I knew a guy who apparently really made it big in Las Vegas. He went there in a $12,000 car and after about a week, came home in a $200,000 Greyhound bus.

Actually, if you don't get all caught up in the crapola, it's a fairly interesting place. My wife and I spent about a week there as guests of a distant relative of my wife's. The relative's husband played electric guitar in a four-piece band that was backing a girl singer in a lounge in one of the casinos. I learned that there is one helluva lot of talent in Vegas that nobody ever hears of. The girl singer was fantastic!

We didn't go to any of the big shows (some are kinda pricy). We did a bit of gambling one evening (Barbara's relative insisted that you can't come to Vegas without at least having a little flutter). I won about twenty bucks at keno, a game I know nothing about. I would have like to take a crack at the blackjack tables because you can win at that if you know what you're doing, and I'm pretty good a blackjack.

Around the casinos, the food is good and really inexpensive. What they may lose on the food, they figure they'll make up on the slot machines. And there are slot machines everywhere! Never touch 'em. They're set, or so I was told, to pay out about 30% of what they take in. But since all you have to know is how to put a coin in a slot and pull a handle, they're generally played by drooling idiots and the senile.

Fun town. Interesting stuff to see and it's not ALL kitsch.

Don Firth