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.