(Repost, originally published on the BGP site in Summer, 2007)

NOTE: As of this writing, this blog entry is way over a month late. When I started writing it I knew it wasn’t going to be on time. I knew it had to be right, as well as next in the sequence or I’d regret it. Well, as usual, real life got in the way but it’s finally done. It’s long as hell but there was much to say. Ironically, I finished editing this blog entry just after midnight on 8/8/07, minutes after Barry Bonds hit his 756th career home run, topping the record set by Hank Aaron.

VIRGINIA BEACH, VA. SOMETIME AFTER 3AM, JUNE 23RD, 2007 — Juneteenth is one of those unofficial ‘official’ holidays that comes and goes among African-Americans. It’s not on most calendars, nor am I sure it will ever be. The occasion is also called Freedom Day or Emancipation Day, originally commemorating the abolition of slavery in Texas on June 19th but has slowly spread to other states. Here in Virginia it’s usually celebrated in some fashion on the 19th or the closest weekend. I got word from my mother that WICU (Women in Christ United), a local group based out of her church, had put together a day trip to Baltimore for a Black History tour. The ringer about the trip was that most of the passengers were WICU, comprised of ladies well into their 50s and 60s. This wasn’t your granddaddy’s kind of church ladies either. They were a new breed, the generation that grew up in Jim Crow, fought for Civil Rights, and now that many of them are grandmothers and great-grandmothers they have a feisty, sense of not-giving-a-damn that elders seem to be entitled to. The fact that each one of them moved at their own speeds, including slow motion, was going to make the trip even more interesting, especially since a bus trip of this nature couldn’t have happened a little over 40 short years ago. Because of them and the day looked like it was going to be a kinetic time-traveling experience between the past and present, this Juneteenth promised to be one to remember.

Being one of the few adult males on the trip, I was introduced to George, one of my mother’s friends and member of her church. By the time I finished helping him load up the refreshment coolers and was able to get on the bus I had no choice but to take a seat in the back. It seemed ironic for this kind of trip since many of the passengers. The bus ended up with just the right number of passengers. Much to my surprise I had plenty of space and legroom, a rare treat on these Greyhound-style tour buses.

Once everyone was on board, the bus driver, a short, brooding brotha about as old as most of the WICU members, caught everyone’s attention and began his dissertation. Balding on top with the scowl of a seasoned Black Shakespearean actor, after I noted that his first name was Isaiah, I struggle hold back from laughing at the rest of his 20-minute speech. He covered every conceivable rule on his bus right down to instructing passengers how to properly urinate in the bus bathroom — plus standing up at the toilet or taking a dump was strictly prohibited. The only thing he didn’t do was demand DNA samples. I would bet money that Mr. Isaiah had already broken his cherry as far as leaving a passenger on the side of the road for breaking more than one of his bus rules.

It was near sunrise by the time we all said a group prayer and the bus was finally under way. Immediately the music switched from diet jazz to gospel. I said another quick prayer, this time for a few hours of sleep. It’s not that I don’t like listening to the Lord’s message put to music or anything like that. Truth be told, the closest sound to gospel that I feel any spiritual connections to are groups out of Africa like Ladysmith Black Mambazo. I knew it was gonna be a long trip if I didn’t get some sleep. Luckily, after sunrise the music stopped and someone popped in a DVD, Tyler Perry’s “Daddy’s Little Girls”.

Figuring the movie was probably a typical Feel Good movie that bordered on being a Black-Chick-Flick, I scrambled to find a comfortable position — the kind that’s almost impossible for a big guy like me to achieve on a bus. Without giving away the story, aside from a few tear-jerker clichés it turned out to be pretty good, especially for general audiences. As I watched a blue-collar brotha working to hold his family together and make his way in the world, I found myself reflecting on all the scenarios I’d encountered where some sistahs would overlook the “nice” brothas because they either weren’t so-called thugs or ballers flush with bling or they weren’t working in some white-collar field where they could be earning six-figures or more — and then they’d complain after they’ve hooked up with a smooth-talking jerk that ended up doing them wrong. Although the movie had a happy ending, I thought about how it rarely worked out that way for brothas faced with those situations.

Sometime around mid-morning the bus pulled up at the Great Blacks on Wax Museum in Baltimore. After a few minutes I noticed some kind of drama begin to unfurl. I had no idea what was happening but it had both Mrs. Goode and Mr Isaiah outside on their cell phones, furiously pacing back and forth like disgruntled executives. That’s where Greg(?), our tour guide, boarded the bus and we headed out on the tour.

As the bus wheeled through town Greg told us stories about the ‘Then and Now’ of parts of Baltimore. ranging from tales of once-thriving venues where people like Duke Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald used to appear on the Chitlin’ Circuit (a loosely-knit route of venues where Black musicians could performed along the east coast) to where the original NAACP building once stood to the projects where HBO’s show “The Wire” were filmed on location. I don’t know about the others, but I found myself amazed at the contrast. I could see it all, then and now, as if I was watching two films recorded at the same places 50-years apart and projected on a screen at the same time. I saw phantoms walking along the streets that were once thriving nightlife scenes and hubs of cultural Black pride amidst more than a few of the spots that were either now something else or the evidence of their existence had been reduced to boarded up buildings or empty lots with historical landmark signs. We might as well have been riding past archaeological digs filled with rare dinosaur bones — except those bones were more likely to be reconstructed to their full glory.

Eventually we pulled up and stopped in front of Orchard Street Church. Built in 1837, rebuilt in 1859 and rebuilt again in 1882, legend has it that this church was once a stop on the Underground Railroad, sometimes headed up Harriet Tubman. I was the last to exit the bus and as I paused beside my mother next the door to get my camera ready for indoor shots, Mr Isaiah began to vent. Apparently the original bus driver’s bus broke down so the tour bus company hired him as a replacement and, due to some communication breakdown, he thought he was going to just drop us off back at the wax museum. Well, not only did this conflict with the plans and the contract, Mrs. Goode wasn’t having it since the group had paid for an entire day trip. Because Mr Isaiah had been up since 3am, this conflicted with some new safety law that drivers had to either have a relief driver or sleep after so many hours on the road. Long story short, he was pissed and had the attitude of a rattlesnake. He was stuck with us and it was the fault of the tour bus company. I’m not sure why he decided to share all this with me but based on his initial speech I had a feeling he wasn’t going to take this turn of events with ease. Any old man named Isaiah with Obsessive-Compulsive tendencies wasn’t prone to bullshit around.

Once I caught up to the rest of the group inside the church, we were led down many flights of steps to the basement level. Already packed with people, on one side of this cramped space was the half-bricked up remnants of a huge furnace; the other was an opening to a long dark crawlspace, referred to as ‘tunnels’ by our tour guide. Since the tunnels were pitch black in each direction, I stuck my camera inside and took a few snapshots.

