the Stardust and called to him from behind the ropes: "Paul, I need to go to Sears."

• While playing craps at Circus Circus, Paul was on a pretty good roll, but when he threw the dice he kept hitting the mirror that was on the stickman's side of the inside of the table. They asked him to try to throw more down the center of the table, so Paul proceeded to throw both dice completely off the table and right at this woman's head. I can't recall if they hit her or not.

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^*After a while this was met with expressions of disgust from the dealers.

5. With Mike James, Greg Payne, Gary Eastley, Ken LeFlore, and Greg James for Aztec basketball -- The Landmark

• Gary and I flew over, and he rented a car. We got insurance for the suspension on the car, which led to the classic act of piling six guys into it, driving as fast as we could over the huge speed bumps at the Las Vegas Hilton, and screaming "Rental!"

• While everybody else stayed at the Las Vegas Hilton, Greg Payne and I stayed at The Landmark for $6.00 per person per night.

• Ken was betting like a madman as usual, and when he threw down $1,000.00 at the crap table at the Hilton, a pitboss came over, introduced himself, and said, "Mr. LeFlore, if there's anything I can do for you, just let me know.
  
  "Later on during the day, Ken called the pitboss and said, "You know, I don't have a place to stay yet." The pitboss immediately set him up with a room at the Hilton free of charge. Then for the rest of the trip, Ken pulled stunts like calling us in our rooms directly from the crap table.

• Although I wasn't there for this, here's how it was told to me. The guys were all going up the elevator, back to their rooms, and Ken got off at, like, the tenth floor. The rest of the guys looked at each other and said, "That wasn't his floor." So, they rode the elevator up to his floor, got off, and stood and stared at the elevator door with their arms folded in disgust. Ken eventually got off the elevator, saw everybody glaring at him, realized they had figured out he'd made a mistake, and turned beet red, at which point everybody cracked up. The funny thing about embarrassing Ken is that he got really embarrassed.

• Mike and I had just recently gotten our Discover Cards, and since you could use them at any Sears store to get a cash advance, we would just say to each other, "I need to go to Sears," rather than, "I'm out of money; I need some more."^*
  
  Now, previously, Gary had gone to Vegas when his sister's car had broken down, and they had had to go to Sears to get it fixed. So, since I now needed money, I asked Gary to come along to show me where the Sears was. Mike came along too. Well, Gary kept saying, "Okay, turn here," and "Okay, it's over this way," but we just weren't getting there.
  
  Finally, after all these instructions that Gary had been giving us, because, you know, he had been to the Sears before, he asked quite sincerely, "Is there a Sears in Las Vegas?"

• Mike and I had a successful run playing craps at Caesars Palace, so I paid him the $200.00 I owed him, leaving me with about $300.00. We went back to the Hilton, told Gary about our good luck, and then I left to go to bed. It was about 4:00 a.m. Well, when I walked into the Landmark, I thought, "Well, might as well play some craps before bed." I proceeded to lose $270.00 by placing all the numbers every roll (my new favorite way to play), and thought, "Damnit, now I'm gonna have to borrow from Ken." I then proceeded to parlay my remaining $30.00 into the $300.00 I had started with, allowing me to go to bed and wake up the next morning and greet Mike and Gary as if nothing had happened.

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^*In those days, you could not use your Discover Card at ATM’s or ComCheck machines.

4. At Christmas with Paul Huyser, Bob Bennett, Mike James, Mike Stefanidis, Ken LeFlore, Stan Wong, and Drake Garvin - Marina

• It rained, and I was sick the whole time with a bad cold.

• I had amazingly good luck with craps using a progressive come-bet system. At one point I was betting on an extremely hot shooter, the table was packed, and Bob came up behind me to see what was going on. The point was four, and everybody was yelling, "Come on, Little Joe! Little Joe!" Finally, the shooter rolled his four, everybody at the table cheered, I turned around, and Bob, with his typical deadpan expression said, "Joe?"

• Bob and I went to see George Burns at Caesars Palace. Just before we left for the show, I found Bob at a blackjack table with Mike Stefanidis.

  Mike said, "Bob's been thinking about betting $100.00 on one hand."

  I said, "Come on, Bob, we gotta get going."

  So, Bob put down his $100.00 bet. He was dealt two face cards, and the dealer had a 5 up, so we started to congratulate him. Then the dealer turned over a 6. Her total was now 11. In a cruel move, the dealer drew a card from the deck and looked at it without showing us. Then she looked at Bob and frowned. We all held our breath prepared for the worst, and she turned over an 8: total 19. Bob won his $100.00 by a hair.

• Mike James, Ken, and I walked over to the Tropicana and each lost $100.00 in about five minutes all playing different games. I swore I would never step foot in the Tropicana again, a promise I kept about as well as any other gambler would have.

3. With Bob Bennett, Jacquie Dunn, and Mary Thrasher - The Stardust / Travelodge

• Bob, Jacquie, and I drove over, and Mary flew in to meet us the second day.

• Jacquie pranced around the hotel room wearing next to nothing while I tried earnestly to stare straight ahead at the TV. At one point, while wearing her "favorite nightgown even though I know it's got a lot of holes in it," she needed to sit down in front of the mirror, so she kind of flipped up the nightgown before sitting. As I said, I was watching TV.

• Jacquie would often squeal loudly for unknown reasons, in a casino, while walking down the Strip, etc.

2. Second time with Mike James - Holiday Suites

• Our "hotel" was a pit. We had arrived in Vegas without reservations, and this placement service on the outskirts of town set us up in some dive called Holiday Suites (not to be confused with the Holiday Casino (now Harrah's) on the Strip). It was brand new, but it was horrible. Lamps were broken, the ceiling was crooked, and there were roaches in the sink.

• I bought Trivial Pursuit just before we left for Vegas, so we played it a lot in the room.

• One night we were hungry, so we went to the supermarket and bought Sara Lee, a big thing of milk^*, and plastic cups. When we got back to the room, we realized we didn't have any utensils, so Mike picked up his entire devil's food cake with chocolate frosting and ate it like a sandwich.

• We played at the Flamingo for the first time, and I learned about odds on craps.

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^*Even though the room was a dive, it did have a kitchen with a refrigerator.

1. First time with Mike James - Circus Circus / The Sahara

• Somewhere between Barstow and Stateline on the drive over, Mike and I saw this incredibly bright glow behind the mountains to our right. We thought, "What city could that possibly be? Vegas? No, that should be in front of us. It's got to be a city; it's just way too bright to be anything else. Phoenix? Well, Phoenix would be in that direction, but could we see it from here?" Finally, we passed behind the mountain and saw what it was: the moon.

• I learned craps, though not very well; I was playing one dollar on the don't pass at Circus Circus, and as the stickman turned to go on his break, he said to me, "Kid, split."