My 1974 Vegas vacation
August 7th, 2015 at 11:00:45 AM
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The time was the summer of 1974. My brother Scott and I planned a quick little trip to Vegas. Well, "planned" isn't quite the right word. It was probably more of an epiphany; one of us mentioned the idea and within a half hour we're on the road. You know, the kind of thing you do when you're 21-years-old and you go there without any room, without even thinking about a room, stay up all night, gamble, have some breakfast, come back the next day. Who needs a room? For what? We're 21. Rooms are for sleeping. We're going to have fun. 70 bucks in your pocket, no change of clothes. Vegas!
$70 doesn't seem like much, you say? It is probably 250 bucks in today's money. All the strip casinos had $1 blackjack games back then I'm sure.
To be honest I don't remember much about the journey there or the gambling so I'll get to the good parts of the story that I do remember.
Forgive me for what I'm about to write. All I can say is I've changed in the past 40 years for the better.
We traveled by night. My brother had a 1966 chocolate brown Austin Healey convertible. It was cherry.
So after the drive there and the first night had become a memory, after breakfast the next morning when the weariness starts to sneak in, my brother and I looked for a place to catch a nap. We drove around and found a mortuary park on the edge of town somewhere and decide that their big spacious front lawn would make a nice soft comfortable bed for our late morning slumber. It's funny how you can sleep most places when you're tired, but laying on the grass with some kind of gnats or flying little insects buzzing around our heads, wearing the same clothes that endured a sweaty ride on the way to Vegas, somehow sleep was hopeless. Yes the ride up was a little hot and sticky; there was no air-conditioning in the Austin Healey.
People nowadays just expect there to be air conditioning in a car, but back in 1974 many cars didn't have air conditioning; especially many British cars where a lot of the time Great Britain is cold and damp. Besides, this is a convertible sports car and for many aficionados air conditioning would be anathema. The sports car ride is all that is important.
Like I said, I don't remember a lot of about the trip, just the good parts that I do remember.
So at dusk we get in the car to head back home to a suburb of Los Angeles. When it's time to turn the headlights on guess what? No headlights. We were only about 30 miles outside Vegas so back to Vegas we go. We got a cheap motel room on Las Vegas Blvd. You know, one those little motels that dot the road for a two-mile stretch south of the Hacienda (Mandalay Bay today).
No toothbrush, no change of clothes; just sleep, get up and leave.
We decided to have breakfast at the coffee shop at the MGM which was located right next to their casino. Now me and my brother weren't that good at casino games back then but there was one game we were pretty good at that we used to play called Dine and Ditch. Here's how it's played: After breakfast, as we're sitting there enjoying our coffee, we flip a coin. I lose, so my brother leaves the coffee shop first ostensibly to get something from the car. Since he's the one paying for breakfast I go to search for him to see why he's taking so long. When I find him we leave.
There's endless themes you can use when playing Dine and Ditch and nothing of course can be proven so it's a pretty foolproof scam. (I quit this scam not long after this incident; I think someone mentioned to me that the waitresses have to make up for the check when this happens. In any event I outgrew it.)
So we left the MGM (which later became Bally's after the fire in 1980). We searched for a mechanic and found one in the Naked City part of town near where the Stratosphere is located today. We left the car there to get the headlights fixed and returned around noon to pick it up. Well, in the Austin Healey there's a toggle switch for the headlights but there's some other kind of switch which operates all the electrical systems or some such thing. The mechanic that had fixed the headlights was out to lunch so my brother turned the ignition on auxiliary and worked the toggle switch up and down and showed the mechanic that was there that the headlights weren't working (of course the some-such-thing-switch that powers the electrical system was left off). We left with my brother not having to pay the bill.
Well of course the headlights were working, but then my brother remembered that he had left $38 in the glove box of the car. The money was gone. The mechanic screwed my brother and my brother screwed the mechanic. And so it is in the Naked City.
Now what? My brother and I left in the car and pulled into a nearby gas station that was closed. We pulled under their canopy that covered their pumps to get out of the searing sun. It was there that Scott confirmed that his $38 was gone but that his headlights worked. I don't recall who got the better of the exchange, my brother or the mechanic. Tit for tat. So there we were with no money and not enough gas to get home.
Back in 1974 almost all gas stations had rollup bins on the islands where the pumps are located where quarts of oil for sale are stored. I was intrigued with the rollup mechanism, grabbed the handle, lifted up, and WALLAH, 20 quarts of oil left unlocked and available for any customer free of charge. We loaded the oil into the trunk of the car and within no time found someone to give us $10 for our haul. Then with our newfound wealth we made it down to the northwest corner of Sahara and the Strip where there was a little casino. I remember that the Jolly Trolley was located in this V-shaped little strip mall back around 1978. It did not yet occupy this shopping center when we went there on this 1974 trip, but the Jolly Trolley was a well known strip bar.
