One month after I moved to Las Vegas (January 1979), I had my first visitors. Three of my Howard Beach (Queens, New York) friends (J, A and M), showed up.
At 8:00AM, we woke up to the strangest sight…five inches of snow, (locals couldn't remember a measurable amount in twenty years).
We took advantage of this rare photo-op and posed by the pool in our underwear with palm trees in the background, (to emphasize the Western flavor, I also wore my Frye boots). Even crazier, by 11:00AM, everything melted and the streets were dry.
Unfortunately, I never saw those pictures. The last time I saw any of the Howard Beach boys (J in 1996) his mind was so clouded, he neither remembered the incident or even coming to visit.
Today's story, taken from my September 29, 2014 blog, "THE WORLD'S FIRST HIPPIE," was originally dedicated to Hurricane Sandy. To suit my 40th anniversary in casinos, the theme has been adjusted to, a coworker's battle with bad weather.
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The Western Casino was my second craps dealing job in Las Vegas, (April and May 1979). Few people remember that now defunct toilet. Though it was on fabulous Fremont Street, it was off the beaten trail, so few gamblers ventured the five blocks from the bright lights of "Glitter Gulch."
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| THE WESTERN HAD A 41-YEAR RUN, (1970-2011). DURING A 2009 VACATION, I TOOK A NOSTALGIC WALK THROUGH...I DIDN'T GET ANY WARM AND FUZZY GOOSEBUMPS. UGH! THE CASINO WAS A FILTHY DUMP AND THE CLIENTELE MADE THIS "BUST-OUT JOINT" LOOK LIKE A METHADONE CLINIC WAITING ROOM. EVEN THE TOOTHLESS SECURITY GUARDS, LOOKED LIKE THEY WERE CHOSEN FROM A POLICE LINE-UP. WITH THAT IN MIND, I WIPED MY FEET BEFORE LEAVING...SO I WOULDN'T DIRTY THE STREET. |
Our shithouse casino got little craps action. To occupy our abundance of standing dead, (down time), we had plenty of time to chat.
T-Bone (30) was perfect for this do-nothing job. His quiet, friendliness masked the fact that he was always doped-up. But he was experienced enough to handle the sparse, low-limit play, like a champ.
The only times he perked-up was when talking about himself. We doubted the truthfulness of his tales but with bright enthusiasm and eyes fully open, he helped us pass the time with cool stories and hardships, of his rural upbringing.
His vivid descriptions of early 1960’s factory closings and the coal mining industry dying were depressing. He said he saw the writing on the wall when his father and uncle were laid off as well as many neighbors.
During his adolescence, Terry developed a fear of bad weather. He dreamed of rivers flooding in the spring and being stranded outside in bitter winters.
He said, "My folks were out of work. Our long walks in crazy weather, to the only grocery store that let us get food on credit took its toll on me."
T-Bone fought off tears and added, "At Christmas time when I was twelve, two six year-old kids on the next street suffocated when their ice fort collapsed on them."
The years that followed worsened. His family's finances were tight and he felt like a burden. At fourteen, after hitchhiking to the Wayne County Fair, he met a man who owned a traveling carnival. So rather than face another winter, with just the clothes on his back, he went to work for that man and never returned home.
A year later, Terry set out on his own and led a hobo’s life. Other than scraps of food, many times alcohol replaced meals for over a week. Plus, like never before, he was exposed to the elements and suffered through every kind of storm. He followed fellow vagabonds and migrated south. In Florida he endured a tropical storm...“outdoors.” That near-death experience caused him to drift.
In the Midwest, he found petty jobs as a migrant farm worker. He was mentored by survivors of the "Dust-Bowl" but he discounted their knowledge and warnings until a cyclone hit. Terry saw horrific suffering and miserable death. He continued farther west.
In the mid-1960's, Terry thought he found a permanent refuge, at a commune, in sunny Marin County California, (fifteen miles east of San Francisco).
Some of the others at the Western Casino didn’t believe Terry’s accounts of wild parties, orgies and always being stoned but I did. He was especially convincing when his eyes widened in describing the difference between tremors that rattle dishes in the cabinet and a massive earthquake that cracked the land open.
A solemn fear took over his face as he said, "Mudslides and brush fires were nothing but after the second earthquake, I ran out of that goddamned state as fast as I could."
