Scobe | Frank Scoblete

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 92^nd 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 92^nd 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.

Should You Place the 5 or 9?

There’s been a lot of debate in craps circles about the placing of the 5 and 9, some of it quite intense between the camps that say do so and the camps that say don’t do so.

Well I am now going to settle this thing once and for all – or at least for the next few minutes while you read this. I am dealing with controlled shooters now, not random rollers. No random roller should ever consider placing the 5 or 9 as that four percent house edge is just too darn big to have much of a chance of being ahead in the near future. It might be such a near future as to be tonight.

There is no doubt that with controlled shooter what happened in the past, meaning the shooters past performance, does tell you something about what will happen in the future. If a shooter is reducing the appearance of the 7 he is obviously increasing the appearance of other numbers, maybe not all of the other numbers but certainly some of the other numbers.

Now a controlled shooter has just hit a few 5s (or 9s) in short order. Do you place the 5 (or 9) in that case? The answer, startlingly, is yes…and no.

Let’s take the “no” first. Is the appearance of those 5s enough to warrant a place bet against that large four percent house edge on a 5 (or 9)? Here is the unexpected answer: Forget that the shooter just rolled those 5s, the question you should ask yourself is this, “Is that shooter’s past results indicative of an ability to overcome a four percent house edge in the future?” The answer to this is usually “No, he isn’t good enough from this point on to overcome edge on the 5.”

It doesn’t matter that he just hit some 5s, you have to look towards his future prospects based on the wealth of his past performance, not based on a few rolls that just happened.

For most dice controllers that settles the issue. DO NOT place the 5 or 9. The edge is too high.

Now too many novice and intermediate dice controllers have a bloated concept of how good they are. They think, erroneously, that they can overcome the house edge on the 5 because the 5 just showed a few times. This is somewhat equivalent to the idiotic concept of “see a number, bet that number” proclaimed by the ploppies of craps, although the 5 does have a much smaller house edge than the Crazy Crapper bets.

Now let me go to the “yes” you should place the 5 (or 9) argument but first an absolutely important preface concerning bad listening: Kids selectively listen to what teachers say. Take the sex talks that now seem de rigueur in public schools. Teachers say the following, “You shouldn’t have sex but if you are going to have sex use a condom.”

What the kids hear is this: “Have sex.” The rest of the sentence is forgotten.

Craps players also have selective memories. They look for ways to continue stupid betting practices by scrounging around for trend systems and other systems that essentially make them losers even if these players have developed a controlled throw.

So what I write now is not to be selectively remembered. Remember it all or don’t read it.

If you have an elite controlled shooter then you can place bet the 5. So unless you are at the tables with a true master of dice control who is getting into a real streak, not an imagined one, then you should not place bet the 5 or 9.

And do not selectively remember the above to think it gives you permission to follow the advice of new or intermediate dice controllers or systems advocates.

“Have sex” this ain’t!

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.

Bird is the Word

They don’t just fly over your house; they have flown into our vocabulary too. Not often for good reasons; not often for bad reasons.

In England young women are often referred to as birds. In the United States and Canada, young women are often called chicks. Women who have passed their peek are often referred to as old hens or old crows.

If someone keeps repeating something over and over we can refer to that person as a parrot. If your acquaintance is a stuck up, classless idiot, you might refer to him or her as a popinjay or a peacock.

Someone who is considered stupid is often called a bird brain. However, someone who is smart can be called a wise-old owl. But if someone is scared you call that person a chicken or chicken shit. If someone thinks of himself as sexually desirable, he pictures himself cock of the walk.

People who are crazy can be called loons or cuckoos. Or maybe they just go to Florida in the winter and are called snowbirds. Someone who uses cocaine is often called a snowbird as well. Someone who lives in Florida and also uses cocaine is called a dodo.

Throughout our country we have many supposed health experts who are really just quacks. Quacks are the magpies of medicine as they are stealing your money selling bird poop. Be an early bird and don’t let them ruffle your feathers.

If you go to quacks you’d better be eagle-eyed and watch them like a hawk so they don’t steal from you. If they do steal from you then go to the police and sing like a nightingale about their thievery. Maybe these people will be arrested and put in a birdcage so they can’t fly the coop.

