First Look at Las Vegas

At night Las Vegas is a vast glittering city that offers the visitor a chance to be someone else and to be somewhere else other than in the flat expanse of warehouses and desert that the city is in daylight from the 59th story of the brand new Trump Hotel. From this vantage point, only the copper and gold tinted glass of a few tall buildings break the monotony of the greys and beige that dominate a landscape etched with mountains, some topped with snow and others patched with red. Someone in the hierarchy of the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino tried to shake it up a bit with a building of blue and green stripes, broader than it is tall, but by and large the city center is dominated by architecture copied amazingly well from Paris, New York City, Italy, and Egypt.

Despite the bland colors of the buildings, it's clear that Las Vegas is as much a Disney-World-for-adults on the outside as it is on the inside. Not only do the elaborate facades of the buildings attract attention, many have outdoor attractions--fountains, performances, towers. As Tom and I drove from building to building, I could see women and children walking together, and I wondered if maybe Donald Trump should shift the money he had intended to spend on a second condo tower (he converted the first to a hotel when the economy started to slump) and put in an amusement park for the kids. It would certainly add some diversity to the skyline.

It is my understanding that the typical Las Vegas gambler comes to the city to stay in the hotel that houses his favorite casino and eats at its all-you-can-eat buffet. If his wife comes along, she'll shop at its shops and maybe drag him to a show in another hotel. The hotels/casinos are designed to propagate this behavior because each is a self-sustaining world with vast shopping areas and several restaurants. I assumed the shopping areas were for women to occupy their time while their husbands gambled, but they were also very convenient for spending any profits made from a good hand of poker or a generous slot machine. The visitor is destined to give back to Vegas, one way or the other.

These exotic hotels, whether shaped like the Great Pyramid of Egypt, the Empire State Building, or Venice, have one constant: the casino. It's so dependable that when the visitor sees one, he is no stranger to the others. The lighting in casinos keeps time out. It is dim and comes indirectly from above, giving the visitor the feeling that it is either dawn or dusk, and a partly cloudy sky painted on the ceiling enhances this impression in some casinos. So regardless of the amount of time spent playing poker or pumping quarters into the slots, it is never that late. No natural light—or dark—is let in to spoil the illusion, and no clocks are on the walls to remind the gambler of other obligations.

The first things a first-timer sees when entering a casino are slot machines. Their flashing lights and bright primary colors invite the visitor to play, and at first it appears that that’s all there is in a vast cavern of a room. Sometimes they are decorated with familiar logos, implying sponsorship or some other association with something familiar and non-threatening like eBay or Monopoly. The machines are aligned close together but, as is true throughout, the aisles around them are wide enough to enable easy access and to allow passage without risk of bumping and thereby interrupting the concentration of the player.

The slots are a sophisticated version of a common baby toy—the flat plastic rectangle with the colored little doors to open, bells to ring, buttons to push, and levers to flip, and are just as simple to use. After money is inserted, the player pushes a button and something happens. There’s noise and spinning and flapping and new pictures of very simple things. The player pushes a button again. And again. And again, and so on until his five dollars is gone. Its primitive, mechanical nature lures the solitary gambler because there is no need to interact with people. Slot players don’t seem to want to sit together. They don't appear to be having fun. Their faces show concentration or boredom.

Getting past the slots is not easy because they weave through the casino like snakes; a new bank of them appears in front of the visitor at every turn. At some point the machines change to ones that play an array of card games—poker, blackjack, etc. These seemed to be the least occupied, perhaps because gamblers who want to play cards prefer human opponents capable of erring as opposed to machines that presumably know the location of every card in the deck.

The most physical and social activity in the casino is where the roulette and blackjack tables are. Both are group activities—multiple players can make wagers simultaneously. The players can talk, laugh, and drink without worrying about the movement of the wheel or the deal of the cards, unless the blackjack player is trying to beat the system by counting cards. The pay off is slower than the slots but faster than a poker hand.

