Gambling and Huckleberry Dreams

My older sister, Maria, called me this morning to let me know how her Halloween trip to Vegas went this weekend. Maria has inherited my Grandma Lupe’s love of gambling. I was lucky to escape this family trait as my parents spent many an evening inside some nasty casino, leaving my little sister and I in the car. It turned me off gambling forever, but Maria loves it. Probably because she always wins ridiculous amounts of money, even taking into account her losses. So, certain hotels in Vegas have gotten wind of Maria’s love of gambling and they invite her to participate in their “slot machine tournaments.” This I don’t understand as slots seem to be games of chance and not skill, so how could it be a tournament? But she keeps going and she keeps winning.
So, Maria is 41 years old and has been married for 23 years and has three sons. She’s entitled to a little wild phase at this point, and she’s loving it. She dressed up as Naughty Snow White and took a Las Vegas Stripper dance class where she learned to dance on a pole, do a lap dance, and even got a certificate that says “Las Vegas Stripper.” Another notch in her belt. Another dream fulfilled.
She had to get off the phone as a client was calling her (did I mention she’s an extremely successful businesswoman as well?), so I didn’t get to hear the rest of her wild weekend, but then my girlfriend Flora called me. She said her husband’s grandmother was about to die, and that he would have to go to St. Louis for the funeral, and that he had always had a dream to make his own boat and take the River back here to New Orleans. While he had decided against making his own floating device, he was going to try to convince a captain on the river to let him ride a boat back to NOLA. She said this laughing. “So Ben’s taking a little trip and we’re not sure when he’ll be back.” For some reason, this story delighted me. A grown man following a sweet Huckleberry dream. I like it.