Tag: Frank Scoblete

Why Do We Gamble?

 

Why do we gamble? I know this question has been asked a million times and there have been a million answers. Make that one million and one, as I am going to give it a shot.

Certainly in life we all have to gamble, as life is one long contest with luck, circumstance, and our eventual big loss. Life has a house edge to it, certainly, that grinds away at us, and even those who have had the best of times cannot escape the worst of times when they must say sayonara to the world. Of course, those who have had rotten lives because chance or circumstance or both caused some things or everything to not go their way might look upon the fateful last moment as a blessing. I am so happy to be out of here!

I think real life is a combination of the fated and the decided. You are fated to die. The generation that will never die has not yet been born. You are fated to get old despite wrinkle creams and face lifts that often look like someone is trying to rip the skin right off the skull.  I look in the mirror and I see a guy with gray hair who is closer to 80 than to 60. Is that really me now?

The other day in the bagel shop the girl behind the counter asked me if I got the senior citizen discount. My wife was asked that very night in our small village theatre if she got the senior discount for the movies. We both said “no” as if that would mean that fate was not hastening us towards seniorville – the place from which no one returns!

Oh yes, we can fight fate; scream at fate; regale fate and maybe even delay the ultimate fate, but we can’t change the fates. In the ancient societies fate was often called “nemesis,” which does not bode well for us.

Most of the rest of life, at least in America, and for just about all Americans, has to do with the decisions we make and the aftermath of those decisions. Not every decision is going to be a good one. Some of them explode in our faces and we have to make more decisions to handle the poor decisions that went ka-boom.

The “decided” begins when we do, too. Even little kids make decisions that have very real and very long-term consequences. That first grader goofing off when the teacher is instructing in math doesn’t realized that his fun today will limit what he can do with his tomorrows. If he goofs off throughout his school career, his prospects will be severely limited, and rail as he might against the “system,” or “society,” this person created his dismal situation and only he can uncreate it.

Most personal stories about individuals who goofed off in school and screwed up their early lives do not end up with everything just fine, thank you very much. Those great-ending stories are the exception to the rule because some other factors, some other decisions, worked to these rare individuals’ advantage. The rule of life is biblical – as you sow so shall you reap – and that rule starts as soon as we start crawling around the house looking for stuff to chew on. You can bank on that.

We gamble in life because we must gamble – there is no other choice. Not gambling in life is actually gambling that doing nothing will have a better outcome than doing something. We have to decide what schools to go to or whether to go to school at all; what should we study or should we forget about studies; whom should we marry or whether to marry at all. Each and every decision opens some doors, and closes other doors. No decision is without some consequence.

And that is exactly what we do in the casinos, admittedly in a more rarefied, more symbolic but still very real way. We engage in the life struggle. We face the fate of the ever-grinding house edge and what that means for our future prospects. We devise plans for how to handle early defeats at our favorite game in order to come back into the black. Some players will increase their bets figuring something good has to happen and they can make it all the way back with just a few wins. Other players bet smaller amounts after a dismal start figuring bad times are the norm in the casino so they want to ride it out.

When we face real life there are just too many factors to fathom from each and every moment. The complicatedness of life makes it somewhat messy and hard to grasp fully. Our decisions are usually made with not enough information. You love Jane. Jane loves you. Pretty simple, right? Will the marriage work out? Who the heck knows! That’s just too complicated a question, requiring an insight into the future none of us has.

But the casino games are not like that at all. Even experts at casino gambling must admit – it isn’t all that complicated. The games are relatively simple and have to be in order to attract the largest crowds to play them.

Let us say we know, for example, that the one-dollar slot machines pay back 92 percent of all the money put in them. We know if we were to play those one-dollar machines forever that we’d be behind about 8 percent of all the money we put through the machine. Our gamble, a very simple gamble, is that the machine does not pay back smoothly. It is volatile. It is cold more often than hot but when it gets hot you can hit some big money. Our gamble is that it will hit for us in the short time we are playing it.

Most of the times it won’t. We accept that fate. But we have decided that the gamble is worth the intermittent thrill of a big win – or any win – because that win goes against long-term fate. We know we are bucking the house edge. We know the casino will win in the end – against almost every single casino gambler out there. But we gamble we can change that fate, at least for ourselves, at least for tonight. And sometimes it happens.

And that is the big thrill. Casino gambling is the war against fate – a war almost everyone must lose but occasionally some of us will win.

It doesn’t have the interminable unknowables of whether you and Jane will be married happily ever after. It isn’t like the war against fate in real life where we have no possibility of winning and we all know this. The war against fate in the casino gives us a lot more power than we have in real life because occasionally we do indeed cheat death.