For several years, Terry meandered around the southwest. He liked the calmness of hot weather, settled in Tucson Arizona and earned enough money doing bimmie jobs, to stay high on peyote and magic mushrooms...until he was taken into custody.
T-Bone said, "I was hallucinating in a park and must've creeped-out someone. Next thing I knew, cops were asking me stupid questions. It didn't help that I was incoherent and wasn't carrying ID. They locked me up over night. Luckily, they didn't put me in the system.”
In the morning, after I came down the desk sergeant said, "We don't like your kind."
"I was given a choice, being locked-up for a year of weekends for public intoxication, disturbing the peace and vagrancy or leaving town clean." Terry added, "Some bum once told me, 'You never want a (police) record. I had been rousted a few times by cops in my hobo days but never arrested...so I left."
Terry had no place to go. His aimless pilgrimage, led him to Vegas.
"With the few brain cells I had left, I decided to cut-out the hard drugs and take a stab at a mainstream lifestyle. I became a craps dealer."
*
The Western Casino's big employee perk was a chit, good for two free drinks at the end of each shift. (cocktails were fifty cents so they weren't giving up much). Management had a hidden agenda attached to this "gift." Their marketing strategy was aimed at those freebies being a gateway to loosening-up moronic staff-members who would come back into the casino and become customers.
Terry and I were taking advantage of our “comps” when he said, "Vegas is in a valley. When I first came to town, there were flash floods. The Caesar's (Palace) parking lot was below street level and people drown in their cars."
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| THE 1975 LAS VEGAS FLOOD WAS LETHAL. IT CAUSED MUNICIPAL REFORMS WHICH INCLUDED A CONTEMPORARY "WASH" SYSTEM TO DIVERT RUSHING WATER FROM THE HEART OF TOWN. |
I said, "Wow. I didn't know that."
He looked at his watch and said, "Oh! Gotta go. I'm meeting people on West Sahara."
I said, “Could you give me a *lift to the bus stop in front of the Jolley Trolley?”
*It would be another two months before I bought my first car. I wrote about that station wagon in my April 1, 2013 blog, “THE SHORT LIFE OF THE MAFIA STAFF CAR.”
My request was not out of Terry's way.
Plus, he was such a yapper when talking about his adventures he said, “Sure. C’mon.”
The walk to his dilapidated 1960 Ford Falcon featured by an uncharacteristic April 90º temperature, a cloudy, odd-colored sky and no breeze.
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| THE FORD FALCON WAS A POPULAR COMPACT CAR FROM 1960-1970. |
While getting in, I correctly assumed his heap didn’t have air-conditioning.
Terry said, “Looks like a storm brewing. I hate bad weather. You ever been in a tsunami?"
I said, "A what?"
He said, "It's a tidal wave caused by an earthquake."
I shook my head, "Tidal wave?"
T-Bone said, "Yeah they sweat those out big time on the Northern California coast." He added, “Speaking of the Bay Area, did I ever tell you that I was world’s hippiest hippie? In 1966, we were coming from the commune, to a Velvet Underground concert at the Fillmore."
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| SAN FRANCISCO'S FILLMORE AUDITORIUM WAS A HISTORIC ROCK VENUE. MANY OF TODAY'S LASER LIGHT SHOWS, PYROTECHNICS AND BOOMING AMPS CAN BE TRACED TO THE FILLMORE. |
Terry said, "It was a terrible rain storm and I was driving a big bunch of us in a plain, old, rusted-out VW micro-bus. Hell, that was so long ago that the real Vietnam bullshit hadn’t stated yet. We were all tripping and digging life when some guy said, ‘T-Bone, you are so fuckin’ hip.’ Then my chick Collette said, 'No! He's the hippiest hippie…’ That nickname stuck and I was Hippie-T-Bone to them till the day I left."
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| THE VOLKSWAGEN MICRO-BUS WAS CALLED THE HIPPIE-MOBILE. BUT TERRY CLAIMED THAT VIETNAM WASN'T ON MANY PEOPLE'S MIND, SO HAND PAINTED PEACE SYMBOLS, FREE-LOVE AND FLOWER-POWER SYMBOLS HADN'T CROPPED-UP YET. |
I was smiling as T-Bone coasted through the Charleston Boulevard intersection. Through the window I saw the sun struggle to poke through the weird biblical-looking clouds.