So we go to this casino and I played blackjack and managed to turn our ten dollars into no dollars in about 10 minutes. Broke again.
Then I found a bank where I managed to have $100 transferred from my bank back home. I don't remember if this bank was a branch of my bank back home or not, or if the money was wired or whatnot. But I got the funds.
So without further fanfare and the top down we proceeded from Vegas to the outskirts of Barstow on a hot summer day. We decided to stop at Peggy Sue's diner. When we parked the car our hair was a scary sight; Punk had not yet caught on but we helped start the trend. Sweaty and sunburned we ambled inside for a late lunch. As we ate our food and drank our cokes my brother looks for the waitress in order to get a drink refill. She was a mature woman of about 50 and she was helping guests in another wing of the restaurant, so my brother decided to just go behind the counter to the soft drink dispenser and help himself. Well, this breach of protocol was not appreciated by our waitress who returned to our section just time to notice his transgression. Words were exchanged between the two.
Well that set the tone for our discontent, and then I ordered a piece of lemon meringue pie which fell short of my expectations. Now my brother and I were both unhappy with this culinary experience. We already had our check and on the back there was an area that said "Comments." My brother procured a pencil and begin to express his inalienable right of discontent. At that time the waitress had had enough and decided to express her inalienable right of discontent by saying to us, "We have ways of taking care of boys like you."
While the American colonists had their Boston Tea Party to vent their frustration, my brother and I had our Dine and Ditch to vent ours.
The plan was set in motion. My brother would take the car to get gas, then he'd swing the car in front of the restaurant where I, in a timely fashion, would exit the restaurant and hop in. It worked just as planned. As we're just starting to drive off the waitress flys out the door and says we forgot to pay the check. With the top of the car down my brother raises his right hand from the steering wheel to signify a waive and he says, "Goodbye, bitch." And off we go.
Well, we didn't think about it at the time, but there are only two basic ways out of Barstow, left or right. We headed left to Los Angeles. The CHP is aware of this not so arcane fact too, and a chocolate brown Austin Healey is not hard to spot. Proof of that was borne out about 10 miles outside Barstow when a vehicle with a flashing light bar came up behind us and pulled us over. We had the top of the car up at the time and the officer asked us through a loudspeaker to put our hands on the ceiling. We complied.
My brother was only 9 months older than I (I was a three-month premie) and he had a penchant for defying the law. He racked up all sorts of wants and warrants for various driving infractions and such. He got a kick out of it when he went before the judge and the DA would hold up his rap sheet and it would unfold halfway to the floor. My brother also spent some time in the can, a week here, a night there. He enjoyed playing the system. Often times when he would get a ticket he would give a false name and address and say he had no license in his possession. Then an hour after he got the ticket he would call the police and report his car as being stolen. I'm not sure how this would fly today but it flew then.
So anyway we are on the shoulder of the freeway with our hands on the ceiling of the ragtop with a CHP officer in command. We were taken to Barstow CHP headquarters where I am released but my brother was being held for various wants and warrants. I needed to come up with $400 in order to cut him loose. I was not held because Peggy Sue's declined to press charges as long as we paid our tab (which once my brother was released we did).
I have a friend named Rich who was a sergeant at George Air Force Base in Victorville. He lived off base in a new single-wide mobile home. He had pulled a low number in the draft and instead of being inducted into the army he joined the Air Force. (I believe there were 365 numbers pulled and the first 100 were called up.) As an enlisted man in the Air Force there was little chance you'd see duty that would get you killed in Vietnam. He had been in the service about three years and things were hot and heavy in Vietnam when he joined up. I myself made what I believe was the last draft in 1971 and pulled up number 300-and-something, so I was saved from the hell of the Vietnam War. My brother pulled in the 300s also.
So anyway, my friend Rich had a job moonlighting at a shoe store selling shoes and he was able to convince his boss to loan him $400 to help his friends in need. I'm not sure what excuse he used but I doubt the real circumstances of the loan were made clear to what would've probably been an unsympathetic boss. So Rich drove from Victorville to Barstow to bail out my brother. We all proceeded back to his home where he graciously provided us dinner and a place to sleep for the night. The next day we made it back home to a suburb of Los Angeles.
And so ends my brother and my not-so-typical four-day, three-night Vegas vacation in the summer of 1974.
$70 doesn't seem like much, you say? It is probably 250 bucks in today's money. All the strip casinos had $1 blackjack games back then I'm sure.