And that’s why 26 percent of the adult population in America loves to gamble!

The Icing on the Conspiracy Cake

 

They are out there. The folks who truly believe in unsubstantiated conspiracy theories of all types. They could be your friends, your neighbors, members of your family, and perhaps they could be… you.

And now a new conspiracy based on an old conspiracy, at least a current old conspiracy, is about to put icing on the cake for many conspiracy advocates.

Many conspiracy theorists believe that the COVID-19 crisis was manufactured to hurt Donald Trump. This conspiracy must be worldwide, as over 160 countries have had their own horrible taste of this pandemic. Of course, the Democrats must be in charge of this one with the whole world following their plan. Look, our enemies hate Trump and want him out; our friends don’t like him either. They are all conspiring to get him go away!

And the Democrats don’t actually control anything because they are being manipulated by the grand conspiracy masters.

Some theorists believe that Dr. Anthony Fauci heads the International Conspiracy along with his fellow conspirator Bill Gates. The duo is trying to take over the world with the help from, well, the whole world. The assumption is that Fauci and Gates want to inject us all with GPS-type systems, so they can follow our every move.

An amazing percentage of American theorists believe that wearing masks won’t help prevent the contagion. Of course, early on they didn’t believe there even was a contagion. Remember how Trump announced that there were only 15 sick people and the disease would disappear like a miracle? That led to the cry that being made to wear a mask was a violation of our inalienable rights. These theorists have sided with President Trump’s disdain for masks. In fact, there have been actual fights—of the physical kind!—in stores, buses, airplanes and streets between those who wear masks and those who refuse to wear masks.

Some conspiracy theorists point to the low percentage of people who die from the virus— somewhere around 0.5 to 1.5 percent. Those of you who know anything about card counting in blackjack, know that a 0.5 to 1.5 percent edge over the casino will get you the pit boss reading you the Trespassing Act. To casinos, such a small edge is considered highly dangerous and damaging.

Other conspiracy theorists will cite the number of people who die from just about everything else under the sun or in the shade to show that such things are far worse than COVID-19.

But it goes far further than the above. Indeed, some conspiracy theorists believe that all the conspiracies in history can be laid at the feet of the one great worldwide conspiracy created by some ultra-powerful group from the Illuminati to the Catholic Church to the Masons to the United Federation of Teachers.

The list of conspiracies is impressive, so I’ll just name a few:

JFK’s assassination

Hoax of a moon landing

Mass murders

Gun control

Obesity

Lizard overlords

Incubi

Chem trails in the sky

Recently conspiracy theorists have theorized that the “Deep State” is inflating the COVID-19 deaths by counting deaths from causes other than COVID-19 in their statistics including heart attacks and falling down the stairs.

Come the winter statistics (now remember this!), deaths from flu will be lower than in many years past; deaths from pneumonia will be lower as well because so many millions of Americans are wearing masks and social distancing and quarantining themselves; therefore, those other disease numbers must come down. They are not being added to the COVID-19 statistics.

COVID-19 has its own statistics; a reduction in the flu and pneumonia deaths will not impact the COVID -19 statistics at all.

However, the conspiracy theorists will take the reduction of other deaths to mean that these deaths are now being recorded as COVID -19 deaths. That will prove to them that this giant conspiracy exists.

Future reality will be created by the illusion of a grand conspiracy because reasonable analysis of statistics by reasonable people will be unreasonably interpreted by conspiracy theorists.

Come on, believing in a grand conspiracy makes you a powerless, hapless nobody. So, if you can’t take down the almighty conspirators, there can be no individual power in wearing a mask or keeping socially distant. However, if you look to science for your information, you are accountable for your actions—and in that case, wearing a mask and keeping socially distant are mighty personal statements indeed, despite what the United Federation of Teachers says.

Frank Scoblete’s web site is www.frankscoblete.com. His books are available on Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, Kindle, e-books and at bookstores. Why not get Frank’s articles by email. Sign up today.

Play With What You Have

When the great New York Yankee Hall of Fame baseball player Phil Rizzuto died, the papers were filled with stories about how such a short guy – Rizzuto was “just” 5’6” – had overcome his height disadvantage to achieve such big things.  He was an all-star, an MVP, won ten pennants and eight World Series during his 13 years with the Yankees. He was described as a “winner” in baseball and in life.

On Rizzuto’s plaque at the Yankee Stadium Memorial Park it reads: “A man’s size is measured by his heart.”

That got me to thinking. Was being 5’6” a disadvantage in baseball or in life? I am 5’6” and I never felt that I was short. I never made comments about being short or jokes about myself as some short people do. Indeed, it never occurred to me to do those things.

