Vegas 36 years ago

I never know what or when something will pop up inside my tiny brain. This morning it was Las Vegas, 1980 style. The big casinos had the top draws at the time in their big showroom, but they also had smaller venues called lounge shows, which were free admission, with a two drink minimum as a required purchase. I remember seeing one in particular. It was Waylon and Madam. Now most of you are scratching your heads about now, wondering who the hell they were. Waylon had a TV show and appeared on late-night shows and Madam was his dummy. The TV appearances were comical, so Joyce and I went into the lounge to see him perform at a midnight show. Well now, the lounge show had nothing in common with what he did on TV. It was raunchy and terrifically funny! I had never seen anything like it. People doing things like the puppets did in the lounge show would be “X” rated and disgusting to most people, but somehow the puppets made it funny.

The gambling joints all had some kind of free gifts they handed out and flyers were everywhere with coupons to get the free gifts. Most places had shrimp cocktails for $1 that were delicious. It always amazed me how I could get a shrimp cocktail in the middle of a desert, but I never asked how or why it was possible. At the Horseshoe downtown, they had a steak and egg breakfast from 11:pm until 7am for $2. It was top of the line. We were living in San Diego at the time and beef there was poor quality, the local San Diego news ran stories about how San Diego was a dumping ground for beef producers, but in Vegas the beef was wonderful. We could gamble all day or night for about $30. Every casino had craps games and there was never anything then or now more exciting than a good roll at the craps table. I was never a high roller, but even back then some guys would be betting hundreds of dollars on every roll of the dice. I never got tired of the game and the thrills with it.

My all-time record at a craps table was 14 hours straight, but that was in Tunica Mississippi. Good times.