Upon looking at photos of the illuminated crawlspaces I knew I would have died trying make it through. I’d seen coffins with more elbow room. Apparently slaves used to come in from the outside through these small heating ducts and emerged here in the bowels of the church — or this was how they left the sanctuary. Either way, after a bunch of people walked down all those steps only to crowd around down there it was hot. I couldn’t conceive how it must have been with a raging coal-stoked fire that was fierce enough to heat the entire church without the aid of electric blowers, straight out of Dante’s “Inferno” with temperatures well over several hundred degrees. It reminded me of the kinds of sacrifices African-American ancestors made just to survive and be free — and how many Blacks today take it for granted as if it happened a thousand years ago. Admittedly, sometimes I did too.

After seeing the tunnels we were guided back upstairs to the main seating area of the church. A two-story tall brass pipe organ loomed overhead as we slowly entered one by one; with each step even the wooden floors creaked with hollow reverence as if they had their own secrets to tell. With a loud hush to his tone, Greg announced that if we were all quiet enough the Ghost of Harriet Tubman might come out and speak to us — and once everyone settled into their seats, an eerie silence swelled. Just then, a waif of a woman slowly peered in from a dimly-lit entrance near the organ. As she walked toward the open floor it was impossible not to notice her face, gaunt with the pain of ages in every wrinkle except for the steel in her eyes.

As she captivated the audience with her story, I thought about how everything Greg had pointed out there at the church began with “Legend has it that–”. My logical side started to wonder why. Was it because historians lacked proof? Was this some sort of tourist-trap scam? Or was it because of some legal issue, like being liable for false claims? For such an old frail woman, as Harriet Tubman’s ghost gave her speech her presence swelled to that of a Goliath, echoing high into the ceiling as if she was an impending thunderstorm. For those few minutes I forgot that this was an actress. She was Harriet Tubman. The power behind her delivery was intense enough to make me realize something: We were listening to the history of people fighting against oppression, surviving during a time where paper trails could get them killed, Blacks and Whites alike. It didn’t matter that she had on shoes with heels that no one would even consider wearing while running through pitch-black forests. It didn’t matter that the musket gun she held was a souvenir sold at gift shops near Colonial Williamsburg — a cheap child-size version of a musket from a period almost 100 years before the real Harriet Tubman was born. Something about it all reminded of a quote from the movie ‘The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance’: When the legend becomes fact, print the legend. I realized that it didn’t matter whether or not Harriet Tubman regularly used this church as a stop on the Underground Railroad. The truth was that it happened constantly all around these parts and Tubman was an icon, just one of many helping slaves escape to freedom. Not to take anything away from her amazing courage but when heroes don’t exist, sometimes it’s necessary to invent (or appoint) them just to keep the spirit of a story’s meaning alive to impact future generations. In cases like this, the power of the story and the moral behind such great accomplishments mattered most. The actual details of who did what, where, and when bordered on irrelevant.

Once Harriett Tubman finished addressing our group, Greg made sure to introduce the actress and tell us about her achievements. I didn’t catch her real name or most of her details but she was an 84-year old still delivering her lines with the heart of a Lioness a third of her age. As I took a photo of my mom with her, I had a hunch that somewhere, somehow her work was appreciated.

Shortly after everyone was back on the bus and we were under way, one of the WICU ladies squealed “Ohh Lawd” somewhere up front just as the bus swerved hard to the right. Mr. Isaiah was busy speeding through crosstown traffic, inventing lanes where there were none. He was pissed. At any given instant we were at the mercy of high g-force turns that sent passengers plowing face-first into each other and the backs of seats. Cars that once felt entitled to cutting in front of the bus suddenly honked in terror. Pedestrians scattered like frightened kids. Occasional screams and curses squawked outside as the bus engine revved and streaked onward. All of it seemed to happen at the same time. Watching the church ladies up front endure all the near accidents, suddenly the back of the bus was the place to be. Because of their reactions, I almost felt guilty laughing at every near miss. George and his wife were sitting in the back with me. He seemed completely comfortable with the ride as we discussed the philosophical aspects of dealing with being Black in Corporate America and laughed every time the bus swerved to avoid an accident. Ultimately we arrived at our next destination in record time.

Somewhere on the outskirts of Baltimore, our second stop was Hampton National Park, once one of the biggest plantations of the south, if not America. Owned by the Ridgely family during 1700s and 1800s, by comparison this was the equivalent of the Trump Towers back then. In its heyday the estate covered 25,000 acres, about half the size of modern day Baltimore. Compared to other plantations I’d visited, this place was a resort. The slave quarters were small condominiums. The overseer’s house was bigger than some restaurants I’d visited. Up on a hill about a mile off in the distance was the Hampton Mansion itself, the master’s house. From our vantage point the building was mostly obscured by trees and it still looked bigger than the Governor’s mansion in Virginia.

The Hampton tour guide was a white park ranger, which I found odd and even a little awkward at first. Although I had no problem listening to a white man sharing history of slave life, I could also tell he was probably a genuinely nice man. The plantation was about 18 miles away from Pennsylvania, a Northern free state; it was a little over half a marathon to freedom for any slave that wanted to make a break for it. I had no idea where the Orchard Street Church was in proximity to this plantation but it didn’t matter. Standing out in the midday summer sun, my problem with listening to the ranger describe life on the plantation I couldn’t help but feel the lingering presence of countless slaves that tried to escape — and failed. Just like with the other plantations, I was anxious to leave.

The next stop was a buffet lunch at some hotel where I had the privilege of listening to my mother and Mrs. Goode vent their frustrations about Mr. Isaiah while conspiring to take him down along with the bus company and anything else that was evil in the world. Mr. Isaiah was in earshot but he didn’t seem to care. He felt he was in the right. Mrs. Goode and my mother felt we were in the right. Both sides were at the mercy of the tour bus company’s mistake, albeit I sensed that the company knew exactly what they were doing. As I ate lunch the only thing I hoped for was that tensions didn’t continue to mount. Something about the WICU ladies was the AARP’s equivalent of street gang from ‘West Side Story’; some carried canes. Mr. Isaiah didn’t seem like a man that would back down, either. All I wanted to do was make sure we all got home without incident.