In my mind I was the right height. People who were taller than I were tall; people who were shorter than I were short. I played basketball; I played baseball. I played with and against the best players in New York City. I never felt as if I had to overcome anything. I just played to the best of my ability.

Intellectually I now realize that I am on the short part of the height continuum but in my head I still have that “I am the right size and everyone else is either tall or short.”

Casino players can learn a lot from Phil Rizzuto. You play the game with what you’ve got and in casino terms that specifically means with the bankroll you’ve got for actually playing such games. You can’t wish and hope to have more money to play with because that makes you feel bad about yourself. What has the size of your bankroll got to do with anything? You are who you are. There’s nothing to be ashamed of.

The casinos, obviously, are skillfully designed to reward those players who bet (and lose) large sums of money. But it does not follow that the player who loses large sums of money is a better player than someone who loses small sums of money – how good a player you are is not determined by the size of your bets but by the strategies and decisions you make.

I’ve seen many of those high rolling players using strategies that were so awful you wanted to shake them by the collar and say, “You are throwing your money away!” And I have seen mere five dollar players engaging in tight contests with the casinos. Of the two types of players, which is to be respected? The answer is obvious.

If a high roller doesn’t use basic strategy at blackjack; if that roller makes high house edge bets at craps; if he plays low payback slots and video poker machines; if he uses his “intuition” to guess what trends are about to appear or disappear, this person is large all right – he is a large fool.

The small wagering player who knows how to play the games the right way – using all the tools the casino allows to reduce the house edge to its minimum – is really a large player indeed. It is not the size of the bankroll that counts; it is the intelligence in which it is used.

Often in the casino atmosphere the red-chip player wishes he were a green-chip player and the green-chip player wishes he were a black-chip player and the black-chip player wishes he were a purple-chip player and the purple-chip player wishes he were an orange-chip player (and on it goes) – that is a caste system that must be discarded in order to play the games properly. Wishing you were someone else is not going to make you a better player. Learning the proper playing strategies will.

So let the casinos put people in castes, that’s their business; to get people to bet more, play longer, in order to “impress” the casino comp raters; but your business as a savvy player is to play perfectly with the money you have and ignore all the other players playing higher denominations and not worry about comps.

Phil Rizzuto played the game the best he could with all his ability. That made him a Hall of Famer. That made him a winner. Height be damned!

If you want to enter the casino Hall of Fame than you must play with what you’ve got and you must play the perfect strategies. There is no shortage of good betting strategies that follow the math of the games; strategies that give you a real chance to bring home the casinos’ money.

Phil Rizzuto’s object was to win games and that should be your object too. You are your own standard of performance; no one else is. Be happy with what you’ve got and play accordingly.

All the best in and out of the casinos.

Frank Scoblete’s web site is www.frankscoblete.com. His books are available on Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, Kindle, e-books and at bookstores. Join his email group!

 

 

Perfect Presidential Poll

 

You have the Rasmussen Poll, the Gallup Poll, the Quinnipiac Poll, the Elway Research Poll, the Fox Poll, the CNN Poll, the NBC Poll and assorted other polls by various universities, news media and political parties.

In the 2016 election right up to the very start of the voting the polls stated emphatically that Hillary Clinton would win the Presidency. As the returns came in, many news anchors changed from certainty that Hillary was a shoe in, to uncertainty to complete disbelief that “the Donald” would actually become the President of the United States. There was sadness in many a newsroom that day.

What was with those polls? How could they have been so wrong? Easy. There were many Trump voters who did not say out loud that they were Trump voters when the pollsters came a ’calling. Their mouths may have said one thing but their votes said something entirely different.

And today, right now, the polls of every stripe have Joe Biden clobbering Donald Trump. I do not trust those polls because I have discovered the truly precise 2020 Presidential poll—and I don’t mean the election itself.

The true Presidential poll is this: who is wearing a mask and who isn’t? Since the COVID-19 crisis has been turned into a political football, the Trump voters—like Trump himself—eschew the mask because the virus is a hoax, a world-wide conspiracy against Trump, a bid to deprive citizens of their inalienable rights, proof that you are a wuss, or all of the above. The anti-Trump voters wear the masks because they believe it is a public health crisis that masks can mitigate.

President Trump is leading his people to the polls—and they’re not wearing masks.

So, go ahead and count the number of voters who wear masks and the number of voters who don’t. True, there might be some little crossover between them, but overall my poll, which I am naming the Scobe 2020 PPP (Perfect Presidential Poll), will be the most accurate of all. Count on it!

Frank Scoblete’s web site is www.frankscoblete.com. His books are available on Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, Kindle, e-books and at bookstores. Get Frank’s articles in your email by signing up today.