The rules of blackjack are simple and it doesn't take a trip to Vegas for most people to learn the guidelines for when to take a card and when to hold. If the gambler sticks to those guidelines and wagers reasonably, the odds of coming out even or even ahead are not too bad.

At the roulette wheel, the results of the last 20 or so winning numbers and their colors are displayed, giving the misleading impression that the next turn of the wheel will be affected by previous turns. I fell for this on my first and only try when Tom said, “Look at all that red. What’s your pick, red or black?” I said “black,” and he put $20 worth of chips on black. $20! It spun red.

“I can’t believe you put the whole $20 on black!”

“You said black.”

“I never would’ve put it all on one turn. That was $20! What a waste!”

“But if it had won, it would have covered the tee-shirt you just bought . . . “

The poker tables had some serious folks around them, but otherwise nothing out of the ordinary from the days that I had played poker with friends back in high school except for the stakes, which varied from table to table. But then there was the glassed-in room, reserved for high stakes games. It had no occupants.

Finally, in the farthest reaches of most casinos is a large auditorium-style room looking for all the world like a NASA command center during a space launch. Rows and rows of padded interlocking armchairs enable the sports book gambler the opportunity to sit back and look at any one of the big TV screens mounted on the ceiling in the front of the room showing key sporting events from around the nation. Below them screens listed the major sporting events from around the country, college and pro, showing pairs of competing teams in alternating colors along with the spread and the current score. An area that resembled the teller stations in a bank on the floor below the data screens allow bets to be placed in semi-privacy. In some casinos the sports book area is split in half to allow horserace betters their own space divided into hundreds of private desk spaces that give the better room to pour over lists of horses in a variety of races.

The sports book area drew comfortably dressed men over 40. That’s a polite way of saying that they were a sloppy, poorly dressed bunch. None showed signs of worldly success. Many were paunchy and the hair they had was shaggy and uncombed. Many wore sports jerseys and shorts, perhaps the preferred attire for most men when they don’t need to dress to impress but still have to wear a shirt. Experience may have told these guys that this was not the place to try to attract women because the very few women there were accompanied by husbands and were as unkempt as their men.

In any case, once I got beyond thinking of the place as a control center for something of national significance, I realized the sports book area was brilliantly designed for making the gambler feel that what he was doing more than just placing a bet—more than just gambling. Men who bet sports book study, they do their homework. They concentrate. They analyze statistics. They discuss their assessments with other experts or read others’ conclusions on websites or in magazines and newspapers focused on the science of sports book. They weren’t at the casino for fun. They were there to make money. This was business, and for locals it was akin to and as easy as although more expensive than going into a grocery store to buy a carton of milk. For others, it was a flight from another city with one or more bets in mind and a certain amount of cash in hand, a few hours spent shopping for points, and then bets placed, dinner at an all-you-can-eat buffet, and the redeye back home.

The business-like sports book area also had plenty of creature comforts. In fact, it was the best sports bar in the world—all the games were showing all the time, you got free drinks for bets of $20 and more, the seats were comfortable, and there wasn’t a bad one in the house. Talking to your fellow sports enthusiast was easy enough if you knew your stuff, but sitting alone doing your own thing was fine too. There was no need for tables—the chairs have cup holders or you can sit at the bar and still see all the action. The Western time zone gives Las Vegas the added benefit of allowing the visitor a non-stop day of sports—the games from the East Coast come on in the late morning in Vegas. Football draws big crowds, with gamblers living and dying with every point scored. If your alma mater or local team sucks, there’s no better way to transfer your loyalties than to put money on another team.

It's a part of human nature to look for excitement. Most of us want it in a controlled way, and if gambling gives you an extra jolt of adrenaline that makes life more fun, then obviously Las Vegas is your Mecca. You can easily devote a couple of hundred dollars over a couple of days to matching your wits against those of perfect strangers or The House and go home feeling that you have taken risks without risking your house. Nothing forces you to go to the higher stakes tables or to stay in the casino at all.