The character of Mr. Potter in my favorite movie It’s a Wonderful Life was a vulture and certainly deserved the title of old coot. He was probably pigeon-toed too. He was a man who ate like a pig because he could not actually eat like a bird because, in reality, birds eat a lot! I don’t know if Mr. Potter liked to wet his beak from the expensive wines he enjoyed drinking.

I really wished George Bailey, the lead character in the movie, didn’t give a hoot about Mr. Potter but George acted like a silly goose by trying to borrow money from Mr. Potter. Yes, Mr. Potter was always feathering his nest with other people’s money. That man was a bad egg.

By the end of the movie George Bailey was flying like a bird when he found out how many friends he had and, hopefully, all the viewers truly hoped that Mr. Potter would wind up with a severe case of thrush at the end.

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

Qualifying Events

Casino players are always trying to figure out when is the best or most propitious or most advantageous time to place their wagers. Should I wait for two blacks to appear in roulette before I bet red since red is now due? Or should I wait for two blacks to appear before I bet black since black is hot and may continue to be hot? If numbers appear in one column on the roulette layout, should I bet that column or jump to a different column? Decisions, decisions.

Whatever system a player uses to determine the correct time for wagering is called a “qualifying” event. As with the myriad number of players, there are a myriad number of qualifying events that can be used to determine the appropriate time to risk one’s money on Lady Luck’s largesse. And let us not kid ourselves, qualifying events herald winners and losers based on Lady Luck’s whim.

Are qualifying events real? Obviously, yes. But are such events in the various games an indicator that the player has the edge over the house at that moment? Sadly, almost all qualifying events have no impact on the house edges of the various games. Bet red; bet black; bet the first column; bet high, bet low, none of it matters how you arrived at your decision because luck determines the outcome and math determines the house edge.

A player’s luck is no match for the math of the house edge whether the player uses a qualifying event or whether a player just dumps his money on the table helter skelter and calls out, “I’ll bet every number on the craps table!”

Still there is one thing these qualifying events tend to have in common; they slow down the total number of wagers the players make and thus using such events will slow down the rate of loss for those players even though the house edge remains the same.

So let’s take a look at some methods players have used for qualifying when and how to bet.

At many casino games players use a trend-betting system. If two, three or more of the same event occurs, one can bet that same event continuing or against that same event continuing. You see this clearly in the roulette examples above. But variations of this will work with blackjack and other card games as well.

In blackjack if you see that the dealer has busted once or twice or three times in a row, you jump into the game figuring he will bust again. This is called following a positive trend. However, if he doesn’t bust you can figure he will bust on the next hand and jump into the game. Or you can figure he won’t bust and you stay out of the game. You can also decide to raise or lower your bets as you play based on such trends as high cards coming out together, low cards coming out together, a combination of high and low cards coming out together, the dealer getting two blackjacks in a row, the dealer getting two hands of 20 in a row and so on.

In baccarat, Pai Gow poker, Caribbean Stud, Let It Ride, Three-Card poker and many of the other “carnival games,” you can sit out hands and use a trend-betting system to determine when to jump into the fray. There is no rule that you have to play each and every hand so sitting out and waiting for your qualifying event is a mathematically smart move.

During a game you can raise your bet if you have won several hands in a row (you determine what constitutes “several”) or lower your bet if you have lost several hands in a row. Of course, you can also lower your bet if you have won several hands in a row since that might mean you must lose the upcoming hand. You can also raise your bet if you have lost several hands in a row figuring, “I have to win sometime!”

At craps, there is a host of qualifying events that you can use to decide which numbers or propositions to wager. If several Crazy Crapper bets such as the 2, 3, 11, or 12 have been rolled, you can jump on this trend thinking these numbers are getting hot. You can decide to bet multi-bet Crazy Crapper bets such as the Whirl, the Horn, or the C&E if such groups of numbers seem to be showing a lot.

If you are looking for a qualifying event to actually start betting at craps, many players like the shooter to make a point before they bet. Some players take the bull by the horns (what sane individual would ever take a bull by the horns?) and ask the dealers before cashing in, “Is this table hot or cold?” If the dealer says, “Hot,” the player jumps in figuring the table will stay hot or he can choose not to jump in figuring the table must therefore get cold.