Three Strikes and I’m Out: Amazon, Delta, and P.C. Richard

 

Strike One: Amazon.com

Amazon.com has benefited from the Covid-19 virus because mail order is now a bigger part of our economy than ever before. Amazon’s profits increased by close to 30 percent. Indeed, on Wednesdays our village collects cardboard and just about every home is overflowing with Amazon boxes to be recycled.

Over the years Amazon.com has been a big seller of my 35 books. Like many authors, I have also had a special Advantage contract with them under which they sell autographed copies of my books. Amazon sends me the order, I then autograph the book, and mail it to the customer. I get to keep a part of the sale price, as does Amazon.

I’ve been getting orders that I can’t fill because the Advantage program suddenly didn’t accept my password. Okay, so I created a new password but Amazon did not recognize that one. Then I created another password and Amazon didn’t recognize that one either. I continually receive orders through the Advantage site, but once I log in using any of these passwords, no orders are listed. I can’t fulfill an order without knowing the purchaser’s name and address.

I looked for ways to contact someone at Amazon who could combine my three Advantage accounts and then figure out who had ordered books. We’re talking a good number of books here too.

No one was “home.” No chat, phone, or email was available to get through to Amazon Advantage.

Okay, so at the moment I have lost money that I would have earned had Advantage functioned. That isn’t a huge problem. But here is the problem: People who have tried to buy autographed copies are being told that they can’t because the orders can’t be filled! That frustrates the customer and makes me look bad.

Yes, my wife the Beautiful AP and I have been trying to contact someone at Amazon to solve this problem. We thought we got through to Amazon and were told there is no direct line to Advantage, but someone from Advantage would call us back within 24 hours. It’s been 168 hours and no call.

Strike Two: Delta Airlines

“I’m sorry but we have many phone calls and our agents are all busy. We cannot answer this call.” Click! Hang up.

The above is a paraphrase of a message I received from Delta Airlines when I called to find out about a refund or credit on my tickets. It took me several hours to get through to them. Well, to get through to the click!

I had two round trips scheduled for Canada, one in June (Montreal for three people) and one in July (Calgary for two people). That’s five first-class tickets in total.

On the website, I saw that they were giving me personally, but neither of the other two fliers, a few hundred dollars as a credit for the Montreal flight. Three first class tickets do not cost only a few hundred dollars. One first-class ticket does not cost that either.

I also received (now get this!) a notice that I could fly from Calgary to JFK in New York when I was originally supposed to—just me, no one else.

Of course, there was no such flight because Canada is closed to Americans! So I couldn’t fly to Canada but I could fly home from Canada. Indeed, the flight was cancelled by Delta even as they were telling me that if I sneaked into Canada I could get back to New York. Of course I would not be with my wife, the Beautiful AP, but I guess Delta figured we had been married a long time so we needed a little time apart.

Finally, yesterday, the Beautiful AP received a boarding pass for Calgary in an email. Yes, she could now fly to Canada. Wait a second; isn’t Canada still closed to Americans? So we checked Delta’s website to see if there was a flight taking place to a country that doesn’t want us there. No.

So we now have a boarding pass for a flight that doesn’t exist to a country that won’t let us in. But if I do get illegally in to Canada, somehow and in some way, I can get back home.

Strike Three: P.C. Richard and Son

I write just about every day and when I am done I either read a book, a magazine or watch a good movie or television show. Actually I do all those things. In short, I reward myself for my daytime efforts.

I had an in-house theatre installed when I came home from a particularly lucrative trip to Vegas, with speakers that can blow the roof off my house. “Will you lower that?” the Beautiful AP says constantly as she hides in the bedroom. “Wear noise cancelling earphones!” I yell back but she can’t hear me because the speakers are too loud.

A couple of years ago I bought an LG 4K HD television—a big one—so I could watch my shows with the fullest of pleasure. I figured I deserved that, right? I mean, I started my life in a cold-water flat where three of our six rooms were not heated in winter, and now look at me!

Yeah, look at me. My stinking LG 4K  HD television is on the blink. Every so often the set pauses and displays the LG logo, interrupting the show or movie for about 30 seconds. This can happen over and over or just every once in a while. But it has now been going on throughout the virus lockdown.

I bought the set from P.C. Richard and Son here on Long Island, along with a five-year extended warranty from the store. So they should send someone over to fix the screwed-up set. That’s what the extended warranty stipulated. Yes, it stipulated that in clear terms. I have the paperwork. (Actually, my wife has the paperwork.)

P.C. Richard and Son states they will honor all warranties except those—yes, you guessed it —for television sets. Refrigerators, washing machines, dishwashers, clothes dryers, toasters, stoves, air-conditioners, microwaves – all of which by the way we have bought from P.C. Richard and Son over the years— are essential items and will be serviced during the Covid-19 virus. But no televisions!

