BLITHERING, BUMBLING, AND RAMBLING #28
PAPAYA!
Weird heading? Well, yeah, but let me explain. The other night Debbie and I were watching the 1% Club game show on TV, which, if you haven’t seen it, is addictive to watch, mostly just to show you that you are not as smart as you think you are. As we were watching we were surprised to see a familiar face.
Dolly?—whaaaaat? We recognized her instantly. Dolly was my daughter Kari’s college roommate, and we have known and loved her sparkling personality and sense of humor for a long time.
So, naturally, Debbie texted Kari and told her we were watching Dolly on TV. Well, Kari is in Denver now and when Deb texted it was, like, 1 am Denver time. Which, of course made Kari text Dolly and tell her that mom and dad saw her on TV. And, that triggered Dolly to text Debbie and tell her the details about being on the game show, as we were watching the game show we had taped. Don’t you just love how technology brings us together to share! We texted, we shared, we reminded ourselves how those college years, and the people met there, were special.
Still wondering about the heading ? Hang in there.
Dolly explained that the show she was on took six hours to complete (but, lucky us, only 30 minutes to watch with commercials). It sounded like quite the endurance test, and though she made it through the first couple rounds, she got taken out by a question where the answer was “papaya”. Now, during the show the host does engage in short conversations with some of the contestants, and we were really hoping Dolly would be one of them. There are 100 contestants on the show, and ALL OF THEM had to stick around until the end, even if you got knocked out in the first round. Uh huh, ALL OF THEM.
We were lucky to have seen her since they flash short scenes (like about 2 seconds worth) of some of them, and we just happened to be paying attention. And, Dolly said she talked to the folks on the show about coming back. Well, that triggered an idea.
If she gets back on, every time a camera looks her way, she needs a signal to shout out to all her family and fans watching. Something simple, recognizable, and generic to all watching who will pick up on it in the 2 second camera scene. Like……..PAPAYA!!! If you watch that game show, and you see a woman shouting it to the camera…….well, Hell-O Dolly!
Ok, yeah, I see it now, maybe that should have been the heading.
AND, THEY’RE OFF!
1974- At the ripe young age of 18 me and two buddies realized we were old enough to legally gamble. So, when summer hit and they had the trotter races down at Cal Expo, we were there. Just picture three guys from East Nicolaus thinking they are going to win big in an arena that they were clueless in.
So, we had about 12 bucks each to throw away at the betting window, and as we looked at the program and picked, we came to different conclusions on which one was gonna make us rich. We watched a few minutes as people placed their bets, then we all hesitated on who would be the first to give it a whirl.
Throwing caution to the wind, I walked up to the window, and, just like I’d always seen in the movies, I tossed my $2 (the minimum bet then) on the window counter and told the guy behind the counter “two bucks on Jersey Dan” (or whatever the name was).
The guy behind the counter was somewhat amused. “What’s the number, kid?” he asked. Uh oh. I had to pull the program out to find out, and the people behind me knew the window would close for bets in a couple minutes and gave some impatient stares. I found it, and said “five”.
The guy asked “Win, place, or show ?” Thinking a quick response was needed, I said “Yes!” The guy behind the counter chuckled and explained what I was betting on -1st, 2nd, or third. Ooooooh. Well, silly me had never seen a movie where anybody bet on 2nd or 3rd, so….”Win”.
We headed to the fence and watched the first race. It was exciting because in the last stretch my horse was third and closing in on second, but not able to pull it off. My two buddies didn’t have any better luck. As we talked it over before the next race, we found advice from strangers was all around us.
Almost everybody had a sure thing, inside info, or a system they said was our best bet. No two people could agree, and most of them looked like the stereotype losers in the movies who throw their worthless bet tickets on the ground after they miss again. Nobody offering me advice seemed to be winning either.
It wasn’t the glamorous surroundings you see in a James Bond movie. But, all of them were screaming when the race neared the finish line. I lost the next three races, and only one of us got anything back, and it was just three bucks. But then…….
The fifth race, I got a wild hair and decided to bet on the longest shot on the chart. The horse was listed as basically a last place loser at something like 14 to 1 odds against. My buddies laughed at my choice. The racetrack regulars who heard me name my selection thought I was hilarious.
As the race started my horse, yeah, was dead last halfway around. Then, all of a sudden it kicked in and passed a couple horses in the next quarter. A slight spark lit in me as it came around the final bend and was now 5th, a hundred yards later it was a 4th,and as it neared the finish line it and some other horse were neck-and-neck for third.
I was the only one screaming my horse’s name as it came down to a photo finish at the end. Yes, really! I, oddly enough had bet on mine to show. And at those odds, I knew I was up for more than a three buck win. It only takes about two minutes after the race for the judges to reach a decision. I held my breath, prayed to the horse track gods and crossed my fingers and toes.
Yeeeeeaaaahhhhh! The announcement was riveting. Well, ok, to me anyway because I was the only one jumping up and down when my sure-loser-horse pulled off the miracle that made my day. Anyone who made a bet on the first two horses was cheerful also, but, I swear, none of them seemed as blissfully exuberant as I felt in that moment.