Our final stop, The Great Blacks on Wax Museum, turned out to be both an inspiration and a bit of a letdown at the same time. To clarify, I loved the concept — a non-profit dedicated to teaching African-American history and allowing people to put past lives into perspective by showing people that only existed in books and films for most of us. I found it humbling to stand almost face to face a few feet away from folks like Benjamin Banneker, Bill Pickett, James Baldwin, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Ida B Wells, and Marcus Garvey — people that either contributed to civilization as a whole or gave their lives to change my life — and I’d never get a chance to thank in person. The person that made me pause was George Washington Carver. Aside from the fact that he reminded me of my late grandfather John Lee (my aunts and uncles called him ‘Judge’, Mr. Carver always appealed to the 8-year old in me, when everything was possible for a Mad Scientist that stayed true to his game plan. Even though I’d heard about Mr. Carver in school, it wasn’t until Judge told me about meeting him one afternoon that the legend came to life. Judge was a porter on the railroad in the South at the time. The train had just pulled out and one of the cooks was bragging about shaking Carver’s hand as he boarded. Judge, apparently awestruck by the possibility of meeting any Negro he’d read about in the papers, wasted no time going to meet the man. “Mr. Carver was reading a book when I walked up; he closed the book, looked up and smiled,” Judge said as he patted my head and wistfully re-lit his cigar then continued, “After some small talk he admitted that in his travels through the south he wasn’t used to seeing too many Negro cabin porters. He said it was good to see me in that position; it meant that times were changing.”

Judge went on to explain how he became a porter. It was sometime in the 1942 when he landed his first job with the railroad; the only reason he knew that was because Grandmomma Jesse was pregnant with Aunt Shirley, about two years before my father was born. Because he had come from the farming world and needed the money to support his wife and four (soon to be five) daughters, he accepted a starting position as a janitor. Eventually, he set his sights on becoming one of the porters, mostly because he needed the raise. When he asked his boss about the position he was told that he wasn’t qualified. By the way his boss responded without a second thought, he could tell they weren’t trying to make the job available to him because he was Black man that barely had an 8th grade education. In order to get that job he had be able to read as well as know all the stops on their route between Shreveport, Louisiana and Kansas City. Determined to get that position, Judge decided to train himself. Night after night, as he cleaned the offices he rummaged through the garbage and collected notes from all the office memos and read through them at home. Soon he learned what tests we required for the porter position so he began studying in secret until the day he got the job. That was how he provided for his family. His wife, Grandmomma Jesse, was a teacher that earned her Masters and eventually became a Reverend, engaged her own things like ghostwriting to support their children — but that’s another story for another time. Although Judge never explained how he learned everything necessary for the position, as I grew older and wiser over the years I came to suspect that he did it by taking manuals home at night and returning them early the next morning. Years after he passed away I ended up employing the same techniques to learn many things that I didn’t know that would enable me to land jobs I wasn’t supposed to win. Chalk it up to a genetic trait. After all, he was my father’s father.

When I returned reality, Mr. Carver’s statue was still staring my way as if lost in thought. Ever since my grandfather told me about meeting the man that took a peanut and used it to change the face of American agriculture forever, I’ve always believed that if I worked toward my dreams and goals I could make things happen, too.

The museum basement was a steamy, cramped parlor of perils dedicated to every conceivable horror Black people have endured in this since we reached these shores. It was a menagerie of brutal lynching photos that was on par with the Hall of Fame for most professional sports teams, surrounded by statistics of body counts that rivaled the total casualties from Hurricane Andrew. Since I’d already learned this aspect of Black History on my own, seeing it again was like a trip back to when I flunked pre-Algebra in 8th-grade and had to take it again in summer school — painfully uncomfortable to relive but necessary in some unseen way. The only thing that bothered me about this museum was that half the exhibits looked like strange mannequins with blank faces with unnatural skin tones and the other half were nothing short of masterpieces. Because the statues in both the slave ship and lynching galleries resembled life-size Negro lawn jockies with the facial expressions of zombies, part of me wanted to see them have the same real sense of identity like the named historical figures. After leaving the museum I figured out a possible artistic reason for these poorly done sculptures: — they weren’t being treated like humans to begin with.

Back on the bus, silence prevailed on the trip back to Virginia Beach; everyone was spent. Even Mr. Isaiah had chilled out with his Road Warrior driving tactics after he got a nap while the rest of us were inside the museum. Two movies were played during the trip back — “Pursuit of Happyness” and “Dream Girls”. “Pursuit” reminded me of my own crazy “all or nothing” business dealings over the years and how I couldn’t have made it to this point without my family. I would have been flat broke and homeless without them. “Dream Girls”, in all its musical glory, struck me as a cautionary tale about how fame and fortune can tear people apart if they’re not well-grounded, almost an extreme parody of what’s happened within the Black community since the Civil Rights movement. Although my grandfather’s story helped me understand that I could achieve the American Dream, both movies reminded me that anything could happen and if my soul wasn’t right with God, it would be easy to fall to the dark side without warning.

Back in Virginia Beach at the parking lot we departed from, everyone slowed filed off the bus and went their separate ways. Aside from being happy that we all made it back safe without incident, I felt bad because no one wanted to take up a tip collection for Mr. Isaiah. When I brought up the fact that short-changing on his tip was a very un-Christian-like thing to do, several of the WICU ladies begrudgingly began to reconsider. I took the initiative to give him a tip. He said thanks and turned it down. When I pushed the issue he said something to the effect that he’d be alright and that if the customer wasn’t satisfied he didn’t deserve a tip. Although his name would live in infamy among the WICU ladies, I have to admit I had to respect the man — he was a brotha that lived by a code and stuck to it.

A little later I went to my favorite watering hole to begin my late night writing ritual and organize my thoughts for this blog entry. The first thing I glanced at was my backpack as I dug out my PDA and sketchbook as I glanced around the bar — it was wrapped with with chatty people of all races but still sparse, mostly filled employees that just got off work from nearby restaurants. Bob Marley’s “Redemption” song eased its way into the music mix, something that prompted me to dedicate my first drink to those ancestors that got us here. I miss my grandparents but I won’t get into that now. This blog is already long as hell and I didn’t want to get misty-eyed while sitting in a bar.

After watching Harriet Tubman’s ghost speak at a church along the Underground Railroad and see tunnels slaves probably had to crawl through to get in and out, walking through the remains of one of the biggest slave plantations in the South, seeing images of past lynchings, perils endured by escaped slaves, the various tools of inhumane punishment and revisiting my late grandfather and George Washington Carver, I felt a renewed sense of pride. When visions of my grandparents — Ford and Essie, Judge and Jesse — came to mind, I was overwhelmed with a feeling of invincibility. Somehow my family lines survived it all to raise me and my younger brothers — and based on our mindsets, had we been born just a few generations earlier I was pretty sure we would have lived very different lives — nowhere near the comparatively easy lives we enjoy today. Even in the worst way, this was a reminder to be proud of my bittersweet heritage AND the life here in America. Today I’m free, or as Sly Stone once said in a song, at least in my mind if I want to be.

