This happened while we were in the military at Dyess AFB, TX. We decided to take a trip to California to see Kathy’s parents and let them see and enjoy our son Bobby. He was about one year old at the time. I told my commander that I would be driving to California and spending our first night on the road in El Paso, TX. He told me that if we happened to go across the border to Juarez to avoid the Juarez Market. I listened to his words but obviously they didn’t really register. We leave on our trip. This was in the late sixties so car seats weren’t really a thing so what we did was put a porta crib in the back seat of the car and we put Bobby in the porta crib while we were driving. Clearly this was not a great idea but it seemed to work for us. I can tell this story now because I am sure the statute of limitations has run out. I have watched a lot of the ID channel so what I am about to tell you is probably repeated in many forms on that channel with very bad outcomes. We land in El Paso, TX. We get a room at the Holiday Inn on the US side. We decide that we had to go to Juarez. So, we called the front desk and said that we wanted a babysitter for Bobby. They said they would send one to our room. We met this person and left our bouncing baby boy with this stranger who had been sent by the strangers at the Holiday Inn desk. UNBELIEVABLE that we would think this is a good idea. We called a cab and went to Juarez. We told the driver that we wanted to go somewhere where we could buy a variety of things. He stops at this large marketplace and I ask him where we were and he says that we are at “The Juarez Market”. I remembered the warning from my commander but, what the heck. We started our shopping adventure. I know in my mind that when you are at one of these markets you never pay what they ask. You always negotiate a better price. I am starting to feel anxious so when we buy things, I ask the price and without ever questioning the price I simply pay what they ask. I know that was stupid but really that was not as stupid as leaving our baby in the hands of God knows who. We start buying stuff, clearly stuff we don’t need and probably never will need and are carrying all this stuff around Juarez. We look the part of dumb clueless tourists. I didn’t want to go anywhere to eat, or to have a drink or anything else. All l wanted to do was find a cab and get back to the Holiday Inn as quickly as possible. We did get a cab and returned to the hotel. Fortunately, nothing happened, Bobby was still there, thank God and we felt extremely fortunate that our stupidity didn’t lead to anything bad.
Now whenever I am watching stories on the ID channel about human trafficking and selling babies and other terrible things, I think about what we did and how it could have turned out. Someone or something looked out for us on that particular night.
The next day we continued our trip and our next stop would be Las Vegas. We stayed at Nellis AFB, NV and did leave Bobby at the base child care center. Much safer and a much better decision. I was a second lieutenant so we really didn’t have much money. We went to the Vegas Strip and actually went to the Hilton. We started playing Blackjack. Neither of us had ever played Blackjack before. Kathy and I learned quickly and we were both doing well. My wife as it turned out seemed to have a way with gambling. She was always lucky and she always seemed to know how to bet and how to manage her money. We kept winning. At some point, Kathy started to bet more and more, and finally started betting $75 a hand. I told her not to do that. The dealer told me not to interfere. I was getting so agitated that I had to leave the table. She kept winning and for a couple that didn’t have two nickels to rub together she had won around $1500. She had decided that she would continue to bet the way she was betting until she lost three consecutive hands. She finally did and the end result was that she won almost $2000. That was an enormous amount of money for us. Looking back, it was an unbelievable outcome. I honestly don’t think that she ever played blackjack again. We didn’t gamble much anyway until much later in life. We started playing slots at Indian Casinos in Northern California in the early 2000’s and that was pretty much it. We would go occasionally to Reno and Kathy would play Roulette and we would play slot machines but that was about it. She did have some amazing wins at very opportune times through the years. I will mention a few. One time we were in Las Vegas. We had been playing various slot machines all day. It was getting late. This was at the Venetian. As we are going to get on the elevator Kathy sees this slot machine and says that she has to play it before we go up to the room. She puts about 5 coins in the machine and hits a jackpot for $2000. Unbelievable. Another time we took my parents to Tahoe when they were visiting us. As my dad and I are checking in to Harrah’s my wife is playing these slot machines in the lobby. Before we were checked in Kathy had won $450 on one machine then went to another machine and won $300. I don’t think my mother ever got over that. The last scenario was associated with a trip that the family took to Reno. It was a ritual for us to take each of our children to Reno when they turned 21. This was the final trip and the trip was for our youngest son Jeff’s 21st birthday. We rented a 15-passenger van and had rooms at the Silver Legacy. There were approximately 12 of us. We arrived in Reno and checked into our rooms. We were going to have a nice dinner that night for everyone. Before dinner Kathy and I decided to go downstairs to the Eldorado and play roulette. She couldn’t lose. She actually won $800 on one spin. It was crazy. By the time we went to dinner she had won nearly $3000. Needless to say, Kathy’s winnings basically paid for that entire trip. There were other good fortunes for us because of Kathy’s good luck. She always seemed to have a knack for winning. Not so much for me. I enjoyed watching her do so well. She was amazing in so many ways and I truly miss her and I always will.
Some of this good fortune rubbed off. Our daughter Nanci was a redhead born on Friday the 13th. That has to mean something. Anyway, she seemed to have inherited her mother’s good luck. She like Kathy always seemed to win at the casinos. One year she was working in Oregon. She had had a meeting and was on her way home. She stopped at a casino called Seven Feathers. As she was leaving the casino to head home, she played a slot machine on the way out. She won $15,000. She put down our address as her home address and we received mail from that casino for years because of her big win. Thank you Nanci for thinking of us. The mail finally stopped after many years. It was a reminder of her good fortune.
Gambling never became a big thing for any of us. It was a fun distraction and we always enjoyed going to the casinos. In California there are many really nice Indian Casinos and I think we have visited most of them. After I retired, we were planning to visit some of these on a regular basis. Never happened because of Covid. We didn’t even leave the house for over a year during Covid. That may have been a good thing in terms of not playing slot machines, but it might have been fun to see if Kathy’s winning ways would have continued.