Card counters at blackjack use a simple formula to determine when to raise and lower their bets. If the game favors them at a given moment owing to which cards have been played, the card counter bets more. If the game favors the house at that moment they bet less. This is the only qualifying system that actually works to give the player the edge.

So to qualify this column, qualifying events can be a fun way to play but they will rarely give you any kind of edge.

Frank Scoblete’s web site is frankscoblete.com. His books are available at Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, kindle, e-books and at bookstores. Get Frank’s articles by e-mail!

“Birdman” Robert Stroud Ain’t Burt Lancaster

Robert Stroud was a convicted murderer, later to become a famous ornithologist and author, who was known as “the birdman of Alcatraz” for his work in diagnosing bird diseases. A movie starring the great actor Burt Lancaster was made about Stroud’s life which was – take a guess – titled The Birdman of Alcatraz.

Lancaster was an actor who simultaneously exuded strength and gentleness. He was also quite handsome and female fans were devoted to him. Just like Cary Grant, Lancaster had been a circus acrobat and his body and movements showed this even as he aged. His portrayal of Stroud was brilliant and earned him an Academy Award nomination as best actor. His was a riveting performance.

Except Burt Lancaster’s performance had little to do with the real Robert Stroud. The real Stroud was like the Japanese bird monster Rodan to a pretty songbird who was Lancaster’s Stroud. Burt Lancaster’s Stroud was indeed strong in many ways and did challenge authority when it could be shown (in the film) that such authority was abusive.

In real life Robert Stroud was a psychopathic murderer, an unapologetic and vicious pimp, and a lover of chaos and struggle. He constantly fought and badgered the people he met and in prison he was no different; in fact, he might have been worse. You could say he was the top bird of prison fights, physical ones and verbal ones. His face was the sneer, not the smile.

Stroud didn’t like authority, that’s true; he also didn’t seem to like anyone at all. But he loved to argue and fight with fellow prisoners, with the prison guards and with the administrators. He even murdered a prison guard! This was not a Burt Lancaster type of man; women would not be fans of his. Homicidal pimps are certainly not good role models.

Stroud spent most of his prison career in solitary confinement. The other inmates hated him; they also feared him because of his mercurial personality. You never knew when an explosion would occur and they occurred often enough to keep everyone near him on their toes. In fact, had people near him been birds, they would have taken to the air.

Yes, we do owe this man a “thank you” for his groundbreaking work with birds. His books have been a great help for veterinarians and birders too; but we shouldn’t let a movie whitewash the awful facts. The prison psychiatrist labeled him a psychopath and indeed he seems to have been one.

The movie was good but the man was for the birds.

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.

Irritations

I know I am a grumpy old man, but unlike other grumpy old men I am right in my opinions. That makes all the difference in the world.

***Kars for Kids keeps running its free ad on the radio and sometimes on television. The ad is a simple one; a horrible, mind-numbing ear-worm of a jingle about giving your used, abused, crappy old car to their organization as a charitable contribution. Whoever wrote that jingle and/or arranged the music and/or hired those “children of the damned” to sing the jingle should have something horrible happen to them. Go check out that charity on the Internet and I think you will find it isn’t what you think it is.

***Gold and silver: Here’s another commercial that is constantly irritating me – and I’ve written about this idea a few times but it needs repeating. You take a former star actor, in this case William Devane, and have him spout off about how he votes in elections and how America was strong in the past and basically could kick everybody’s ass. He stands on a battleship to spew his company’s products.

He tells us about the rotten paper money that’s out there and tells us that he invests in gold and silver and he also votes. You can buy these precious metals too. Why would the company he’s hawking sell gold and silver to the rest of us saps and take our crummy almost-worthless money when they have two metals far, far more valuable than the money we are sending them for their gold and silver? Does that make sense to you? Why don’t they keep their gold and silver?

Here’s the pitch: “Send my company your rotten money and we will send you precious gold and silver and, yes, my friends, America will still be able to kick everyone else’s ass. You can bank on that!”

***Vice President versus President? I think the nominee of the Democratic Party for Vice President will actually be the person running against President Trump. Biden is a non-issue in this election. Most people that I have spoken to don’t think Biden will finish his term as President if he wins or he will gradually become the invisible man in the White House.