On my backpack I always keep an antique skeleton key hanging from one of the zippers. An older computer hacker associate gave it to me 20 years ago, shortly before he vanished without a trace. Since then it has always served as a reminder that I can always retain my personal freedom no matter what the circumstances are. All I had to do is put my mind and heart into it.

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]]> http://www.bgpublishing.com/bgp/juneteenth-judges-story-and-mr-isaiahs-immaculate-bus-a-strange-trip-back-into-my-black-experience/feed/ 0 http://www.bgpublishing.com/bgp/memorial-day-reflections-and-thoughts-of-the-missing-bell/ http://www.bgpublishing.com/bgp/memorial-day-reflections-and-thoughts-of-the-missing-bell/#comments Mon, 28 May 2007 22:36:26 +0000 Max Nomad http://www.bgpublishing.com/bgp/?p=104

It’s a balmy 77 degrees this morning, expected to rocket into the 90s within a few hours. There’s alot going on in the area but chances are I’ll skip most of it. The heat, the crowds, and the hoopla seem to have much less appeal with each passing year. There’s a Sopranos marathon being shown on A&E and something tells me I’ll probably be watching it off and on and reading up on writing screenplays until after sunset.

Memorial Day to me, for whatever reason, always comes with a combination of optimistic Summer expectations and a hint of reflective melancholy for simpler times and those who couldn’t be here. Of course there are marches here and there to honor the fallen vets but what I never hear about are the other casualties of war — some of the vets who returned psychologically and emotionally scarred from putting their lives on the line and their families and marriages that ultimately paid the price.

I think back to Memorial Day weekend, 1975. My father was a Chief Petty Officer on the USS Belknap at the time. He was in his early 30s and most of the guys under his command were in their late teens to early 20s. That weekend he decided to have a cookout and invite all his friends, my adopted uncles and aunts, and his guys. Everyone partied like, well, like sailors. Blow-out afros, women wearing shorts and skirts with pretty legs, and dudes with open-chest shirts with most of the buttons undone. Funk, Jazz and Soul music seemed to be everywhere I went, inside and out. Beer and booze was flowing. Anything that ever had feathers, fins or hooves ended up on the grill.  There were even a few people smoking joints here and there, including enlisted men and a couple of people I’d swear were officers at the time. As some of the guys got nice and wasted, they began to relive sea stories about their collective adventures while on shore leave in different countries. I remember that in more than a few of the tales there was a drunken brawl of some sort and my father would end up jumping into it to pull his guys out of the fire, get them safely back to the ship, or in some other way scramble to pull one of them out of trouble. By that time they didn’t care that I was a 6-year old kid hanging out listening to the unadulterated mayhem of grown folks, although anytime my mother or father walked up on a conversation they’d send me to my room. Once they were gone I would sneak back in to listen to their stories, and they had no problem telling them with me around, almost as if I was a little brother in some strange way out of respect for my father. The next morning I remember walking downstairs to watch PBS, the only pre-cable TV source of children’s shows on a Sunday, and discovered that most of his guys had just passed out wherever they found a spot — on the floor, on the couches, in chairs, in doorways, and even on the patio.

I don’t remember whether it was days or weeks later but the next thing I recall is the Belknap heading back out to sea for what seemed like it would be forever. Unlike today where there’s instant communication through the Internet, I remember we, as in Navy families, were lucky if we could speak to our loved ones once every month or so. Since a 10-minute international phone call was more expensive than some utility bills, letters were the cheapest way to go. The seasons had gone from Summer to Fall. Thanksgiving was a few days away. My mother, little brother Jason and I were over at Aunt Montrose’s house. Jason and I were downstairs playing and watching TV when a news bulletin flashed across the screen, something involving the Belknap. I didn’t fully understand what was being said but it also involved The John F Kennedy and I could tell by the news anchor’s expression that it wasn’t good. When I ran upstairs to tell the adults they thought I had seen one of the “Bicentennial Minutes”, on which the Belknap was supposed to be featured at some point. I kept repeating that it wasn’t one of the Bicentennial Minutes and that something bad had happened. My adamant attempts to get them to take me seriously were brushed off as the mistaken musings of a then 7-year old boy. The problem was that I didn’t catch all of news cast to repeat it verbatim. Had I remembered the word “collision” it would have put everything into perspective.

As it turned out, the U.S.S. Belknap (a guided missile cruiser) and the U.S.S. John F Kennedy (a supercarrier, the largest of the aircraft carriers) had collided just off the coast of Sicily, Italy. A few days had passed before we got confirmation that my father was alive and well. Soon after that all the men were flown back to one of the local Naval bases. I was the first to run up and jump into my father’s arms and, somehow, that was the first time I’d sensed that he wasn’t the same man he was when he left. In the days and months to come I learned that it was my father’s men were on watch that night and were the first to begin fighting the fires when it happened. They also comprised most of the seven casualties on the Belknap side, many of the very same faces that had been partying at the house that past Memorial Day.

These days, the doctors probably would have diagnosed my father and many others from that fateful trip with some form of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder shortly after they returned home. I’m almost positive of this because my father was never the same after that. Without getting too deep with the family dirty laundry, a few years later my parents separated, the beginning of a long ugly divorce and my brothers and I growing up alienated from our father for years. Echoes of those times constantly remind me that every military casualty has collateral damage, sometimes that carries on for years, the kind that is rarely acknowledged at the parades.

My father rescued the Ship’s Bell from the wreckage, smuggled it back stateside, had it acid-dipped and re-engraved, and placed it inside of a custom-made maple cabinet. Along with the court marshal of Captain Shaffer, the Navy searched high and low for the bell amidst rumors and speculation. As far as I know, the missing Belknap bell is probably among one of the US Navy’s longest running unsolved mysteries. Outside of maybe answering a question or two about the incident itself, my father never talked about the fires or his lost comrades again. Their memories reside in the bell cabinet, beneath the bell in his last Belknap yearbook on a memorial page for the seven Belknap casualties and one on the Kennedy.

So, for this Memorial Day, I also dedicate my thoughts and prayers to the families and friends who were forever affected by loved ones who were lost or wounded in the U.S. military in service to our country.