One friend who loves going to Vegas gives himself an allowance, and when his luck goes bad, he leaves the casino and drives to nearby Hoover Dam. As is true with any number of things, not everyone has their Hoover Dam when they gamble, and I suppose that those who do not would find a way to risk too much even if Las Vegas didn't exist. That said, I'm glad Las Vegas is in the middle of the desert where it can be an oasis from everyday life instead of a replacement for it.

Christmas in Fontanet

Even though I am an only child, I got the best of both worlds at Christmas time. First thing in the morning on Christmas Day, I woke up to find under the Christmas tree that my mother, father, and I had carefully selected from the fresh trees available at a local gas station and decorated at our home in Terre Haute, Indiana, a massive number of presents. The vast majority of those presents were mine. All mine. Mine and mine alone.

After waking up my parents to demand what was mine, my dad would drive my mom and me over the river, through the woods, and across several train tracks to Grandma and Grandpa Dowell's house in Fontanet, about 20 miles from Terre Haute where most of my dad's side of the family had already gathered. We had seen them on Christmas Eve, as well, where I would get the first look at an even greater mass of gifts, most of which were not mine but still gave me the same thrill as if they were.

Five of my seven cousins were close enough in age that we played together, and we occupied each other quite well with games of our own making played in the enclosed front porch and an adjoining bedroom. Susan, three months my junior, and I were inseparable, whether we were playing with dolls or putting on imaginary talent shows. The magic of Christmas kept us all on our best behavior, although I don't remember this six pack of cousins having conflicts any time we were together, although I do remember being annoyed when my four year old cousin Gary hit me over the head with a Coke bottle one year.

All the family except my dad's only sister, Ruth (who was called "Auntie" by her nieces and nephews), and my mom, dad, and me lived at least 70 miles away, so they would spend the night in Fontanet on Christmas Eve. One time I begged to do so and found myself assigned to a cot in a room full of people on cots and sofas. That didn't bother me, and I found that the periodic whistles of trains going past the house along the track across the way gave me a feeling of stability in a world of movement and change. What I found intolerable was the snoring of one of my uncles on the sofa bed on the front porch. The harshness of the sound combined with the uncertainty of when my uncle would emit it gave me the feeling that an unworldly spirit had nestled itself into the house. I never asked to stay again.

Unwrapping all those presents on Christmas morning created an intensity of motion that far exceeded my own little fury in ripping off pretty paper and carefully attached ribbons. Auntie would conduct the show, handing the Six Pack gifts to deliver to adults scattered through the house. Not everyone could fit into the room where the tree was, so my uncles would take some photos or even film part of the event with primitive cameras that required someone to hold up a row of bright lights while they filmed and then departed for the back porch where Grandpa would sit quietly smoking a pipe while the women and children of his big family celebrated.

Grandpa and Grandma naturally got the biggest haul because they got gifts from everybody. Initially each of my aunts would buy for each of the nieces and nephews, but soon we were converted to the system that determined who would buy for which of our parents, uncles, and aunts. The Drawing of Names, which was held when the family gathered on Thanksgiving, was a system that allowed for the purchase of gifts totaling not more than $20 for the person whose name you drew. Grandma for a long time bought for everyone, an amazing feat which I suspect at times meant that she enlisted the help of other family members, because I recall conversations among her and them about how much was owed for which item. My cousins and I were quite satisfied because the event itself was as much of a gift as the toys and clothing we received.

With the presents unwrapped, the scene of this two-day family tradition rapidly shifted to the kitchen where a team of cooks had worked under the guidance of a master chef to produce a meal that was as dependably fine as any restaurant's. I have no idea if my grandmother had learned to cook through on-the-job training or if her mother had taught her, but I know that a cookbook was not a part of the instruction. On rare occasions she would forget to salt something, but all-in-all her success record was impeccable. Her orchestration of Christmas productions, not to mention daily dinners, Thanksgiving dinners, and Easter dinners, continued over decades--into her 80s--and illustrates the importance of quality, creativity, precision, and dedication in keeping house.