I collected my winnings and was bowled over that I was given the enormous total of $14 ! Ok, it was 1974, and it was more money than I had walked in with. My two buddies were envious and both bet on the long shot in the next race. I was giddy with success so I threw down $5 on a 3-to -1 horse TO WIN! The adrenaline was riding high and it was the last race of the night.
We all lost, of course. But we talked nonstop on the way home about what we had seen, done, felt, and “won”. We all were out of money, but we each had a race where our horse came in, in one form or another (nah, nobody picked a first place winner). And yet that really felt like something.
So, if I ever get to the Kentucky Derby, you just know I’ll be all in on the long shot. I hear the minimum bet is more than 2 bucks now. Still, all in! I’ll probably be the only guy yelling “Show, baby, S-H-O-O-O-WWW!!!
Bear Country
In the list of unforgettable people I’ve encountered, there is one from the late 70’s that stands out. I got to know him fairly well over the course of the year and a half I lived in Sacramento. I never knew his name, though I talked to him more than half a dozen times. Here’s why….
I was living in Sac and when me and my friends went out we were big fans of The Ruta Bega Boogie Band, a local favorite in the late 70’s, and they played frequently at a bar, which, if I remember right, was on Cottage Way. We loved that bar. Kind of funky, plain concrete floors, free peanuts that the patrons tossed the shells on the floor. Whaaaaat? Yes.
Me and my buddies ordered up a couple drinks and sat down at a table and munched through a bowl of peanuts and piled the shells up in a neat stack on the table. And then a gigantic man lumbered over to our table.
HUGE. W-I-D-E.. He had a mane of shaggy dark hair that covered his ears and neck and a basketball of a head. His beard grew into that hair and you could see very little of his face except for a large flat nose that stuck through the middle of it, and two bloodshot eyes that had a laser focus on us that made the conversation stop abruptly.
Without a word the giant stuck an enormous arm out and brushed the peanut shells on the floor. We sat like frozen statues wondering what we had done to awaken the beast. He grunted something.
I didn’t understand, but there NO WAY I was going to say so; his posture was tense and his one fist was clenched. One of my friends held his hand up to his own ear, and the giant barked “More?”
The sound that came out with his voice was off. It was squeaky, kind of nasal, and raspy at the same time. Scary? You betcha! He stomped away. While he was gone we gasped for breath again and wondered who that guy was. Then, he returned.
The laser eyes burned holes through us as he set a new bowl of peanuts on the table. I, of course, remained silent and pretended I was invisible. He grabbed a handful of peanuts off the top, nodded, and walked away. Of course we thought this was ok, because, well jeez, who wants to argue with whatever THAT was.
It took a while but we finally figured out what he was. The bouncer. Yeah. And how did we figure that out? Well…
The place started to fill up after we got there. A pretty wild collection of bikers, cowboys, twenty-something dweebs like us, and blue collar types showed up. The noise of the crowd and the band make conversation mostly in the shouting category. And the strange giant guy moved to the corner of the bar and scanned the crowd. He did not drink, he only ate peanuts he scooped from the refills he brought to tables, then he silently stood next to the bar. He did not say anything the remainder of the night.
But, if the bartender waved to get his attention, he moved swiftly to wherever the bartender pointed, and the real show began. I only saw it once, but it was impressive. The guy was fast on his feet.
And when some halfwit got in a screaming argument with a woman on the dance floor and pushed her, oooooooohhhh man was the bouncer on it. He had the guy in a headlock and dragged halfway to the door in seconds. The guy disappeared and did not return. Like, ever.
It took a while for us to realize when we spoke to him that there was a reason he said, well, hardly anything, just nodded and pointed mostly. Polite in a strange way.
We nicknamed him “Griz”. Never to his face of course. He never called us by our names either. He started to recognize us when we showed up and called me and my buddies “college”.
But one day my friend started talking to him before the band was playing and noticed that Griz nodded constantly but never spoke. So he asked him a question, and as a few seconds passed, Griz reached into his ears and pulled out ear plugs. Huh?
Griz explained that the bands that played there drowned out all the sound, and he got headaches when he went home. So, he plugged up, tuned out, and responded only to visual cues and altercations. (Ok, he didn’t use words that big, but you get the point). Then he put his ear plugs back in, and my buddy talked to him as Griz continued to nod and pretend he was interested.
He refilled our peanuts, and eventually started patting us on the shoulder. Well, with scary affectionate acts like that you have to respond. So we mouthed the words “thanks”. That made him nod, and in an expression that was hard to gauge, he actually seemed upbeat. In a chilling, Stephen King novel sort of way.
And after I moved out of Sacramento, I never saw him again. Unforgettable. I can remember him, the peanuts, the band, the stage, the concrete floors, and the tall cans of Foster’s Lager. Funny thing is, I can’t remember the name of the bar.
So. If you remember stomping on shells in a bar in 1979 with the Ruta Baga Boogie Band playing, while a Bear-like figure launched a dude into parking lot outer space, give me a call and NAME THAT BAR!!!! Bonus points if you know Griz’s real name!!