Among the tenets that most psychologists embrace as self-evident, the negative effects of media violence on children holds a special place. Virtually every major professional organization concerned with the development of children has issued an unequivocal policy statement about the harmful effects of violent media. (Crooks, Media Violence)

As of this writing, most adults know that violence in the media has a negative effect on our youth, a fact that makes the quote in Crook’s review of Freedman’s book seem almost remedial. Thousands of studies have been done in the name of addressing this issue and, more often than not, their findings illustrated that unchecked violence in the media does have a negative effect on children under 17. This brings up another question that tends to remain marginally addressed within the whole equation: What has caused this heightened media attention to violence in the media as it pertains to our youth? Is it a proverbial case of Art imitating Life or Life imitating Art? Is it a case of Marshall McLuhan’s prophetic statement “The Medium is the Message” coming to fruition in that the effect of the message totally depends upon the medium by which it is conveyed? Media violence as a topic of research is often hotly contested because the type of study that would satisfy its skeptics cannot realistically be done. For ethical and pragmatic purposes, researchers cannot randomly assign one group of children to media intake filled with violence and the other group without and study their behavior well into adulthood. As a result, researchers have found other methodologies and tools to use to work around this problem to gather their data. Despite methodological flaws and inconsistencies in some studies, further research is fast proving that a large part of the problem rests not on the side of the imitation of Life or Art: The cause of violence in the media as it affects today’s youth is mostly rooted in one thing—money.

Aggressive behavior is promoted through media violence in a variety of ways, mostly through imitation. Psychologists and behaviorists over the years have done countless studies that illustrate how children learn to do things by observing others and prone to imitate aggressive behavior as seen on television or in movies. It has been heavily debated whether or not imitating of aggression in the form of play is detrimental. “One such study, conducted in Israel (Lemish, 1997), documented an “epidemic” of playground injuries that resulted when children imitated the violent moves made by protagonists on World Wrestling Federation programs (now World Wrestling Entertainment) after they became available in that country.” (Cantor & Wilson, 365)

Aside from cases of basic imitation, violence portrayed in the media typically manifests itself through “unrealistic and unhealthy attitudes towards violence and aggression”. (Cantor & Wilson, 366). According to Bandura and other psychologists, social cognitive theory states that its viewers learn which actions are effective and which are rewarded, resulting in an understanding of which outcomes are positive versus negative. Those responses that are deemed negative in terms of their consequences are not as likely to be imitated by the viewer. There are other factors that come into play as well such as desensitization, heightened levels of unfocused hostile feelings, and etc. The list goes on but that is not the primary focus of this essay.

Media And Juvenile Violence: The Connecting Threads, a study published by Nieman Reports, surveyed the incidence of news stories focused on violent crimes committed by perpetrators under the age of 18. It’s findings provided stark yet insightful survey of the affects of violence in the media and youth. Highlights from this report include the following statistics:

• 336% = the percentage increase in coverage of homicide on NBC, ABC, and CBS nightly news between 1990 and 1995. During this time, homicide arrests dropped by 13%.
• 99% = the percent of violent deaths of children that occurred outside of school grounds (1992-94).
• 90% = the percentage of murdered children under the age of 12 who are killed by adults (1996).
• 85% = the percentage of communities that recorded no juvenile homicides (1995).
• 75% = the percentage of murdered youths between the ages of 12-17 who are killed by adults (1996).

(Source: Media And Juvenile Violence: The Connecting Threads, Nieman Reports)

Ironically, this report also presented that the number of homicides committed by children under the age of 13 occurred less frequently in 1996 than they did in 1965. Although these findings on the surface may appear startling because they deal with youth, there were many important lessons to be learned about how violence—particularly juvenile violence—has influenced the way that people perceive the problem of youth and crime:

• News coverage of crime stories increased drastically while actual crime has remained relative consistent or even decreased during the same time periods.
• On network nightly news during the 1990’s, crime became the number one story covered. In local news markets, crime stories filled 25 to 33 percent of the total news stories.
• According to the Media And Juvenile Violence report’s public surveys, most people perceived crime as ‘rampant’ in their communities primarily because of news stories—although many of those surveyed also considered these crimes as happening “outside of their neighborhoods”.
• Media portrayals of youth violence were mostly filled with images of African-American and Latino youth.
• During the period being studied, more than two-thirds of violent crime coverage was focused on juveniles while, in actuality, people under 18 were responsible for less than 15 percent of the violence.
• While the media targeted youth violence and juvenile delinquency, their reports were disproportionately focused on homicide—which was the least common crime committed by people under the age of 18.
• During the period of this study, 40 percent of the newspaper stories about children were related to violence; only 25 percent were related to education.

Upon initial review, these findings may cause some to lean towards a split conclusion regarding the effects of violence in the media and youth. Is this a case of the media presenting more youth-related crime stories as a means of increasing their ratings and, as a result, increase advertising revenue? Are these findings indicators that sensationalism versus statistics are the true source of this social phenomena? Although these are valid questions heralded by most skeptics, this report was followed by another large-scale government-funded report a few years later that would serve to authenticate previous findings and further illustrate that the affects of violence in the media were more than just a case of the media portraying society or society imitating what it sees in the media.

In September of 2000, The Federal Trade Commission released its report “Marketing Violent Entertainment To Children: A Review Of Self-Regulation And Industry Practices In The Motion Picture, Music Recording & Electronic Game Industries”. The report’s findings regarding the marketing of violent entertainment material by the industry included the following:

• 80 percent of the 44 examined movies that were rated R for violence were targeted at children under 17. Marketing plans for 64 percent of those films contained verbiage that expressed the films target audience included children under 17. Seven of those even indicated plans to do such things as promote these films in high schools or publications with a large juvenile readership.
• Of the 55 music recordings with explicit content labels, all targeted children under 17. Marketing plans for 27 percent of those blatantly identified juveniles as part of their target audience. While the remaining explicit-content labeled recordings did not expressly state the age of the target audience, their plans indicated they were advertising in media that would reach a substantial percentage of juveniles.
• Of the 118 electronic games with a Mature rating for violence, 70 percent targeted children under 17. The marketing plans for 51 percent of those games expressly included juveniles in their target audience and the rest showed plans to advertise in magazines or on television shows with a majority or substantial under-17 audience.
• Most retailers made little effort to restrict children’s access to products with violent content.

A few years prior to the release of the FTC’s report, the federal government had already approached key organizations within the entertainment industry regarding violence and explicit content and minors. This led to the creation of the V-chip and a new television rating system.
Despite its name, the V-chip is not a single chip at all, but a combination of different technologies. All television programs currently have the capacity to carry extra information–like closed captioning–as well as sound and pictures. An electronic circuit in a television or cable box can be designed to block programs by reading a numerical code broadcast along the same band used for closed captioning. (Balkin, Media Filters) This gave parents the ability to use a remote control to lock out programs or channels based on the ratings data.

Youth and Crime: The Current Statistics:

According to reports by victims, in 2003 the serious violent crime offending rate was 15 crimes per 1,000 juveniles ages 12–17, totaling 375,000 such crimes involving juveniles. While this is higher than the rate in 2002, it is a 71 percent drop from the 1993 peak. (Childstats.gov, Youth Victims)

Since 1996, there has been a steady decline in youth-perpetrated violent crimes. Even in the unrelated yet equally relevant area of teen pregnancy there was a noticeable drop. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, birth rates for single women under 20 fell between 1994 and 2002; for teens between the ages of 15 to 17 their rates fell more than 33% from 32 to 21 per 1000. Is it more than coincidence that the drops in these numbers correlate to the implementation of the V-chip and stricter enforcement of ratings standards? Maybe. At the same time there have been many other factors that have come into play such as stricter gun-control laws, greater attention to warning signs in troubled youth, increased security due to world events, and etc. Ultimately there are too many variables involved to make an objective ruling on the reasons for these declines.