On its official web site P.C. Richard and Son states clearly: “We Are Here for You!”

Mr. Richard and Son, I’m okay, but my television isn’t. Why bother with a warranty if you won’t honor it?

So, my friends, no autographs, no flights, and no television. This is almost as bad as the pandemic itself!

Frank Scoblete’s books are available on Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, Kindle, e-books and at bookstores. Receive Frank’s articles in your email. Sign up today.

 

 

My Weird and Wacky Slot Experiences

Inverse order:

  1. Puncher

At Atlantic City’s defunct Sands who looked like Friar Tuck of Robin Hood fame, including a remarkably hairy chest, totally viewable because he had four buttons undone.

He lost spin after spin and then punched the machine, screaming at it. What outraged him more was the pleasant woman on the machine two over from his who was winning on almost every other spin and clapping her hands, saying. “This is the luckiest day of my life!”

The man’s knuckles made a loud sound hitting the machine. Of course, the machine sat passively, showing no evidence of the blow leveled at it. The man didn’t stop playing either. On the next spin after slugging the machine, he lost, just as the woman screamed happily, “I won the jackpot!” Violence just doesn’t pay.

  1. Switch

            This leather-skinned man never played the slots but one of his beach buddies was a former slot technician that told everyone in his circle that he was the world’s greatest slot expert. So the leather-skinned man told me what the slot technician told him, “There is a button in the back of all slots that you flip and then the player wins the money and not the casino. Try it next time and see if it is true.” I did. It wasn’t.

  1. Painful

I just finished eating in the Golden Nugget’s fine now-defunct Italian restaurant Stephanos. I was happy from a bottle of fine wine and I was heading to the bathroom. I passed a machine, I think it was called Treasure Island, put in three coins, and hit for $1,600. I then had to wait to be paid. And wait. And wait. It was the most excruciating win I ever had in my life.

  1. Hairy

At the Showboat in Atlantic City in the 1990s, two elderly women playing the slots side by side until the blue-haired one went to the powder room. The red-orangey-haired one then took over the blue-haired one’s machine because the blue-haired one had been winning and the red-orangey-haired one had been losing. When blue-hair came back she told the red-orangey-haired one to “get off my machine!” The red-orangey-haired one said, “Go to hell!” Then they fought. They punched weakly at each other and pulled out some of each others’ dyed hair. I grabbed the blue-haired one; another man grabbed the red-orangey haired one and the fight stopped. These two women were sisters! 

  1. Caveman

This happened at a defunct downtown Vegas casino which was packed because of a big promotion. An attractive older woman sitting next to a big guy said to me, “Excuse me, sir, but could you tell this man he smells?” The man, hearing her, turned to the woman, “Why don’t you tell me yourself, lady?” I stepped to the man and smiled, “Oh, sir,” I started and then I caught a whiff of him. Something, probably many things, had died on this guy’s body.  “Oh, God,” I groaned. Now what would you do in a situation like this? I turned to the woman and said in a whisper, “Go play another machine. You could die here.” And she said, “This is my favorite machine. Tell him to leave.” “I ain’t leaving,” said the man. So I left.

  1. Pregnant

She was pretty and pregnant and playing the Blazing 7s at Tropicana. She called over to me. I thought she said, “My glass of water broke.” I walked over. “Where’s the glass; I don’t want anyone to step on the glass,” I said. “Glass? My water broke! I’m about to have a baby!” Being cool, I responded, “Uh, ah, ee, oh, aaaarrrggghhhh!” and luckily one of the female security guards took it from there. This lady hit the real jackpot that day.

  1. Luck

The kid was too young and playing a machine when he hit a big one just as the security guard came over to ask for his identification. Ooops! Sorry kid, you lose. The kid put up a fight; so did the kid’s parents; so did the kid’s future lawyer. The casino won. The kid lost. If good luck is a finite commodity, this kid used up a lot of his.

  1. Gloating

I entered the elevator of this premium Vegas hotel. A couple entered; the wife laughing; the husband singing. “We won a ton of money tonight,” laughed the wife. “Oh, yeah! Oh, yeah! Oh, yeah!” sang the husband. “How did you do?” the wife asked me. “I got killed,” I said. “Well, too bad,” she laughed. “Oh, no! Oh, no! Oh, no for you chum!” sang the husband. Chum? Chum? I put up with that all the way to the top floor. They were so happy for themselves. They danced out of the elevator. I was hoping they would trip and fall to the floor. They didn’t. Couldn’t they have shown a little pity for me?

