From The Storyteller
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Hello All: Today I reveal secrets from my high school day few know. The moral is strictly personal. Enjoy. Doug
Never “No, I don’t play golf, and I don’t gamble” is my response when asked about my golf game. After high school I’ve “never” done either. My “never” was a direct result of knowing who the cool guys at my high school were. They all played poker, and I wanted to be cool. Here I’m sharing the dark side of my life as a teenage card shark. By sitting up at night dealing hand after hand I became pretty good, and found playing cards with my friends usually gave me little extra spending money. When I played with the guys I ran with, nobody got rich and nobody went broke, because we played for fun and limited the game to “penny-ante” poker. At times the older guys (HS seniors) would let me sit in. These were the guys who had jobs after school, so the amount of dollars in a pot could be $50.00 or more. In games like these I became Mister Conservative, and as a result I generally did okay. During my junior year however, I found myself playing with the older guys, and doing really well. That’s when the greed bug bit me. I saw a chance to score BIG and doubled the pot. Bad call on my part. I lost $800 in that one hand. My problem - I only had $400. Because we were all friends, our rule on losses was simple: “settle-up” before we leave the table. Thus, I agreed to spend that long, hot summer caddying for my friend, and I was given the opportunity to carry a heavy bag full of his golf clubs (a time before golf carts). Which explains why, to this day, I “never” play golf or gamble. Moral: Since both can be expensive, I’ve saved a lot of money doing neither. |