The fact that the V-chip emerged in 1997 and the FTC’s findings were done and released in 2000 leads to an unsettling conclusion all its own – even with the concessions made by the MPAA and other entertainment organizations to assist the federal government in creating stricter standards to protect children under 17, many media companies within those same organizations continued to target a high percentage of their mature content to minors.

With the thousands of studies that have been conducted, aside from the sometimes-contradictory nature of their results, there are two common threads that most scientists, psychologists and sociologists can probably agree upon:

Crooks, C. Media Violence and its Effect on Aggression: Assessing the Scientific Evidence by Jonathon Freedman. Online Book Review. EBSCO.

Doi, D. Media And Juvenile Violence: The Connecting Threads. Online. EBSCO. Nieman Reports, 00289817, Winter 98, Vol. 52, Issue 4

Federal Trade Commission. (2000). Marketing violent entertainment to children: A review of self-regulation and industry practices in the motion picture, music recording & electronic game industries. Washington, DC: Author. http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2000/09/youthviol.htm

Cantor, J. & Wilson, B.J. Media and Violence: Intervention Strategies for Reducing Aggression. Online. EBSCO. MEDIA PSYCHOLOGY, 2003, Vol. 5 Issue 4, pp363–403

Balkin, J.M. Media Filters and the V-Chip– Part I. Edited Version Originally Published in 45 Duke L. J. 1133 (1996). http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/jbalkin/articles/vchip01.htm

Youth Victims and Perpetrators of Serious Violent Crime. Childstats.gov (sponsored by Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics)
http://www.childstats.gov/americaschildren/beh4.asp

> Chivalry — pulling out chairs to seat woman, rising when she excuses
> herself to the restroom, the art of clearing the way through a crowd
> with one arm while gently cradling the woman with the other, among
> other things — will go the way of the curtsy, rendered irrelevant by
> men who do not know how to accomplish it and women who do
> not appreciate it.

For what it’s worth, many of those “chivalrous” things men do (or did) for women like pulling out chairs and opening doors and such originally had nothing to do with some higher manhood code of conduct. Most of these originated in Europe and came to the Americas as the result of four words from the 16th through 19th centuries that most of us men have never heard of: Farthingales, Panniers, Crinolines, and Bustles. In plain English, “women were wearing huge frilly hoop dresses supported by undergarments that were often stiff and uncomfortable”.

Back then, the wealthier the woman, the bigger and more elaborate her dresses tended to be, especially when attending social functions. Because of the styles of dresses, women actually needed doors opened for them, assistance taking a seat or standing up from a table, or climbing in or out of stagecoaches. In those social settings, since all the women were dressed this way, it was a man nearby who would provide this assistance. This form of assistance somehow got labeled as a part of “chivalry” because the men in those high social settings had often had been raised with various etiquette protocols, college educated, and had social status and wealth (or they were servants working for such people). The wealth of the man also explains the “man pays for everything” aspect, too. Commoners (working class men and women) often didn’t readily know or do some of these “chivalrous” things for women because the women usually couldn’t afford those elaborate dresses, thus they didn’t need assistance.

Eventually the fashion trends faded away, the traditions continued and the “why” of these actions was lost and replaced with “this is what men are supposed to do”, especially after being adopted by minorities in the late 19th and 20th centuries. The traditions were socially perceived as part of what wealthy (or prosperous), culturally-refined men do. Fast forward to the introduction of social changes like Women’s Lib and current women’s fashions and many of these “chivalrous” activities seem archaic or completely useless, sometimes even a cause of static because some women are fiercely independent and consider it demeaning.

With all that said, I still open doors for women and sometimes for men, too, just to be polite. If I’m driving, I always open the passenger door for a woman that’s riding with me before I get in. I’ll pay for everything on a date only if I offer to do so — and she accepts my offer. And if I’m at a formal event with a woman I’ll pull her chair out once we arrive at the table. The thing I’ve learned is that if you’re a man and you don’t do these things consistently just because you’re a gentleman, don’t do them just to impress a woman you’re dating. Most women will see right through that sooner or later and it’ll make you look bad when you “stop being polite and start being real”. Even Saddam Hussein could look like Prince Charming by opening a door or two for a lady.

NOTE: For the sake of word economy and sheer laziness, throughout this article I’ll be taking advantage of two literary devices — Poker slang and using forms of the generic pronoun “he” to describe most players. Poker has a subculture that has traditionally had its own slowly-evolving lexicon. These words and phrases would often require entire paragraphs to describe the concepts behind them. Unless specified, it will be assumed that the reader is already familiar with the lingo.

Saturday, October 31st, 2009, 7:14am; I woke up a bit disoriented at first, slow to make sense of an unseasonably warm morning so overcast that sunrise seemed permanently on hold. Soon I recalled that I’d been awake most of the night revising notes from my Atlantic City, NJ trip for use in this piece. I had gone up to the city on a brief vacation with the intention of playing a lot of Poker. I ended up with a bunch of observations and helpful (and sometimes cautionary) bits of advice. A blog entry? Close, but not quite. I never saw myself becoming one of those bloggers who thought the masses needed to follow the mundane details of my life. Anyone looking for that can find it in any one of a zillion blogs scattered across the cosmos. And when it comes to Poker there are countless blogs, mostly by players imitating sports announcers as they chronicle their own gameplay. With all the life stories I’d experienced that would make for good reading, the ones centered solely around Poker have to be the lowest on my list. That’s because most of the time The Big Poker Game itself was only a small part of the adventure – the rest was often wrapped in the Quest, everything it took to make it to the table.

One afternoon while cruising along Atlantic City’s Pacific Ave enjoying the last of the warm weather, I came to a realization: for Poker players, visiting this town for a few days without knowing what kind of action to expect at each casino is a quick way to waste precious time and money. Thanks to my business interests back home suffering from the effects of the economy, I didn’t exactly come to town strapped with a Baller’s bankroll. That’s when I decided to save my money and scope out several of the Poker rooms to better plan future trips. My notes have evolved into this blog-primer. It’s intended for any Poker fans that have never had the casino experience, particularly seasoned Internet players.

Who am I in the Wide, Wide World of Poker, to be writing this article?