  1. Bucket

In the days of pervasive coin slots, a woman was playing at Bally’s and I asked her how she was doing and she said, “I am almost there.” I had no idea what she meant so she told me. “Oh, when I was younger I wanted a husband and I found him. I wanted a house and I got it. I wanted children. They are now all grown up.” She looked at me and smiled, “Today I just want to fill a larger bucket than this one. I am almost at the top. That is my goal, a bigger bucket.”

  1. Magic

Ages ago, I received a mailing about a “Magic 7 Slot Magnet” that made machines hit like crazy. Being interested in finding out what this great new invention was (the seller claimed that he won millions with it and was now retiring from the casinos to live on his own private island, which I later found out was Alcatraz), I sent in my $39.99.

My Magic 7 Slot Magnet arrived with an added bonus – a Slot Divining Rod that would lead me to hot machines that my Slot Magnet would help me conquer for untold wealth and my own island! (I was thinking Manhattan.)

At the casino I walked around with this cheap cardboard divining rod trying to locate “loose” machines. People looked at me as if I were crazy.

Finally, the rod picked out its first machine by bending. I took out my Magic 7 Slot Magnet and moved it over the machine as the directions indicated. The “magnet” was not a real magnet, just a flimsy piece of metal with a poorly embossed slot machine on it. I played a few hundred dollars in the machine. I lost.

For an entire evening and much of the next day, I used my divining rod and my Magic 7 Slot Magnet throughout Atlantic City. I won a few spins here and there but overall nothing of note. Even young and dumb, I realized there was no proof in the hype about the Magic 7 Slot Magnet or any power in the flimsy Slot Divining Rod. I went over to Pier One across from Caesars and threw them into the Atlantic Ocean. The divining rod floated out to sea and the Magic 7 Slot Magnet sunk to the bottom.

I don’t own Manhattan.

Frank’s books are available on Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, Kindle, e-books and at bookstores. Join our site and get Frank’s articles in your  email. 

The Big Bang…Boom!

 

I like the idea of celebrating the United States of America on July 4th.

The fact that we were not perfect at our start or during the early 1800s or after the 1800s or during the 1900s or right up until yesterday is no reason not to celebrate our great experiment in self-government.

I think we are heading in the right direction. Our ideas are strong and slowly we will see them manifest themselves more completely as time moves on. Most of our citizens are decent people and their decency will win out in the long run. We are created equal even though it is taking centuries to establish that fully throughout our states.

However, can we jettison the street-side fireworks on this important holiday? My neighborhood was a war zone, starting at dusk and heading into midnight. There were explosions that shook our house. There were Roman candles that landed close to our roof. A barrage with no pause, no intermission; a relentless cacophony of booming.

What is the point of keeping your neighbors awake and, for some, have them trembling in fear that their houses might be damaged or even burned? Are those explosive experts romping in the streets aware that what they are doing is morally wrong?

Indeed, it is morally wrong to light up the night with fearing, flaring flights of Roman candles and generate explosions so loud that birds, squirrels, and people quiver in their nests, unable to read a book, listen to music or watch television. Our local yokels were hopping and skipping and bellowing out on the streets as they threw their bombs with nary any consideration for those who didn’t want to hear their whoops and wham-bangs.

We tend to think; “Oh, they are just kids” as if being a kid allows one to be stupid and totally self-centered. Yes, these were kids—a few decades ago. They’ve grown up postulating that making noise has some valuable meaning in the scheme of life.

They have probably read neither the Declaration of Independence nor the Constitution. Maybe they should expose their brains to knowledge and not ka-booming on Independence Day, and, perhaps, lead the country closer to the ideals expressed in those documents.

Some might say, “Oh, buck up, Scoblete, it’s just one day of the year.” Unfortunately, they are setting off fireworks just about every evening throughout year—it’s just louder, longer, and more loathsome on July 4th.

My wife, the Beautiful AP, is of the opinion that these July 4th bombers—and also those drivers who remove the mufflers from their cars so they can be heard for miles—are people who have accomplished little or nothing in their lives, thus making noise is their way of getting attention.. “I’m loud, therefore I am.”

So if you are one of the noisy masses, perhaps next year you should do something more meaningful, or at the very least—do nothing.

Frank Scoblete’s web site is www.frankscoblete.com. His books are available on Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, Kindle, e-books and at bookstores. Sign up to get Frank’s articles sent you to you.

My Horse Betting Career

I am in a thick fog in some gambling areas.

Early in my gaming career I thought I would tackle horse racing – but do it in a smart way by getting inside information. A certain individual who had “inside knowledge” started me off with a great pick for one of the Triple Crown races. “This horse can’t lose. He’ll blow away the field,” said my source. I was convinced I would win a lot of money if I bet on this horse so I bet a lot of money on this horse – with my wife, the Beautiful A.P. saying, “I don’t think you should bet that much on a horse. You don’t know anything about horse racing.”