As I've learned more about the cuisines of Europe, I've tried to figure out which dominated Grandma's menus and come to the conclusion that her meals were American, which at the time meant a combination of German and English cooking. She lightly sizzled green beans in bacon grease before boiling them, which enhanced their flavor to no end although somewhat decreased their nutritional value. She also fried chicken in bacon grease, and I have not had better fried chicken than hers. Her dumpling-making is, I fear, a lost art. Cooked in chicken or turkey broth, they came out thick, tasty, and chewy, rivaled only by my mother's equally fine noodles, and were for me the highlight of the meal unless she was also serving macaroni and cheese with cheese that came not wrapped in airtight plastic but in white paper from the little grocery store that had become the primary source of supplies in the town since 1914, when the thriving city was devastated by the explosion of the nearby powder mill that damaged or destroyed most of the town's buildings. Adjoining the grocery was the second biggest business in Fontanet, tavern that had been run for years by Grandpa's sister Hat and her husband Firman Allen.

Grandma never neglected dessert, especially not for Christmas dinner, and usually served a cake and several types of pies. She knew I was an admirer of her lemon and coconut pies, so she would frequently serve one of the two as well as a couple of fruit pies, including the perennial pumpkin. This was well before grocers offered pre-made crusts.

The kitchen was big, but not big enough to fit the whole clan around the table, so a couple of card tables were set up for the kids in another room. This was fine with us for a range of obvious reasons plus the fact that Grandpa frowned on children talking at the table and the excitement of Christmas made it really hard not to talk. The house hummed with conversation during dinner just as it had the night before when beer loosened the adults' tongues, leading to some heated discussions of the political issues of the day. But on Christmas, the conversations kept to less controversial subjects such as conveying updates on neighbors, friends, and extended family members.

With dinner over, the cooks turned into dishwashers, and the men and children adjourned to the other rooms in the house. My uncles would either sit with Grandpa on the front porch or go into the living room where the Christmas tree stood without the obstruction of all those wrapped packages to watch football on the house's only TV, a big console model with a picture that people nowadays probably would consider barely watchable. Despite the whole family being home, the house never seemed crowded to me--except when snoring was evolved--even though it consisted of only four rooms and two enclosed porches. Now days only one bathroom is considered inconvenient in a house, but we were all thankful it was there--an outhouse was the only option until I was about eight years old.

The well water coming into the house was nearly undrinkable (although not unhealthy), so periodically some family member would have to go to the other well out in the back of the property in the chicken yard to pump by hand a couple of buckets of water that tasted at least as pure and clean as the stuff that is sold for $2.00 a bottle in vending machines today. The house was heated by two coal stoves, one in the kitchen and a huge one in what was known as the middle room. I remember well making a point of watching Grandpa as he brought in a chunk of coal from a coal bucket outside, open up the big stove, and toss it in. The inferno inside was just that--all you could see was red and yellow flame.

As dinners digested, my uncles, aunts, and cousins would head for home. Sometimes they would stay another day, I suppose depending on work schedules, but most times I remember them leaving before us so that finally I would be eager to get home because with no one left to play with, the lure of the big haul back in Terre Haute had become irresistible. Grandma and Grandpa must have felt both satisfaction and melancholy at another fine family Christmas come and gone, but I think they also had an unavoidable feeling of relief that they could get back to normal, knowing that it would not be long before the family or parts of it would come home again.

My grandparents' house in Fontanet remains standing, but another family occupies it, and if it returned to my hands for one more Dowell Christmas, the attendees would for the most part be ghosts. Nevertheless, the traditions that I value for my own family Christmases remain inextricably tied to those days although my energy level and patience pales in comparison to Grandma's. But I still want the vast majority of the massive amount of presents under the tree to be mine.