Humankind. Be Both.

I saw this phrase almost a year ago on a sticker firmly adhered to the tall gray metal file cabinet in my dentist’s small office space. I don’t know who said it. Google doesn’t seem to know, either.

It stayed with me, one of those maxims that resonated. I want to be kind. I try to be kind. I probably don’t always succeed. Impatience, anger, and frustration sometimes get in my way.

My daughter told me a story of an event she witnessed one winter day when she was working at her first post-college job. It was frigid, snowing, and windy. On a street in midtown Manhattan, she watched a man, dressed smartly in a business suit covered by a warm winter coat, take off that coat and deposit it around the shoulders of an older homeless woman without one. After doing so, he just walked off down the street in the cold. No doubt he could well afford another coat but that isn’t the point.  

Humankind.

My father liked to gamble, primarily on horse races. During his lifetime, my dad did some dumb things with money but he seemed to have his head on straighter than usual when it came to gambling. He appeared not to spend more than he had in hand, and he knew enough to stop when/if he was ahead. One time, he gave his winning ticket, worth over $900, to a young couple with two small kids in a smoky OTB storefront. He perceived from their conversation and actions that they were desperate for money. He watched them for awhile, wishing that they didn’t have their children with them. When his winning race ended, he walked over to the couple and handed the ticket to the young woman. “Cash this in,” he said, “and please take your children home.” 

  

He told me this story long after it happened and just before he passed away. It was in the context of a discussion about gambling and moderation.  He commented that he hadn’t wanted to judge them. He didn’t know if they made OTB a habit, whether they had problems with gambling, or what the whole story was. He just perceived that for whatever reason they needed the money more than he did, and he had it to give. So he did. I admit to being surprised that my dad with his narcissistic tendencies had it in him.

Humankind.

I recently had the worst experience with a student in the almost eleven years I’ve been in my position. I didn’t know the student, as I don’t know most of them. I sent that student, a male, aged 60, instructions to contact a particular agency for an interview for his internship. A couple day’s later, I received a copy of an email he sent to the agency director requesting the interview. Five boundary-busting, gut-spilling paragraphs later, to say I was upset is a gigantic understatement. I immediately contacted the director who was grateful. “Inappropriate. Not suitable. No thank-you.” 

This is a student who should know better. With two other Master’s degrees in the helping professions, boundaries should not be news to him. I wrote to him and suggested that it would have been better, if he had personal issues that might interfere with his ability to function in the setting, for him to tell me about them. Given his circumstances, I would have moved immediately to find another placement. However, giving so much personal information in a first contact to an agency director was inappropriate.

The next morning, I came in to find a scathing message from him. This man told me that I should consider him a peer, not just another student, that I was dictatorial, unprofessional, lacking in humanism, and that while perhaps I couldn’t appreciate an honest and open approach, maybe the agency director was able to do so. [Wait, there’s more.] Further, he claimed, there are more self-actualized ways to administer a department than I do AND he does not intend to change his “professional” approach. He will continue to set the parameters for any interview he has.  

If my jaw could have dropped any farther, it would have disconnected from my cheeks. Did I respond? I did not. Yes, I was livid. But this man was out for blood and the response that I was sorely tempted to hurl in his direction would have resulted in more venom. After days of consultation with colleagues, we decided he would be called in and (hopefully) guided to see the error of his ways.

After the meeting, convened by two colleagues, I was eager to hear what had transpired. Although it took some time, they reported that he’d “come around” at least a little bit. I rather doubt that there’s been any major character transformation; I just don’t want him to mess up another prospective internship and I don’t want any more personal attacks. I admit I’m still angry.

During the meeting, my colleagues learned some things about this man. That he’s broke. That he can’t find a job. That he’s lost all his friends because of his financial situation. [Well, I’d argue the reasoning on that one given the length and sharpness of his claws.] That some days he has to choose between eating and buying a metro card for transportation to school. That he could just curl up and cry.

There went my heart.  

There have been times in my life when I’ve put cash in an envelope and sent it off to someone I knew who needed the money. No return address. Just cash wrapped for camouflage and placed in a security envelope, mailed from a post office that is not my own.  

Old (I’d better be careful about calling 60 “old”, since I’m not far from there myself) and hungry. It’s a combination I find intolerable.

My heart is telling me to do things. Send a metro card, it says. Send some cash for food. Nobody should have to choose between food and other necessities. My heart is remembering – humankind – be both.

My brain is wondering – neurotic reaction formation? Rescue fantasies? At best, a metro card and some cash for food are stop-gap measures. I’m not planning an adoption.

Still,

Old. Hungry.

Humankind.   

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…….