“Honey,” I said confidently, “this horse is going to blow away the field.”

My horse did not blow away the field. Instead he broke his leg midway through the race and had to be put to sleep. He had been a superb animal but a miserable betting choice.

My inside source gave me two more “can’t lose” tips, upon both of which I bet heavily. I explained to my wife: “Don’t worry, these horses can’t lose!” when she fretted about how much I was putting on my horses’ heads.

In the first of the two races my horse came bolting out of the starting gates and looked like he would destroy the field. However at the first turn he decided he didn’t want to continue the race and he headed for the stables. All the other horses went around the track but my “can’t lose” horse just ran to the right and into the barns. The jockey was whipping him, yelling at him; the fans were jeering him merrily – and I lost the first of two very big bets.

Okay, two races, two horses that didn’t finish, so my third horse had to at least make it around the track, didn’t he?

Don’t bet on that.

My third horse looked a little weird – if horses can actually look weird – as he walked to the starting gate. He didn’t want to go into the starting gate but that is not unusual, as many horses don’t like to go into the starting gate.

But when the race started, my horse leaped out of the starting gate and ran in a small circle, around and around as if chasing his tail, foaming at the mouth, bucking and kicking, and trying to throw the jockey who was hanging on for dear life. The horse looked as if he had taken a massive dose of LSD. It took a whole bunch of people to settle the horse down and save the jockey. The horse then walked meekly back to the stables while the race proceeded without him.

Three horses, three non-finishes, three losses.

My horse racing career was now over. It is one thing to lose a race but my horses couldn’t even finish a race. That had to be God telling me, “Scobe, no more betting on horse racing for you.”

I am not sure anyone can beat the horses in the long run, although I have heard tales of some long-term winners, but I remain skeptical. Too much is involved in horses running around the track, not the least of which is the enormous vig you have to pay when you win those races. You also have no idea if the race is fixed, to put it bluntly. Obviously my horses didn’t need to be “fixed” because they couldn’t even get around the track, but horse players always talk about how the smaller-stake’s races might actually be more like professional wrestling than real competition.

I have no idea really. I don’t want to have any idea, really. Because I really know that while horses are really the most beautiful of animals, betting on them racing around a track is not really in my cards. When it comes to horse racing I am the father of teenagers – I have no glory, no glow, no godliness. I am really just a dumb loser.

Mom

 

I sat on the couch as I had over the weeks and months prior to this moment. I had my arm around my mother’s shoulder. She was snuggled into my chest. My father watched from a chair opposite us.

“I was in the backyard on 92nd street and I saw my mommy kissing my daddy,” she giggled. “They were kissing right there.”

Mom was 83 years old. “They kissed a few times,” she giggled. I squeezed my mom’s shoulder. She was skinny by this time.

She would call me “Frankie” as in “Frankie, I saw my mommy kissing my daddy in the yard.” But today she had forgotten my name. She knew she knew me – at least I think she knew me – but my name was now lost to her. Most of her memories were lost too – although some long-term ones still could be bubble up a little here and a little there.

My Mom was born in 1925. Her father died in the mid-1930’s leaving six kids behind; five daughters and one son. There was no welfare in those days so my mom left school in sixth grade and she and her sisters went to work in the factories. My grandmother cleaned schools. They skimped and saved and they were able to keep their house on 92nd Street in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. Where they lived is now an entrance to the Verrazano Bridge.

The son joined the army for World War II. He always volunteered for the most dangerous assignments. I do not know how many enemy soldiers he killed. Those who knew him called him fearless and daring.

My two strong memories of him concerned how much he smoked. He always had a cigarette in his mouth. And second, he would twist my arm behind my back and tell me to say that my father was a “bum” or “I’ll break your arm in half.” I’d cry but I never gave in. I am surprised he didn’t break my arm. Oh, yes, he was a hunter too. That might be my third memory of him. So it was his smoke, my pain and various creatures’ deaths.

The five sisters were loving. They doted on each other. They emotionally supported each other. They had an unbreakable union that lasted until the very last one passed away almost a decade ago.

The sisters held their brother in very high esteem. As a kid, I never told my mother that he tortured me. It wasn’t until I was older, an adult actually, that I told her about him. She wouldn’t believe me. She couldn’t believe me. Then the other male cousins started to tell their tales about him, how he would get each of them alone, and hold a lit cigarette closely over the palm of one trapped hand, daring them to flinch. The sisters started to believe. The female cousins had no tales about him. He spared them.

