The First Arc of the Great Circle

It was as exciting as the Gold Rush of '49, only the gold was going to have a bubbly white head as it raced to quench my thirst. But first I needed to find my buddy Cliff. Looked like Navy ships over there on the harbor. I head Kid in that direction and we weave through guards and buildings until I get to someone who is able to tell me that Clifford is on a training mission in the arctic and will be here on leave in two weeks. On leave means he can leave I hope. So I ensconced myself in some fancy digs at the YMCA and got me a high paying job as a movie usher at a scuzzy theater not too far away. So for two weeks I am surviving for "the moment".

One day before work I was wandering down sailor alley to get a color photo I had made for my Mom, and as I passed the tattoo parlors and a sleazy bar, who do I see walking directly toward me but Clifford. Or is it a mirage? Two guys scream and run and hug and laugh! Maybe we could have gotten arrested in those days for such an outburst. But we didn't care what others thought. He exclaimed, "What are you doing here? Whatever you tell me I won't believe it! This is incredible!" I told him I had driven all the way out here to buy him a beer, and he said he was just given leave and was looking to get a beer! So right there we just walked into scuzzy bar and had us an unforgettable suds. Or two. Finally he said, "Lets go to Vegas for the weekend." I said, "Where's that?" "We'll find it" he assured me, and off we went to see the Wizard of Oz.

We left Kid behind and took Clifford's older car and headed for the desert. On the long ride we got to catch up on the several years we had not seen each other since growing up together every summer from 1949 thru about 1958. We had been boat racing, girl watching, bar hopping, beach combing and doing very well at each for several years. But then as life would have it we got separate interests, our fathers interests to be exact. That included college for me and a girl for Cliff. But when his relationship didn't work out he decided to join the Navy rather than put up with his very domineering father.

He told me about his last trip as a UDT seaman. Frogman as some would have it. How one stormy night they had awakened him to take an acetylene torch overboard to cut loose the cable of a depth charge, which had wound around the ship's propeller shaft. While the ship was tossing in the high seas, Cliff had to burn the cable loose before the depth charge hit the hull of the boat and sent everyone to the deep dark yonder. If it were just a story it would have been awesome, but this is the way Clifford's life had always been. Never dull.

With all the excitement of catching up, we almost didn't notice the big white line across the desert road in the middle of nowhere. But as we whizzed over it at 100 mph, we hoped it was the first line. And so it was, as we saw a few miles further another line and a posse of police with dozens of cars pulled over. Fortunately we had slowed down to look up and there was the spotter plane, timing people from white line to white line. I guess if you made the three-mile distance in less than two minutes, they had ya. We had stopped and relieved ourselves and continued our pace, whizzing by the crowd of no-gooders.

It wasn't too long before the desert deposited us in the middle of a mirage, maybe a paradise. There were a gad zillion lights burning the night sky white as 30-foot cowboys beckoned travelers into the casino hotels along a strip of hotels like I've never seen. What the blazes was all this!

Well, of course, you all know now. But at that time the Strip had only been a paved road for a few years. The lighted way had been a dirt road until just recently. But to Cliff and I everything was a total surprise. We decided to check into a non-classy motel so as to save our big bankroll for the casinos. I think our joint bankroll was almost, well two to three hundred buckaroos. We had to do some heavy acting, so as not to be thrown out of town as beggars. A tourist in Vegas has to carry a few grand or he is taking up space that the mob can use better by getting rid of the trash.

We, therefore, put on our best duds, a coat and tie type of preppy look, and sauntered into the casino of the Tropicana. Whoa, this was it, the living end, and the ultimate scene! There's money and booze and women everywhere. Cliff eyeballs it all and comes up with a plan. We were sure we were the first to come up with this system in Vegas. We saw that gamblers were getting their drinks free from these gorgeous babes with almost nothing on those bodies that had been gifted in puberty. But we decided over in a corner huddle that we had blown our cover here in the Tropicana.

We decided to go downtown where there were more casual casinos. We had heard of the Golden Nugget, and found it right on the corner of the Strip and some main street. We strutted through the 'air curtain' to the inside where we were now cool. Cliff went right up to a dice table and put down a dollar on the Pass line as per the plan. I acted like I never knew him and went to the other end of the busy table and put a dollar on the Don't Pass line and immediately ordered an adult beverage from a nearby "adulteress". He had ten dollars, and I had ten. Our system was to drink as much as we could until either he had won my ten or I had won his stash. It was working so well that I had even gotten the name of my adult waitress, who had to be a perfect 36. She even brought me a free pack of cigarettes when I ran out with my third or fourth complementary drink. This was heaven. I could handle this forever.

But the mob had had just about enough of our game. We noticed some agitation amongst the heavyweights, and picked up our chips. I gave Cliff his three chips back so we had our ten chips again and wandered to another pasture so as to keep our system pure. As we drift into the Fremont Hotel we decided to up our bets to five chips at a time and play with $50 bucks each. That way we look like "big" spenders from the east and get a little more respect. I see Cliff head for a craps table and I head for the other end of it. He places his bet, as do I. Quickly he is up $30 and I'm up another drink and down $30. No sweat. The system works! The croupier's cries of "Coming out," are familiar now. The women are looking even better. But how come they took Cliff's bet up and didn't pay me? Then it happened again. And again. Whoa, they've got our $15! We pick up our bankroll and start our saunter again as we lick our wounds. Cliff decided to try some actual gambling, and won $200! We're in fat city again!