Aces and Eights

 

     One of the things that dad picked up in the Navy was a desire to gamble. I say that he picked it up in the Navy but it could have been something he already was familiar with and just refined his skills in the Navy, at any rate, dad liked to gamble. It wasn't until I turned 13 and went to work at the grocery store where he was the butcher. Up until then I thought those times when mom was ticked because there was very little money were due to his drinking.

     There are many forms of gambling, i.e. cards, dice, horse races and dog races, then there are the lesser known local forms of pitching coins, side bets and pulling Coke bottles. Dad didn't bet the horses or dogs and I'm not sure he ever got into a dice game but beyond that he was ready, willing and able.

     When I went to work with him I would often find him and a couple of the younger guys passing their break time in some form of gambling. We called it pitching pennies in school mainly because pennies were all we could afford to loose, dad and his cohorts were usually good for dimes and quarters. The game was played when two or more participants would toss a coin against a wall or any straight edge, the coin had to hit the wall then flop back , the coin that landed closest to the wall won and the other participating coins would be forfeited. The amount of the initial bets didn't add up to a lot but over 15 - 20 minutes you could loose a couple of dollars and in 1960 two dollars was a tidy sum.

     Every grocery store sold soft drinks just as they do today and all overstock was stacked in the backroom. This was before aluminum cans and plastic bottles, all soft drinks came in glass bottles, we sold the standard Coca Cola, RC, Pepsi and several other brands of the era. The bottles came in cardboard "six pack" containers, four containers to a wooden case with the brand logo, there were also 24 individual bottles in a case and the cases were stacked about 15 high against a wall in the stockroom. For reasons known only to Coca Cola, their bottles were made in various cities around the nation and the name of the city and state of origin was embossed on the bottom of the bottle. Over the years the bottles found their way around the country as they were used over and over again and again so that there might be bottles from several states and cities in a case and that presented an opportunity for gambling.

     The game was called "pulling Coke bottles". It was played when two opponents randomly selected a case of cokes, empty or full didn't matter. A bet was established, usually a quarter but sometimes higher. Each player would select a bottle and look on the bottom for the place of manufactor, the bottle that was made the farthest away won. There were 12 pulls in each case and should there be a doubt as to the exact mileage a call was made to the local AAA office.

     Side bets occurred when a bet was already in place and another individual would bet on who would win. Dad liked to do side bets when we would go to turkey shoots.

     When Linda and I came home on leave as I was shipping out to Vietnam the first time, it was in November of 1967. The local VFW or American Legion would have "turkey shoots" where participants would shoot at targets with shotguns, the person closest to the bullseye won a prize. Prizes would be cash money, bourbon whiskey, frozen turkeys and baked hams. Money and bourbon were the general prize and usually cost about two dollars to shoot, up to 15 shooters would shoot at the same time. Frozen turkeys and baked hams were special shots and usually cost double the regular shoot.

     Dad had a 12 gauge shotgun but it didn't hold a good shot pattern but a friend / customer had one that held a much tighter pattern so they would swap guns for the season that ran weekends from early October till the week before Christmas. 

     Drinking and guns, as a rule, don't mix but they were different times then. Dad couldn't go too long without a drink but when I was with him he at least let me do the shooting and that's when the side bets would start. Shells were furnished for every shoot and as we were loading dad would tap the guy next to me and bet him that I would come closer to the bullseye. The first weekend we were shooting we came home with one ham, two turkeys, a couple of half gallon bottles of Henry Mckenna bourbon and around $50 cash.

     While there are many card games in the world of gamblers, in dad's world it was poker. Coming from Southern Baptist background I would say that this was something he picked up while in the Navy.

     Growing up, I always knew dad had a drinking problem but I didn't know about the gambling till I became a teenager. There had always been times when he stayed out till the early morning hours and I remember times that he would come home and tell mom she had to tighten the belt but I didn't know why. I later learned that I saw a lot of things through rose colored glasses.

      The parents of my generation were a different breed, they grew up during the "great depression" and jumped right in to a world war. Dad was just a kid when he went to war, the things he did and saw most likely set the tone for the life he lived. 

      I've said it before, I loved my parents in spite of their character flaws. I miss them.

     

The Papermate

 

     When Linda died she left behind more than memories, more than her legacy of two sons and two grandchildren, she left behind things. We all have an accumulation of things, things that are important to us, things that are important to other people and things that hold no value to anyone. Linda left behind hand made quilts, embroided pictures, scraps of cloth and little rolled up balls of yarn. Just things to most people, they represented the beauty she made from them, surprisingly many of the things she made went to people she didn't know but they were things those people needed, that was the way she lived her life.I gave most of these things to Danny and Clay who would hopefully hold them as keepsakes to be passed down through generations. I kept very little for myself.

     There was one thing that I hung on to, it was nothing of any great value but it was something she used on a regular basis. It was an inexpensive ballpoint pen made by a company called Papermate, a company that has been in business for several generations. She was very particular about her writing instruments, Papermate, she said was the only pen that felt good in her fingers, the ink didn't glunk up and the ball moved smoothly across the paper. Papermate had been her choice of writing instruments for years for years.

     Writing letters used to be her way of keeping up with people who lived far away but E-mail replaced that form years ago so her writing was regulated to writing checks for the payment of bills and that's where I found it - wrapped inside the checkbook.

     I kept the pen just as I found it, it was hers and somehow this inexpensive pen became a piece of Linda that I could still touch so I have been using it since she passed away. Last week the pen wrote for the last time. I might could find a refill for it but somehow that just doesn't seem right, I'll hang on to it for a while longer maybe even till I'm gone, I'll have to give it some thought.

     The biggest issue for me is that this was one of the last pieces of Linda that I had, now it's only another of many memories.