Walk Away Now!

I wanted to go back. Fortunately, Atlantic City was far enough away and I was far too busy to become a regular customer. However, once or twice a year, my best friend would venture that she was itching to head south down the Garden State Parkway to Atlantic City, and I was always game to join her. Summer weekend….the possibility of winning… a nice lunch… free vouchers to gamble “on the house” -- why not? It took me more than a few jaunts before I realized that uneasy feeling I left with every time I got sucked into a casino was depression.   

Since that first time with my dad and sister, I’ve rarely won, and never as much as I did on my first attempt. If I pour money into a machine, I feel depressed because I lose it. If I don’t pour money into a machine, I feel depressed because I am resisting a driving compulsion to play. I lose my first twenty dollars, then wander aimlessly around the casino floor arguing with myself, wondering what I am going to do for the next few hours.  “Oh c’mon,” I urge myself, “What’s another $20?”  Sometimes I give in, and break my second twenty. I rationalize that if I play the nickel and the penny machines, my money will last longer. But then there is the reality that in order to win, you really have to bet more “lines” and multiply your winnings x2, x3 and more. When a single pull of the lever yields close to a dollar deducted from my credits, I pull myself up sharply and remind myself that if I am going to be that frivolous, I might as well be playing the dollar slots. And that’s not happening.  

Sometimes I do not give into the urge, but find a stool that nobody wants for the moment and sit and watch other people as unobtrusively as possible. I am always struck by the intensity with which some people work those machines – some two at once. Some seem to be doing really well with that strategy and I wonder if they will stop when/if they are ahead. Many look older than I – some much more so. Some are attached to oxygen tanks. Even though they usually look like they know what they are doing, I worry. I wonder where their money comes from, if they are independently wealthy or dependent only on social security, and I wonder what will happen if they lose all their money. I wonder if they have been gambling all their lives or if they are relative newcomers to a novel and exciting way to spend their time.   

There’s always the chance I can win. There’s a greater probability that I won’t.  The times I’ve sat and watched three 7s (or whatever) almost line up in a row, I realized how easy it is to believe that they’ve just got to land on the same line sooner or later.  I’ve learned from my research that slot machines are the most addictive of all gambling types, and that when one’s first experience is a win, there is a greater likelihood of trouble down the road. It wasn’t long ago that I realized my casino depression occurred because I was constantly trying to recreate the feelings of that magical day in Atlantic City with my dad and my sister [See A Magical Day -- Gambling, Slots and My Dad, 10/24/2010)– and that wasn’t happening either.  Proximity is also a factor in the development of gambling problems. I can understand that as well. Besides Atlantic City to the south, there are Connecticut casinos to the northeast, no more than 3 hours away. There’s a casino in Yonkers, only a few miles south of where I live. And as I travel back and forth frequently across the state to western NY, I pass a casino in the town of Tioga.  Even in my old hometown, the race track has added a casino.  

Lucky [!] for me – although I totally “get” the allure of a slot machine and have experienced its magnetic pull, often with great conflict, I won’t be getting into trouble. There is the legacy of my risk-averse mother. There is my penchant for analyzing every feeling I have that I don’t understand. And there is my patient ability to delay gratification – hence, as I go about my business locally, traveling across the state, or in my old hometown, I consider the possibility of stopping and throwing away just a little money and say, “Maybe another time.”  Maybe – not.   And there is the text message I’ve saved that was sent to me a few year’s ago from a friend. Upon getting my text that I was “up $50” while on vacation and in a casino, he had sent one back to me – I look at it, as needed - it says, “Walk away now. Exclamation point.” 

A Magical Day -- Gambling, Slots and My Dad

I’m writing a paper on older persons and gambling for a seminar I am taking in my doctoral program. The assignment is to engage in a critical study of a specific area of social gerontology, which must include an extensive literature review, identification of gaps in the research, and examination of relevant policies and interventions. Because I would be living and breathing this paper for several weeks, it was crucial that I select a topic I could really embrace.