By the way, Biden looks like the actor Jeff Morrow in the movie This Island Earth. Check out a picture of him!

***I hate the car commercials that always tell you about their special prices and their constant great sales events. Their sales always say that they are giving a huge discount from the “manufacturer’s standard retail price.” Has any car ever been sold at the “manufacturer’s standard retail price?” So you get a discount on a make-believe price that has never been charged to a buyer. Isn’t this as fraud?

***Also about car commercials and real drivers: My wife, the Beautiful AP and I were driving on the parkway to go to a supermarket to buy some food. Given the coronavirus, there were very few cars on the road and those that were there, the drivers were speeding like crazy. The Beautiful AP said, “At those speeds there will be accidents even on relatively empty roads.”

On the way home there it was; a huge three-car accident and it looked as if some people were seriously hurt as their cars were mashed.

The car commercials often praise speed. Enough please! Those idiots speeding risk their own lives but also the lives of innocent drivers.

***And speaking of coronavirus, who are the idiots risking their own and everyone else’s lives by going outside in groups without staying a safe distance from other people? They risk other people’s lives too.

And those idiots are similar to the idiots in your classroom who made it difficult for teachers to teach their lessons. Now those same idiots are on the road, not ruining knowledge for everyone in class, but potentially ruining everyone’s lives.

***Speaking of idiots: What’s with these religious fanatics and their ministers and rabbis and imams who insist on holding services with a congregation in their houses of worship (make that houses of potential death) during the coronavirus outbreak? This is not a religious issue and no one is trying to destroy a religion during the coronavirus pandemic; it is a public health issue that affects everyone, including all the millions of people who are not involved in such religions. Your congregants should stay home and out of your churches and temples.

One televangelist claimed to have “blown the wind of God” at the virus and he asserted that with all the Christians in the country praying, the virus has now been defeated.

Israel had to cordon off the town of Bnei Brak because the ultra-orthodox townsfolk of the area refused to obey the mitigation efforts to stop the spread of the virus. They kept holding their services. Of the 200,000 people in the town 75,000 have already tested positive for the coronavirus at this time. Don’t let these people out. They are clearly dangerous to the rest of the citizenry of Israel.

In Pakistan, Muslim clerics refuse to stop massive prayer gatherings and there is real fear that such gatherings could spell doom for controlling the spread of the virus.

Enough of the idiocy; follow the right thing to prevent the virus from attacking countless people. Your religion is safe but the rest of us want to be safe too. Every believer who sanctimoniously struts about after attending these dangerous services is a threat to everyone they cross. Anyone who dies because of them means these holy-folk have committed murder.

PS: The same applies to those fools who partied on the beaches of America during spring break and the ploppies who held coronavirus parties (yes, people did this!). May they dance their way into an ICU that’s out of respirators.

***I now look at some political celebrities and affix a different career and/or character for them.

Donald Trump: the ever-yabbering time-shares salesman.

Mike Pence: the solemn funeral director.

Joe Biden: your strange uncle who sits in the corner at Thanksgiving looking at everyone because he’s forgotten everyone’s name.

Al Sharpton: a flesh-eating zombie.

Bill O’Reilly: your strange uncle who is always interrupting everyone at Thanksgiving to explain why he is right and everyone in that room and on this planet is wrong.

Andrew Cuomo: the toughest kid in the neighborhood.

Dr. Anthony Fauci: the truly deserving King of the Earth.

Dr. Deborah Birx: the truly deserving Queen of Earth

Joe Scarborough: high school senior who thinks he knows women.

Adam Schiff: your strange bug-eyed uncle who sits in the corner at Thanksgiving whispering to himself.

Rand Paul: Dr. No.

Mitch McConnell: the butcher who enjoys slicing bloody meat.

Ruth Bader Ginsberg: the immortal Hobbit.

AOC (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez): one of the three witches in Macbeth.

Ilhan Omar: one of the three witches in Macbeth.

Rashida Tlaib: one of the three witches in Macbeth.

Nancy Pelosi: Lady Macbeth in Macbeth.

Ted Cruz: Macbeth in Macbeth.

Bernie Sanders: King Lear in King Lear.

Sean Hannity: Claudius in Hamlet.

Hillary Clinton: Gertrude in Hamlet.

