When I was a child, I often found myself imagining what a perfect life would be like.
I didn't think many of my neighbors were living it. They worked day after day at hard jobs they didn't especially like. They argued with their spouses, drank too much at the area bars or lodges, sometimes fought with their neighbors, and generally lived lives of quiet desperation, the way Henry David Thoreau described most people in his book about living at peace with nature.
That would not be my fate, I told myself. I am going to live a perfect life as a writer.
Years passed and one day I discovered I had become that writer.
I was a newspaper reporter, earning my living by running down stories and writing about them. Some of my friends and relatives couldn't believe it.
'W-h-a-a-a-t? You mean somebody pays you just to write words?' Horace said in astonishment. He was a cousin of the woman I had married. Horace was an auto mechanic who lived in Cullman, AL., a rural community just a few miles from Birmingham.
I told him it was true. I tried to sound modest but I was actually flattered. I showed him a couple of my published stories and even flashed an uncashed check that an editor had sent me. He was not only impressed. He was totally astounded.
It got better. I discovered poker, practiced my game until I was good, and began going to .Las Vegas, Gardena, Reno, Lake Elsinore and other places where I could legally spread my talents to rake in chips that I could convert into cash.
I won far more often than I lost. Between my weekly paycheck from the newspaper and my poker earnings, I was making a decent living.
Very few people become wealthy from writing or playing poker, but it does happen to some of them. I still have that dream, however distant, of cashing in in a big way. For writers and gamblers, dreams die hard.
Somebody once said you never found a suicide victim with an uncashed lottery ticket in a pocket. I smile as I write this, but it's probably true.
Poker players and other gamblers rarely commit suicide.
Why should they?
They live the perfect life and there is always tomorrow.
Toward the end of his life, Johnny Moss, who was Bennie Binion's best friend, slowed down considerably. He lost some of his touch as a winning poker player, but he still had enough skills to win more than he lost.
Other younger players drew heart by seeing him at his usual seat at poker tables in casinos around Las Vegas -- the Horseshoe, the Dunes, New Orleans, Gold Coast or any of the other neon-lighted palaces around Glitter Gulch.
Nobody...
...I knew ever confronted Moss and asked him what made him think he could beat a person half his age at a game that demanded skill, intuition and brain power to win. I can imagine what the crusty Texan might have told them if they had made such a despairing remark, but this is a family website and I shall remain silent.
I hope you are living the perfect life.
Author: Geno Lawrenzi Jr.
(Geno Lawrenzi Jr. is an international journalist, magazine author and ghostwriter and poker player who lives in Phoenx, AZ. He has published 2,000 articles in 50 magazines and 125 newspapers. If you want to share a gambling story or book idea with him, send an email to glawrenzi@gmail.com ).