My father gambled in his later years. I don’t really know why he started. We lived in a town where there was a race track but my parents never went to it. It was at the other end of our town and was known to us mostly for the traffic headaches it created during the racing season. In the sixties where I spent most of my growing-up years, the only casinos were in Nevada. Though my family visited both Reno and Las Vegas on a cross-country road trip when I was in my early teens, entering the casinos was not on my parents' agenda. We drove by admiring all the lights, then parked in our motor home in a campground not far from the strip and turned our attention toward the swimming pool. I never heard any wistful conversations that involved ditching us kids and heading off to gamble. The casinos seemed slightly dangerous to me and I was afraid of them. I was happy to drive by the flashy signs and entrances but even if I’d been old enough to go inside, I would have been afraid. I’m not sure of what… gangsters…perhaps.  

So when dad was in his 60s and started going to OTB and the racetrack in season, it felt out of character. I know he went often but I don’t know how much he bet and lost. I only heard about his wins. He’d announce that he won a certain sum on the horses – $200 here, $900 there. Always looking for the big win, he worked hard on his own system of calculating which horses “should” win…. a system he wanted to teach me before he died so I could carry on and win big. Although I tried to humor him by attempting to understand his process days before he passed away, it was a complicated system that involved the horse’s gate position, his handicap, and other variables that I just didn’t “get” and would never be able to explain to a single soul, much less execute.

Many years later, when he was in his 70s, my dad visited me in New York City. My sister came up from her home in Virginia the same weekend to see him. Not quite knowing how to entertain him for the weekend, we decided to take a bus trip to Atlantic City. Somehow it seemed like something he would like to do. I’d never been – never had an inclination to go. We arrived at the Showboat casino at one end of the boardwalk just before lunch. I still remember how intimidated I felt when we walked onto the gambling floor teeming with people. I didn’t know what I was doing and felt I did not belong. There was a circus atmosphere, with garish lights, and the electronic musical sounds the slot machines made whether someone was feeding them or not. We fooled around with a poker machine but quickly abandoned that because we didn’t quite get how it worked. Then we settled down at slot machines -- three of us all in a row. At that time, machines still took real quarters and you still had to pull the arm to register your bet. Ding ding ding ding ding was accompanied by jingle jingle jingle jingle jingle. Now that is music to a novice’s ears. And we had beginner’s luck. I won $200. My father wisely told me to put it away and not use it, and I listened to him. My sister won $75.  And at the end of the day, in his last bet, my dad’s last dollar yielded a $700 jackpot. We were all flying high. I snapped the picture of him happily displaying his seven $100 bills in front of the winning slot before security informed me photos on the floor were forbidden.   It was a truly great day. 

I understood almost immediately the seductive lure of a slot machine. Being more or less obsessive compulsive, the repetitive motion of pulling the lever was appealing and calming.  Having sat through my share of psychology classes, I was aware of the principles of operant conditioning. Reward on an intermittent basis and keep them coming back for more. It works. They do return.

I hope my readers will too. More to come…….

In Honor of My Dad

When I was small, I adored my father. He was the handsomest man in the world and no doubt, the smartest. He had an infectious laugh that would make you double over and clutch your aching stomach and cry real tears because you couldn’t stop laughing at his mirth. He absolutely cracked up while reading Horton Hatches the Egg. Every time.

He’d play my sister’s and my favorite songs on the record player so we could hear them after we went to bed, often speeding up the 45s, making everybody sound like chipmunks. If you’ve never experienced Witch Doctor played at 78 rpm, well.... your loss. He lobbied our mother to let us stay up until 9 p.m. on Wednesdays so we could watch Top Cat at 8:30, which came on after The Alvin Show. He didn’t always win but we knew he was on our side in the matter.  

My father hardly ever said, “No.” Not to go-cart rides or midnight swims, with campfire and marshmallows, down in our pond with our friends, or sleeping out in our tree-house under the stars. Not to cotton candy and popcorn at the circus or carnival, one more ride on the Ferris wheel, one more game of Skee-ball, or one more trip to Lane Drugs for a few more plastic rat finks. More summer nights than not, he’d pack us all in the car, along with a couple of friends, and head off to Flavorite Farms for a “cms” (parent-code before we got wise for ‘chocolate milk shake’) or a hot fudge sundae. 