Melania Trump: Ophelia in Hamlet.

Bill Maher: the jester in King Lear.

John Oliver: Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

“Not everything in this world is nice.”

Long Island, New York, March 2020

We are on lockdown. The coronavirus is rampaging through New York State and the City is the hardest hit area in the country. We have to stay in our house but we can still go food shopping or to the doctor’s office or the hospital if we catch the virus. The more we go out, the better the chance we’ll catch this virus.

I turned to my wife, the Beautiful AP, and said: “I don’t remember anything like this. It’s like being in a science fiction book. The entire world is affected by a virus. It’s horrifying.”

“I’m thrown,” she said. “I don’t feel like myself. We’ve read about stuff like this happening but I never thought it would happen here.”

“This has spooked me,” I said.

“It’s spooked everyone.”

Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, 1953

I’m playing outside my father’s store at 7007 Third Avenue. I’m six years old, about to be seven.

There’s Lento’s Restaurant on the corner of Third and Ovington avenues; then Todd’s clothing store, then my father’s store, then a dry cleaners and then a grocery store, then Bedell’s pet shop. Across the street are Trunz Bakery and a new pizza parlor that just opened. Pizza was 15 cents a slice. I fell in love with pizza.

The grocery store had just been sold to a group of men who had accents just like many of the men in our neighborhood. But these men were not Italian or Irish or Norwegian like many of the men who had accents. The Norwegians owned the two delicatessens near us. They were very tall and blonde. And there were Pole-axe people in the neighborhood too.

We sat in the backyard yesterday. We have a beautiful deck that we rarely use. We wanted to get some sun. It was a pleasant day, about 60 degrees. We took two Coleman camping chairs outside. We have no furniture on the deck. Why bother? We might sit outside four times in a year. I get the best views of outdoors from my office which is three quarters windows. I spend a lot of hours in my office.

I have three fish tanks in my office: a 20-gallon, a 55-gallon and a 205-gallon. I love fish and have since I was a child.

I bought fish from Bedell’s. My mother always said to me, “You can have one small tank but when you grow up you can have as many tanks as you want.”

I wanted a lot of tanks.

The men who owned the grocery store were quiet. They had crummy-looking tattoos on their arms too; just like Kaplan the butcher, whose store was down the block on 72 Street and Third Avenue. Kaplan the butcher was not quiet. He joked around and complained about everything, even his customers. “They are always complaining and complaining about this, that and everything.”

He and my father were good friends. Kaplan the butcher would always say, “Your father is a great man, Frankie, a great man. Remember that.”

The new owners of the grocery store were very friendly to my father. But they did not talk a lot. A couple of times I saw their wives entering or leaving the grocery store. They were quiet too. I would wave to them and they would wave back. They didn’t smile. They had those tattoos on their arms too, usually covered up. They were the first women I ever saw with tattoos.

I asked my friend Stevie G. about those tattoos. He said, “They were in the Navy. All sailors get tattoos. My uncle has one too but my uncle’s is a woman bending over. It proves they were in the Navy.”

But were women in the Navy? I didn’t know.

One morning I asked my father, “The tattoos those men and Kaplan the butcher have. They are so ugly, just numbers and a letter or two. Why did they get them?”

My father looked at me for a few moments. I was six years old, going on seven. “Frankie, you are right, they are ugly tattoos. They show us that not everything in this world is nice.”

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.

Ocean Resort Wins the Casino Race

The great Jerry “Stickman” and I spent last week at the Ocean Casino Resort in Atlantic City. This was formerly Revel which overextended itself, charged way too much for rooms and food, and folded as many another Atlantic City casino-hotel did as well, including two of President Trump’s, the Trump Plaza and the Trump Taj Mahal.

But the Ocean casino-hotel has been gloriously resurrected.

Our rooms were on the 24^th floor with views of the city and ocean that were unsurpassed. The room itself was beautiful with one wall a full picture window. Mind you, this room was not even a suite but it was still large enough to feel like one.

Ocean Resort is at the very northern end of the Boardwalk and has unobstructed, spectacular views.

The casino is spacious, airy, beautifully appointed and clean. I’ve stayed at many casino hotels in Vegas and in much of our country and I can say that Ocean Resort is the best. If you have a hankering to go to the Queen of the Sea then give Ocean a try. Since this is still March, the room rates will be low and worth far more than every penny you spend. And once you have a player’s card, you will find that the future offerings will be amazingly generous.