I’m just someone that loves the game. I see it as both a fun past time and appreciate the practice of sharpening the necessary skills as a sort of mental Martial Art form. As far as my Poker achievements are concerned, there really isn’t much to tell. I’ve lived in Virginia Beach most of my life and almost every type of gambling-for-money is still considered illegal here in Virginia. Since 2003 I’ve logged more than a conservative 1900 hours of Poker play; over 95% of that being online in low-limit cash games, play money games, and various tournaments (Sit-n-Gos, Freerolls, etc). I’ve won and placed in a respectable number of those SnGs and tournaments with no major awards to date. The rest of my play has been in a sprinkling of friendly home games, small freebie tourneys, a few cash games at underground spots between Hampton Roads and Washington DC, a couple of Louisiana riverboat casinos, and more recent ventures into Atlantic City. My games of choice include Texas Hold’em, Omaha Hi-Lo, 7-card Stud Hi-Lo, Razz, and HORSE with my preference being Omaha. Aside from avid play, my study of Poker theory has come from books compiled by great minds such as Sklansky & Malmuth, Brunson, Caro, Jones, Zee and others. I’m still a long way from reaching a Howard Lederer or Phil Ivey status, but I’m not some blissfully ignorant shark bait, either.

Poker, the Casino’s Bastard Son:

For anyone that has never played in a casino, the first thing to keep in mind is that not all casinos have Poker rooms — and for each casino with a Poker room, not all of them have the same types of Poker games and limits. To the best of my understanding, this can be attributed to three important factors:

1. the size (and availability) of a casino’s Poker room is proportional to the amount of sustained interest from their guests.
2. When it comes to tables and ante limits, Poker rooms tend to use a “get in where you fit in” approach in regards to what they offer that Poker rooms at other casinos don’t.
3. Poker rooms aren’t nearly as [directly] profitable for the average casino as the other games.

How so you might ask? For starters, with all the other casino games there’s something called the House Advantage – the predictable long-term advantage for the casino, or “House” that exists while offering players the possibility of winning a large short-term payout. Your slot machine players love slots because they can put their money in, play without thinking, be entertained by the lights and noises and occasionally luck into some money. Same thing applies to Craps, Roulette, Baccarat, Keno and so on. As for Blackjack and other table card games where the players are up against the house, even though there is some degree of skill that can be legally used to minimize the House Advantage (not including card counting), most of the time it’s not enough to be a long-term factor that will cause the casino to lose money. The bottom line is that the same ultimate fate awaits the average player that doesn’t know how to quit while ahead – the House Advantage means that for every single player that wins a sizable payout, there are countless others who won money and eventually lost every bit of it back to the house (and then some).

Now, when it comes to Poker, there is no such thing as a House Advantage. Players don’t play their game against the House – they play against other players at the table. No matter what the limit is, at each table the House makes their money off of the rake, a few chips at a time off of each winning hand. To the average casino guest this might not sound like much but it’s a big deal for many reasons. This fact makes Poker the most profitable game in the casino, particularly for the disciplined player.

Since we’ve established the ‘why’ behind Poker rooms, here’s what it means: Every kind of player – from Chris “Jesus” Ferguson to Kris Kringle – eventually plays long enough to graduate from their home games to test their skills at playing in the casino Poker rooms. Think of it as the equivalent of being a teenager that picks up a guitar with the intent of getting good enough to join a successful band and live out his Rock-n-Roll Fantasy. This factor alone creates an atmosphere unlike anything you’ll experience in any other part of a casino. Whether the antes are at $1 or $10k, the level of competition at the tables has a medieval intrigue best compared to what would happen if you were able to take the colorful personality types of 15th century fighters such as the Samurai, Caribbean Pirate, Spanish Conquistadore and Zulu warrior and put them all in a room with the same number of ordinary people and armed everyone with chips. Even though the game is normally driven by bloodless aggression these days, it’s that flair and pure intensity that always separates the sharks from the fish.

Getting to Atlantic City:

If you’re thinking about hitting Atlantic City and money really isn’t that big a deal, skip this section. Getting there is relatively easy and you can afford it. Getting there cheaply and safely is a whole different story. I’ll use Virginia Beach/Norfolk as a example starting point because we’re almost at the midway point along the east coast:

Not including pit stops, the trip by car would take roughly 6 to 7 hours going along the Eastern Shore up Route 13; if going by I-95, add an easy 2 hours and a bottle of Tylenol. For a round-trip flight, prices start at anywhere from $190 to $550, depending. There are two airports supporting Atlantic City, NJ (codes: ACY and AIY). My local airport, Norfolk International Airport (ORF), doesn’t have direct flights to either one. Those prices I quoted were as if I was flying out of Atlanta, GA. Hopefully you will have better luck in your area.

Getting to AC by Amtrak train is a losing proposition, too. From here I’d have to catch the train by 6am and would arrive at the station there in AC about 3:30pm. If that 9.5 hour trip seems like a deal breaker, the nearly 14 hour trip by Greyhound bus would be downright laughable.

My favorite means of getting to Atlantic City is by way of a chartered bus with a group of people. Check around with friends and family members that are in their 50s and older. Many of them are either in civic/service/social organizations or knows someone who is a member. My mother, aunt and uncle, and I took advantage of one of these group trips for about $195 each (round-trip, hotel room, small chip comp to get you started and a complimentary meal). The bus left around 7am, leisurely stopped for breakfast and lunch and bathroom breaks, and arrived in AC about 4pm. We could have been there earlier but our rooms weren’t going to be ready until after 3pm. Even with the little extra I paid to get a room to myself, I had spent less for the entire package than I would have just for the plane ticket – and still arrived here well before dark. Thanks to traveling with a group of retirees, the hotel unloaded all our luggage and practically delivered them to our rooms. Who knows, if you make an announcement on the bus you just might find another Poker player or two to run with you.

Accommodations:

We stayed at the Atlantic City Hilton Casino Resort Hotel. My room had a beautiful view overlooking the boardwalk and beach. There was practically no one on the sand at any given time of day, only tire tracks from unmarked trucks that had turned the sand a battleship gray. Later I would come to find out that only tourists frequented the boardwalk and the patrols were there to keep the junkies and vagrant predators from feeding on them.

Compared to some other casino hotels along the strip, the Hilton is a bit like a retirement community with slot machines, Blackjack, and Craps tables. If you’re one of those travelers like me who prefers the option to be able to play in one place and sleep in another place, this kind of arrangement is perfect. If I had come to this hotel solely for the Poker action I’d read about in one of the Hilton’s recent online press kits (Poker room with 22 tables set aside for Hold’em, 7-card stud, and Omaha), I would’ve felt thoroughly misled. Later I’ll discuss more about how this and other factors inspired me to disregard the casino websites and check out the various Poker rooms for myself. As of this writing, the closest thing the Hilton has to real Poker action were two Hold’em tables (that operated only on the weekends), and table games like Caribbean 3-card Stud, 4-card. The Poker room had long since been converted to an Asian Game Room set aside for Pai Gow, Che Deng, and other table tile games so exotic that most westerners would need chopsticks, a Cantonese interpreter and a passport just to get in on the action.