My father loved to roam and our vacations usually involved a road trip. My family would pile in our 1956 blue Buick sedan and later our 1962 maroon Oldsmobile in the wee hours of the morning and head out. Settled in the back seat with my sister with our pillows, our activity books and crayons, and our first day’s lunch in the picnic basket by my mother’s feet, we always knew we were off on a grand adventure.  One time on a Sunday afternoon drive, he and my mother reminisced about an old amusement park in Cleveland, Ohio they visited as young adults. They remembered the name of it, Euclid Beach Amusement Park, and told us about all the neat rides it had. By the end of the afternoon, my little brother had been safely deposited with my grandmother, and my parents, my sister, and I were en route to Cleveland, Ohio, in search of Euclid Beach. Magically, it was still in business and my sister and I were introduced to the same three very cool wooden roller coasters our parents had loved. 

My father loved music. Our home vibrated with his piano playing. He especially loved ragtime and the lively sound of the Maple Leaf Rag dancing under his fingers is written in my DNA. Sometimes when I was small and he was in a patient mood, I would sit on the piano bench next to him and sing while he played. I knew all the lyrics to There is a Tavern in the Town, Boo Hoo and By the Sea by the time I was eight and had a grand time belting them out with him, not always in tune – but no matter, the piano was loud enough to drown us both out. If he wasn’t making music himself, he was playing it on our record player…. Guy Lombardo, Teresa Brewer, Mitch Miller, Jo Ann Castle. My father was often obsessive about songs he especially loved. He’d set the record player arm strategically so once the record finished, it would recycle by itself. Although my friends might not “get” why Winchester Cathedral was playing for the 15^th time in a row, it seemed perfectly normal to me.   

My father used to dance with me to music on the big old-fashioned radio in our living room when I was a very little girl and small enough to be held in his arms. I watch old regular “8” movie films of me in my father’s arms, bouncing gently to the rhythm of the music, the sound of which I can only imagine, and experience a sense memory that moves me to tears.

If I were to write a want-ad today seeking a man in my life, it would read something like this: "Wanted -- Smart and handsome man who can make me laugh – often. Must be willing to learn to dance – not partner-not-needed kind of dancing – but REAL dancing. Must love music with every cell in his body. Ability to make music is a plus.  Must embrace road trips and concomitant adventures with fervor." 

There would be more, but those are the important parts. My father would have been 87 years old on October 20. This post is in honor of his memory.

Ghosts Lived in My House

Home for me as a child was a big old two-story farm house built in the mid-1800s. That house, which was surrounded by several majestic old trees on three sides, was “home” on some levels from the day my parents took me there from the hospital after my birth until my beloved mom passed away inside almost 53 years later. Although I “moved out” officially at 19, it was the place to which I always returned – sometimes for temporary lodging, always for holidays, and in the end, to care for my mom.

I had mixed feelings about that home as a child because deep down inside, I was very much afraid of it – especially the “upstairs”. When I was very little the second floor was not used. I slept downstairs with my parents in a room that would later be our living room. Just outside that room was the open staircase leading to the second floor. I was forbidden to test my climbing abilities on those stairs, and at night, it was dark and scary up there.  

Some time after my sister was born, we moved up those stairs. My crib was relocated in an open hallway on the left at the top of the stairs, and my parents occupied a large bedroom on the right at the top of the stairs. I was now afraid to go in their room because there was a round hole in the floor. I knew there was a hole because the few times I’d been taken up there when it was uninhabited, I had been expressly told not to go near it because I might fall in.  It didn’t matter now that their bed was safely situated over that hole (and it might even have been fixed). I feared that somehow, some way I would be sucked alive through that hole with unspeakable consequences.

Eventually, a second bedroom was readied for me and my sister and we moved out of the hallway into our own room in the front of the house. The new danger was the large room straight ahead at the top of the stairs known as “the attic”.  My father’s ham radio equipment was situated in a corner of that dimly lit room, with the rest of it used as catch-all storage. To get to my father’s buried corner, one had to wend one’s way past old furniture, trunks, boxes, my mother’s papier-mâché torso (for dress-making) and assorted other stuff.  A door that was kept closed separated “the attic” from the rest of the 2^nd floor living space. 

Both my sister and I were afraid of the attic, sure that there were ghosts or bogeymen lurking inside. “Go upstairs with me?” we’d plead to the other. When we’d reach the top of the stairs, we’d run like crazy past the attic door to the relative safety of our room. “Go downstairs with me?” we’d wheedle for the return trip. When we left our room, we’d run like crazy past the attic door and leap down the stairs as fast as we could. One day when the attic door creaked slowly open on its own, caught alone in the hallway, my sister learned to fly.  

