There’s an oft repeated truism that all those fine and fancy hotels in Las Vegas were not built by charitable organizations.
Well that new 300-room hotel at Sault Saint Marie wasn’t either. We gambling losers (is that redundant?) might want to urge our elected officials in Lansing to eliminate the Saint from the names of our two gambling meccas . . . Saint Ignace and Sault Saint Marie. Or is that a job for the Pope?
I don’t believe there is a single gambling attraction in all of Nevada with the name Saint attached, or even hinted at.
However, when I got ‘Mean? (her own description) Mary Jean Hansen’s invitation to join others on the Oxford Parks and Recreation gambling outing I signed up. For the next month I spent many waking hours memorizing others? lucky numbers and trying to reverse the losing attitude I have at casinos.
Side note: Mary Jean is a very organized organizer. She takes care of busloads of people on an individual basis.
Anyway, I gleaned one questioning statement from fellow sufferer John LaLone: ‘It’s hard to believe we treated the Indians so badly they would do this to us.?
The Indians, in this case the Chippewas, do not wait for we flatlanders to go to them. They come to get us. These Kewadin casinos have eight buses, and our driver said they are filled every day. There are six Kewadin casinos in the UP, plus they own Detroit’s Greektown Casino.
Mary Jean booked 141, three busloads, for this late March trip of hopefuls. Only ten percent were men, which raises all sorts of questions.
Our leader sets about 2-hour limits for riding without stretching, etc. McDonald’s for coffee and a K of C’ers buffet lunch in Gaylord on the way up, Ponderosa in West Branch on the way home.
We did two hours at various slot machines at the first Saint, then went to the second Saint’s new 300-room hotel/casino for the night. That night the Spartans were playing basketball on tv, so I made money – translation: I didn’t bet.
There was a total of 24 commercial buses at the Soo’s gambling joint the day we were there, one from Wisconsin.
I planned on reading any newspaper available the next day, but none were to be found within walking distance — even the convenience store across the street was closed and these casinos are not in downtowns.
My luck ran pretty good the first few hours after breakfast, up maybe a couple hundred. But, there was too much time left before the buses left and luck and odds are not on the side of the novice. Things reversed quickly. Playing left handed or right, fast or slow, the trend wouldn’t stop.
So now more Chippewas have money for children’s scholarships, family condos or dwellings of their choice, fishing boats, computers and laugh machines.
Two final notes. The hotel had the best corned beef hash I’ve ever had in a restaurant, and I came home with money.
My Tilley hat has a secret compartment which the maker recommends wearers put $10 in so they will always have some money.