The Tropicana:

I arrived at The Tropicana’s Poker room about 3:30am and, to my surprise, there were only three tables up and running – half the activity I saw around the same time of night on my last visit about a year earlier. With my trips to AC, I’ve found the Trop to be a great first destination on the path to finding casino Poker action. Right on the Boardwalk and in a building that can probably be seen from orbit, this casino resort is not only easy to find but has over 20 restaurants and more amenities than I’ll ever have time to explore. I’ve actually talked with gamblers and business execs alike who arrive here and go for days at a time without setting foot outside. And as a low-limit player (i.e. – being a regular-guy on a regular-guy vacation budget due to earning regular-guy income) the best thing I love about the Trop is that there’s always some kind of action I can afford, whether it’s the buy-in to some game or a tournament.

During the day, this Poker room was a carnival of cards, chips and chaos. As fast as players seemed to be cashing out or walking away broke, someone else was joining the table with a fresh rack of chips. Even with all 35 tables running full-bore with the turnover rate of a Burger King drive-thru, the wait for some games was still an hour or more. And as if there wasn’t enough sensory-overload to contend with just focusing on the tables, there are dozens of overhead screens set up all around the place, broadcasting every kind of sport imaginable.

Overnight, the noisy frenetic pace of the room settles down like a college drunkard after an all-day binge. For me, anytime between midnight and sunrise was the best time to play. I’d spot out a soft table playing at $1/$2 or $2/$4, buy in at about $100 dollars, and often double my money or better within a couple of hours before leaving. I figured if the scene was to be anything like my last visit, the tables were going to prove to be somewhat loose and passive and light on conversation with a slightly international feel, thanks to around a third of the players being foreign tourists whose body-clocks still hadn’t adjusted to the local time.

If this is your first time visiting that (or any) Poker room, do yourself a favor… don’t rush to buy into a game. Having lived near the ocean all my life, I approach this much like arriving at a new beach: Take the first few minutes to relax and quietly admire the entire landscape. Be a silent railbird for a few. Hang loose. Meander around the outer edges of the tables close to the walls, checking out the pace of the games at each table. Nonchalantly size up the players. Just like with a real beach, it won’t take you long to spot out the Rocks and dangerous surf. Once you’ve got a fix on them you’ll pick up on the Sharks pretty quickly from there. They’ll be playing into the Fish trying to exploit weaknesses, particularly loose calls from tipsy tourists trying to chase down runner runner hands or Maniacs trying to gamble and get lucky with junk. Ultimately, all this will help you to decide whether or not these waters (i.e. – the table) will merely be a challenge for you or too rough to mess with based on your current Poker skills.

Originally I went there with the hopes of getting into an Omaha Hold’em Hi-Lo game. There weren’t any. The last time I played at the Trop’s Poker room there were mostly Texas Hold’em games with a few 7-card Stud and HORSE tables running, too. A floorman informed me that it was now all Texas Hold’em, mostly No-Limit ranging from $1/$2 up to $10/$20 antes and $40 dollar buy-in tournaments at 11am and 7pm. When I asked about Omaha he gave me a somewhat puzzled look then advised that I check out the Trump Taj Mahal or the Borgata. The larger the casino, the larger the Poker room, the higher the stakes and the greater the chance of finding different types of games running – all of which is driven by popular demand.

Since I was already there and only had $100 dollars on me, I decided to buy-in at a $1/$2 ante No-Limit Texas Hold’em table. After the first few hands it didn’t take long to figure out that I had not only misread the action at that table, but the room as a whole that night.

Unlike the last time I’d played at the Trop, this table was much quieter. There wasn’t any random friendly small talk from drunks, tourists or recreational players. Aside from the bets there was only the soft ambient sound of chips in motion as it surrounded us like supermarket Muzak. Chips shifting. Stacking. Being shuffled and twirled by idle hands. The first of two epiphanies hit me – like a clueless tourist I had sat down at a table full of Grinders. A few aggressive showdowns later, I connected with the second stomach-churning truth – most of them were looking at me like I was the Sucker at the table, a fish named Nemo that had swam into their shark-infested waters.

Now, here is where I must make an exception and actually elaborate on some Poker slang. Among avid Poker players, a Grinder (also known as a Rounder) is a person that makes his living playing anywhere that he can find action — casinos, cardrooms, home games, etc. Because the losses and financial swings can be brutal, they tend to stick to textbook conservative plays, winning small pots over long periods of time and grinding their unsuspecting opponents down. In an almost surgical fashion, accomplished Rounders tend to work low-limit and medium-limit tables like slaughterhouse butchers seeking out sheep to skin. Often their goal is to support themselves, tuck some winnings away, and build up a bankroll large enough so they can move on to high stakes games and tournaments.

Finding myself at a table with a bunch of Grinders was the farthest thing from my plans for this trip. Yeah, I could have moved to another table or cashed out, but I didn’t. Being able to click around online Poker sites in search of easy tables had spoiled me; I knew I needed some real-world practice. When it was my turn to act during the first hand, I paused to count chips before I placed my bet. I got a read on several of them as they got a read on me and the fact that I don’t physically handle Poker chips too often. That’s why they started in with the heavy aggression, treating me like the Sucker de jour. I also didn’t want them to catch on that I was an online player, either. I knew if I played it right I could put a hurtin’ on a few of their chip stacks before they figured me out – if they didn’t manage to grind down my chip stack first with re-raises and bluffs to steal my blinds.

Poker gods smiled on my game by dealing me pocket cowboys while I was on the small blind. It was the first decent starting hand I’d seen after tossing cards into the muck for over half an hour. Several others called. It took everything I had not to show a smile or anything on my face. I knew that by raising instead of just completing the bet I could possibly cause the others to fold and buy the pot.

As a side note, one of the things I’d noticed after playing in a few casino ring games and tourneys is that you’ll see many faces come and go but the only ones that will stick with you are the ones who beat you out of a lot of chips. From this session at the Trop, I’ll never forget the man that had just sat down to my immediate left. Not because he reeked of beer-sweat and Camel cigarettes… Not because he looked and dressed like Josh Brolin’s character in the movie “No Country for Old Men”… Not even because the jailhouse tatt on his forearm partially covered what looked like a souvenir from a crazed knife fight… but because when the bet came back around to me, I raised the ante to match the pot — and instead of folding, he didn’t hesitate to push his chip stack forward and say “All-in”.

[to be continued]