On prior trips my buddy Bill and I have gotten to know Al, a regular at the Flamingo poker room. He used to do commercials because he passed as a look-a-like Al Molinaro from The Odd Couple and from Happy Days. He met and worked with the woman who used to ask, “Where’s the Beef.”
I sat next to Al on two different days.
He quoted Shakespeare and spoke in German when a young German sat to the left of me. He has a great memory for poetry.
But Al was rude. He is still mad about the war. He was in Italy and said the Italians hated the Germans where he was because the Germans were ruthless to Italians. I did not like his talk, but I don’t think the young German paid any attention.
Al is old, and his social filters are wearing thin.
I got him to sing a verse of, "Du, Du Liegst mir im hertzen" and sang along with him. The young German had not heard that old song.
Al can't play long because he can’t sit too long on his hip.
At the freerolls Al had won two entries to World Series events, but thought he might be able to get $1500 for them.
He just can't play that long.
Once we were waiting for a freeroll and Al told me more of his life. He loved his wife, and he is proud that he was always faithful. She left him a certificate left after she died that praised him as a husband. He said it was more important than his doctorate.
He showed me photographs of his wife; it was a photo with some bit of filter that made it soft and silver. In the photgraph she was in a show girl bathing suit,
young and beautiful, a performer. She worked and put him through his doctorate. He showed me photos of his current girlfriend too, another beauty who is a young 83.
She sure looked good too.
In one photo she posed by a collector's car that was worth $350,000. Her husband had three or four and left them to her when he died.
Al had been reading the NY Times and talked about an article on a change in Argentina law that made it easy to legally change your gender.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/05/argentina-gender-identity-law-takes-effect_n_1570830.html
It got him going on how much the world had changed in just these last few decades as compared to the lack of change for many generations before.
Al is one of those interesting characters that fill the poker rooms in Vegas.
I sat next to Al on two different days.
He quoted Shakespeare and spoke in German when a young German sat to the left of me. He has a great memory for poetry.
But Al was rude. He is still mad about the war. He was in Italy and said the Italians hated the Germans where he was because the Germans were ruthless to Italians. I did not like his talk, but I don’t think the young German paid any attention.
Al is old, and his social filters are wearing thin.
I got him to sing a verse of, "Du, Du Liegst mir im hertzen" and sang along with him. The young German had not heard that old song.
Al can't play long because he can’t sit too long on his hip.
At the freerolls Al had won two entries to World Series events, but thought he might be able to get $1500 for them.
He just can't play that long.
Once we were waiting for a freeroll and Al told me more of his life. He loved his wife, and he is proud that he was always faithful. She left him a certificate left after she died that praised him as a husband. He said it was more important than his doctorate.
He showed me photographs of his wife; it was a photo with some bit of filter that made it soft and silver. In the photgraph she was in a show girl bathing suit,
young and beautiful, a performer. She worked and put him through his doctorate. He showed me photos of his current girlfriend too, another beauty who is a young 83.
She sure looked good too.
In one photo she posed by a collector's car that was worth $350,000. Her husband had three or four and left them to her when he died.
Al had been reading the NY Times and talked about an article on a change in Argentina law that made it easy to legally change your gender.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/05/argentina-gender-identity-law-takes-effect_n_1570830.html
It got him going on how much the world had changed in just these last few decades as compared to the lack of change for many generations before.
Al is one of those interesting characters that fill the poker rooms in Vegas.
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