As for eating, in which “Stickman” and I are experts; the hotel is loaded with great restaurants, cafes and food courts – and give the lamb a try at Amada. Best lamb I ever ate.

A word here: Controlled shooters, you must land the dice about nine inches from the back wall or you will go into a “jump” zone. The dice will fly off the table quite frequently. Until that zone, the tables are quite good. Odds were 3X, 4X, 5X, which mimics Las Vegas. They should go back to 5X and 10X odds as they had in the past.

Blackjack is the traditional AC variety. The slots are mostly those delightfully tall ones without endless slot aisles to squeeze through. Many carnival games are scattered throughout the floor and an Asian room is about to open soon.

Give this place a try. It’s superior.

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 book stores.

My Wife is THE Boss

As Valentine’s Day fast approaches, the 27^th anniversary of my marriage to the Beautiful AP is at hand. We married on Valentine’s Day so I wouldn’t forget what date our wedded bliss began. That date was AP’s idea.

Make no mistake about it, the Beautiful AP saved my life.

I was about 40 years old, losing my teaching job of 18 years, in debt up to Wilt Chamberlain’s eyeballs, paying child support and the mortgage on my first house and sending (who I hoped would be) my soon-to-be ex-wife to graduate school to become a librarian and taking the kids on weekends so they could be with me and also enjoy working with me in the theatre company I half-owned and I was depressed.

We were sitting on the beach at Cape May, New Jersey, and I was lamenting everything. I am an excellent lamenter.

“How can I get out from under all this debt? How can I send my kids to a private high school and then college? I do not want them to have to pay back college loans; I don’t want them to start their adult lives in debt. I don’t know where I can get all this money I need.”

Although I was not married to AP at that time, I knew we would get married as soon as my first wife and I could settle our almost six years of divorce discussions. As anyone knows who has gotten a divorce, the old song “Our Love is Here to Stay” must be rewritten as “My Former Love is Here to Slay” because divorce is a killing business.

But AP came in to save me. “Scobe, you are going to become a famous writer. You are going to take this gambling study you’ve been doing and make something big out of it. The kids will be totally taken care of and you’ll get out of debt. You’ll see, you are not down as much as looking up at where you will be going.”

She was right. In every way I was headed up. In every way.

And so it was that the Beautiful AP and I got married on Valentine’s Day once my now ex-wife had met a man she wanted to marry (I love that man!), moved to Texas in lightning-like fashion, so I now had custody of the kids, and all was right with the world. We paid the tuitions for high school and college; my debt was paid off; 35 books were published; television shows were written; consulting boomed; I did a lot of radio; I did a lot of television and I was free and clear and happy as could be.

And soon after our marriage I allowed the Beautiful AP to become the boss of my whole life. She deserved that much, did she not?

She is now in charge of everything. I watch her happily dusting, vacuuming the house and washing the floors and cleaning the bathrooms in her delightful manner. I see her scampering to do the laundry and to take the clothes out of the dryer and fold them and put them neatly away in our closets and cabinets. Our bathrooms are spotless. She is totally in charge

The whole house is hers! She deserves this power. She saved my life and now she runs everything. A woman in command is a wonder to behold.

When I sit in my recliner for hours and watch her exercise her authority over the whole house, I am in a state of joy. All women would enjoy such empowerment. Too many husbands do not allow their wives to have such strength in life as I do with the Beautiful AP. She even works a full-time job that she loves.

For our anniversary I bought some slippers for myself; wrapped up the box and gave them to her so that she could now joyously slip them on my feet when I call for them. I have stocked the refrigerator with grapes for her to bring to me and feed them to me—one at a time—as I enjoy an endless stream of movies.

I bought her an easy-to-use snow blower so she can make sure our property is clear after a storm. She’s even promised me that she would clean the garage.

What a woman!

Happy 27^th anniversary to my Beautiful AP

(Do not, under any circumstances, let the Beautiful AP read this article.)

Frank’s books are available on smile.amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, kindle, e-books and at book stores. Why not subscribe to Frank’s web site and get his articles emailed to you free of charge?