Besides the ghosts that lived there, the attic held a special terror for me. For in that room, near my father’s radio equipment, there was an old-fashioned red glass ball fire extinguisher mounted on the wall in case of fire. Fire was my first and worst phobia. My heart knew that the mere presence of that extinguisher forecast a fire for sure. The mere thought of it almost stopped my heart from beating.

If fire was my first phobia, lightning was my second. My kindergarten teacher taught us that lightning was electricity and electricity could cause fires. So from age 5, I was sure that our front corner bedroom, situated underneath those majestic trees was going to sustain a direct hit by a lightning bolt with my name on it. It was simply a matter of time.  

Sadly, I spent an inordinate amount of time as a child worrying about my home going up in flames. The live Christmas trees my parents bought and draped with old-fashioned hot lights were a source of incredible anxiety. So was the fireplace that my father had built in our living room when I was nine. I was plagued during the day by “real” worries about fire and at night by nightmares about fires in my home. My prayers before bed well into my adolescence included a line begging God to please-please-please not let my house catch on fire and to please-please-please not let me dream about fire. 

The year my parents brought home a beautifully modern aluminum Christmas tree, which eliminated the need for hot lights draped over live evergreen changed my life for the better. So did the eventual abolition of the “attic” in favor of a second bathroom and a new room for my sister in my early teens. The scary red ball fire extinguisher was packed away, no longer foreshadowing disaster.

Although these two events made me slightly less afraid of my home, we still had an uneasy co-existence. I was not to really feel physically safe in a home until I moved out of that one. 

The Safety of Home

“Log cabin, anyone?” I text my daughter enroute to the subway.

She answers me back, “Sounds good to me. Been thinking about it lately, actually.”

“We’ll have to compare floor plans,” I counter.  

I have just left work after a 13-hour day, the 3^rd that week (it’s Wednesday), and she is still at work with no end in sight. We are both working way too many hours of late. And we are both wondering whether it’s worth it. 

I think often of someone I know who left her life (or moved into it, depending on your outlook) to write. She moved 3000 miles to live in a little cabin that featured no indoor plumbing and had a wood stove for heat. She stayed there over twenty years, living a very basic life, mostly content.  Could I do that? In all honesty – and that’s what this is about – probably not. I was never a fan of camping for many reasons, even though I have done plenty of it. I do not want to go outside to access the bathroom, and I want a thermostat to regulate the heat. But what if I decided to give up this life and do something different? Where would I go? Is there another place I could call home? 

I spend plenty of time lately thinking about just this. I count the years until I will turn 66 – the magic age for my baby-boomer cohort to retire with maximum Social Security benefits. Gosh…. That’s nine years away. I do not want to wish my life away, but I am not convinced I want the status quo for the next nine years. Could I do with less and live the life I want to live? And where?   

New York City is my home. I’ve lived here for 26 years, and I still feel thrilled when I approach my city and its skyline. I consider it irrelevant that now I actually live slightly north of the city in a suburb. I am, as the t-shirt I once bought my (then) 4-year-old daughter proclaimed, a “New York City Girl.” 

I always felt destined to be here. Growing up in a small town in western New York, I felt chronically dissatisfied with my surroundings. I wanted bigger. I wanted exciting. I wanted possibilities.  I fled that small town and moved to New York City in the early 80s, knowing only one single person who lived here. I don’t think anyone in my life said, “You go, girl.” Mostly they tried to get me to reconsider –  thinking, hoping it was just a phase. They did not know that New York had been calling me for years.

And New York has lived up to my expectations. I love the glorious opportunities of this city….always knowing that if I want to, I can go to a play, the ballet, the opera, a concert, and all kinds of museums and galleries. I can eat any kind of food I want, almost any time of the day or night. I can take a class in anything that strikes my fancy, in my choice of locations, and nobody will look at me funny. And I love the anonymity of this city. As a child, I always felt “watched” and it made me extremely self-conscious. I was never sure what I was supposed to do or how I was supposed to be. Here, I can just be on the street, unknown, unwatched, simply me. I have found freedom in that. 

        

Could I, would I still feel whole and safe if I gave up my home?  Would you?