My mom’s was an immigrant family. Italian laborers. Hard workers. Perhaps the New York City version of the salt of the earth. The sons in such families were often lauded and revered. It was true of my family. It didn’t really matter what the child was like, if he were male, he was premier.

This fearless and daring son sent his army paychecks home during the war and my grandmother saved the money so that when he returned from duty, he received a substantial nest egg. The daughters had worked tirelessly for money through the Great Depression and the War, but they had no nest eggs. Instead, they had supported the family. Their brother took his bank account, and left.

My uncle died at 50; as far as I could tell no male cousin shed a tear. I didn’t go to his wake or funeral.

My mom was the middle sister. She worked until her mid-60s. Her final job was at the World Trade Center. I could talk to my mom about anything.

At another visit, my mother snuggled into me, “I have a picture of my daddy.”  She would always say that and then she’d point to someone in a picture, some relative or friend, and say, “That is my daddy.” It never was.

Until this day.

Up to that time I had never seen my mother’s father.  But this day, on the wall near the couch, was a new photo – an old new photo – a little grainy but it showed the clear picture of a young man. He was dressed in a leather overall and he was standing on the side of an ice-truck. He was an ice distributor, an iceman.

I didn’t look like him. But then I realized that this man was indeed my grandfather. His hands! I looked at his hands. They were my hands or, rather, mine were his hands.

“He is your granddad,” my dad said.

His hands and my hands.

“My daddy,” my mother nodded and then: “I saw my mommy kissing my daddy in the backyard.”

“Where was that?” I asked. “Do you remember the street?”

“My mommy was kissing my daddy.”

I am Frankie, mom, your son.  I have my grandfather’s hands. I have your father’s hands. I held my hands up. “Look at my hands,” I said.

She was looking far away. “My mommy was kissing my daddy,” she said.

In a few days, she stopped talking. In a few weeks, she stopped eating. She died. March 22, 2008.

Frank Scoblete’s web site is www.frankscoblete.com. His books are available from Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, Kindle, e-books and at bookstores.

The Proof is in the Pooping

 

I assume all animals and birds on Earth poop. It seems obvious that what goes in, must in some way, shape, or form, go out. Certainly that is true of my two parrots, Augustus and Mr. Squeaky. Each poops. But their poops are quite different.

Augustus, a Quaker Parrot, age 23 (or so), is an old guy smack in the middle in his twilight years. Mr. Squeaky, a Green-Cheeked Conure, is a youngster at about nine years old.

They get along, mostly, as Squeaky has taken to grooming Augustus. You’ve never seen a groomer like Squeaky. He should open a salon. Augustus looks great; he’s clean and glowing.

Their cages are right next to each other in my office. They each like to go into the other’s cage and eat his food even though the food is exactly the same. But here’s the rub: their poops are radically different. How can that be? Same food in; different poop out.

My wife, the Beautiful AP, and I have labeled Augustus a stealth pooper. That’s because whenever he flies and lands somewhere he plops out a big wet white poop. If he lands on your shoulder, plop; your arm, plop; the chair or couch, plop; the top of his cage plop, on top of your head, plop. He’s been this way all his life. My wife trails him and cleans up after him. I do too.

Mr. Squeaky is different. He is a shy pooper. In the morning as his cage is being cleaned, AP has to coax him to poop by saying, “Where’s that big poop? Big poop. Come on, big poop!” He waits until the Beautiful AP turns her back on him before he goes, then gets positive reinforcement. “Oh, look at that big poop! That’s a good bird.”

Squeaky is a clean pooper. When he flies around the house, he doesn’t plop whenever and wherever he lands. He holds it in and just goes off the top of his cage onto the floor. He wasn’t trained to do this. It’s just his preference. Actually, birds in the wild like to keep their nests clean, so they aim to poop outside the nest.

Not us.

We humans have pooped too, but our wastes are of all kinds with devastating impacts. We have dumped so much non-biodegradable plastics in landfills and oceans that we’ve created mountains on land and islands in the ocean composed of this harmful product of human genius.

We have carcinogenic chemicals sloshing in the water and floating through the air, along with industrial wastes flowing in rivers; plus lead and other heavy metals such as arsenic, cadmium, chromium, copper, nickel and mercury; along with nitrates, pesticides, variously tainted sediments—all of these with pathogens from our own personal plops churning in our beach waters.

We, meaning you and me and humanity, have a choice. We can be Augustus, despoiling everywhere we are and everywhere we land; or we can be Squeaky, relatively clean and contained.

Frank Scoblete’s web site is www.frankscoblete.com. His books are available on Amazon.com, Barnes and Nobel, Kindle, e-books and at bookstores.