He continued his story, “I was pretty messed-up but I remember driving on the Golden Gate Bridge. We were all singing when I heard a siren. I looked back and a motorcycle cop was flying up my ass. He tooted his horn and used his hand to signal me to pull over. Shit, in the pouring rain, I stopped in the middle of bridge with cars whizzing by."
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| THE GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE OPENED UN 1937. THIS AESTHETICALLY PLEASING LANDMARK EPITOMIZES SAN FRANCISCO AND ATTRACTS SO MANY SIGHTSEERS THAT IT IS CONSIDERED THE MOST PHOTOGRAPHED BRIDGE ON THE PLANET. |
In the rear view mirror, I watched the cop get off the motorcycle. We were all panicking as the pig, in those mirror sunglasses…like in movies…came to my window.
Through a thick, blue haze of pot smoke he said, “License and registration.”
I was shaking like a leaf when I gave them to him. He read over my papers.
The officer dried his lenses with a handkerchief and said, ‘Do you know how fast you were going?’
The limit was fifty-five so be on the safe side I mumbled, ‘Fifty?’
The cop said, "Son…you were doing eleven miles per hour…’"
I must have sounded real goofy when I said, "Oh?"
I thought T-Bobe's story was over until he sighed, “The 60's were wild but it was a much more innocent time. You'll never guess what that policeman said?”
I shrugged, "What?"
“He said some shit about it's not a good idea to operate motor vehicles while drinking. Are you sober enough to drive off the bridge? So I said, 'No sir.’"
"That's pretty funny," I said.
T-Bone said, "The cop had me squeeze into the passenger seat. Collette sat on my lap as he got in. He left his motorcycle behind and in dead silence drove us off the bridge. Before he went back through the storm to his bike, he had us all get out and promise not to drive for an hour.”
*
I thanked T-Bone for the ride and the entertainment. I got out and watched him make a right and disappear into the distance. Beyond him, I noticed huge clouds moving fast and swallowing the last rays of sunlight. A gust of hot wind blew dust into my face. Papers were flying everywhere airborne particles stung and attached to my perspiration. Soon the harsh winds intensified.
The sky blackened and a continuous howling gale almost knocked me off balance. Where could I run? I looked diagonally across Las Vegas Boulevard, at the Sahara Casino, across the way to Foxy's Firehouse Casino and the Jolley Trolley Casino behind me. I stayed put and tried to protect myself because I was afraid to leave and miss the bus. I clung to a streetlight post. The next five minutes felt like an eternity. Luckily while shielding my eyes from the never ending sandy debris bombarding me, my prayers were answered as a bus appeared.
I spent most of my ride to Harmon Avenue, (at the Aladdin Casino), brushing sand off my clothes, skin and hair, (yeah, I still had hair back then...hell, it's hard to believe but I was still carrying a comb too). The wind had died down as I limped three blocks to my apartment.
In my bathroom mirror, I still saw enough grit on my face and head that I looked like an extra from "LAWRENCE OF ARABIA."
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| PETER O'TOOLE AS WWI's, CONTROVERSIAL BRITISH OFFICER T. E. LAWRENCE, IN DIRECTOR DAVID LEAN'S 1962 EPIC FILM. |
I stood in the shower as I took off my shoes and socks. When I finished undressing, the tub looked like I just came from the beach. Even my nether regions were encrusted by sand.
The next day I told Terry about my bout with the sandstorm.
The world's hippiest hippie put his hand on my shoulder and said, "Brother, that was no sandstorm. That's just a dust-up. Try getting hit by shit going at tornado speed! Jesus, I was stuck in a real sandstorm outside of Tucumcari New Mexico. I don't believe in God, but just in case, at that moment I prayed like my life depended on it."
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I left the Western Casino, in May 1979 and never saw Terry "T-Bone" Hale again. Sometimes during nasty weather, I think of him.
My wife and I bought our house in 1989. I had a choice of properties and due to Terry's influence, I specifically selected the lot on the highest ground. Indeed, our street flooded in August 1997. Although the waters rose up and covered half of my driveway, we suffered no damage.
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| HEY THAT'S ME! BUT IF YOU NOTICE THE ANGLE OF THE PAVEMENT, IMAGINE THAT IN THAT SPOT, I'D BE SHIN-DEEP IN FLOOD WATER. |
Many of my lower-lined neighbors were terribly victimized. So wherever you are T-Bone...THANKS !
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