She can’t figure out how to email me, yet she sure knows when to hold or fold ‘em.
My sister recently won $42,000 playing cards. Yet, while living below the Mason and Dixon line I wrote a restaurant review column entitled “Southern Bell(e),” found that Ozark Mountain fall leaves crack like kettle cooked potato chips and had my first essay published in a college literary magazine. After nine months living in Arkansas my father died in Seattle and I flew back home. My gamble with him didn’t pan out because of my infinite immaturity. He played horses and used a bookie who ran a cigar store in Little Rock. I once took a gamble by following a jazz guitarist from my hometown of Seattle to Fairfield Bay, Ark. He tells it like it is, that we are all gamblers telling lies. His voice echoes as if he’s performing to an empty saloon, the tempo calm because there’s nothing left to lose.
Life’s a casino …” croons Charley Crockett at the beginning of “Welcome to Hard Times,” a song recorded in 2020.