To be honest I don't remember much about the journey there or the gambling so I'll get to the good parts of the story that I do remember.
Forgive me for what I'm about to write. All I can say is I've changed in the past 40 years for the better.
We traveled by night. My brother had a 1966 chocolate brown Austin Healey convertible. It was cherry.
So after the drive there and the first night had become a memory, after breakfast the next morning when the weariness starts to sneak in, my brother and I looked for a place to catch a nap. We drove around and found a mortuary park on the edge of town somewhere and decide that their big spacious front lawn would make a nice soft comfortable bed for our late morning slumber. It's funny how you can sleep most places when you're tired, but laying on the grass with some kind of gnats or flying little insects buzzing around our heads, wearing the same clothes that endured a sweaty ride on the way to Vegas, somehow sleep was hopeless. Yes the ride up was a little hot and sticky; there was no air-conditioning in the Austin Healey.
People nowadays just expect there to be air conditioning in a car, but back in 1974 many cars didn't have air conditioning; especially many British cars where a lot of the time Great Britain is cold and damp. Besides, this is a convertible sports car and for many aficionados air conditioning would be anathema. The sports car ride is all that is important.
Like I said, I don't remember a lot of about the trip, just the good parts that I do remember.
So at dusk we get in the car to head back home to a suburb of Los Angeles. When it's time to turn the headlights on guess what? No headlights. We were only about 30 miles outside Vegas so back to Vegas we go. We got a cheap motel room on Las Vegas Blvd. You know, one those little motels that dot the road for a two-mile stretch south of the Hacienda (Mandalay Bay today).
No toothbrush, no change of clothes; just sleep, get up and leave.
We decided to have breakfast at the coffee shop at the MGM which was located right next to their casino. Now me and my brother weren't that good at casino games back then but there was one game we were pretty good at that we used to play called Dine and Ditch. Here's how it's played: After breakfast, as we're sitting there enjoying our coffee, we flip a coin. I lose, so my brother leaves the coffee shop first ostensibly to get something from the car. Since he's the one paying for breakfast I go to search for him to see why he's taking so long. When I find him we leave.
There's endless themes you can use when playing Dine and Ditch and nothing of course can be proven so it's a pretty foolproof scam. (I quit this scam not long after this incident; I think someone mentioned to me that the waitresses have to make up for the check when this happens. In any event I outgrew it.)
So we left the MGM (which later became Bally's after the fire in 1980). We searched for a mechanic and found one in the Naked City part of town near where the Stratosphere is located today. We left the car there to get the headlights fixed and returned around noon to pick it up. Well, in the Austin Healey there's a toggle switch for the headlights but there's some other kind of switch which operates all the electrical systems or some such thing. The mechanic that had fixed the headlights was out to lunch so my brother turned the ignition on auxiliary and worked the toggle switch up and down and showed the mechanic that was there that the headlights weren't working (of course the some-such-thing-switch that powers the electrical system was left off). We left with my brother not having to pay the bill.
Well of course the headlights were working, but then my brother remembered that he had left $38 in the glove box of the car. The money was gone. The mechanic screwed my brother and my brother screwed the mechanic. And so it is in the Naked City.
Now what? My brother and I left in the car and pulled into a nearby gas station that was closed. We pulled under their canopy that covered their pumps to get out of the searing sun. It was there that Scott confirmed that his $38 was gone but that his headlights worked. I don't recall who got the better of the exchange, my brother or the mechanic. Tit for tat. So there we were with no money and not enough gas to get home.
Back in 1974 almost all gas stations had rollup bins on the islands where the pumps are located where quarts of oil for sale are stored. I was intrigued with the rollup mechanism, grabbed the handle, lifted up, and WALLAH, 20 quarts of oil left unlocked and available for any customer free of charge. We loaded the oil into the trunk of the car and within no time found someone to give us $10 for our haul. Then with our newfound wealth we made it down to the northwest corner of Sahara and the Strip where there was a little casino. I remember that the Jolly Trolley was located in this V-shaped little strip mall back around 1978. It did not yet occupy this shopping center when we went there on this 1974 trip, but the Jolly Trolley was a well known strip bar.
So we go to this casino and I played blackjack and managed to turn our ten dollars into no dollars in about 10 minutes. Broke again.
Then I found a bank where I managed to have $100 transferred from my bank back home. I don't remember if this bank was a branch of my bank back home or not, or if the money was wired or whatnot. But I got the funds.
So without further fanfare and the top down we proceeded from Vegas to the outskirts of Barstow on a hot summer day. We decided to stop at Peggy Sue's diner. When we parked the car our hair was a scary sight; Punk had not yet caught on but we helped start the trend. Sweaty and sunburned we ambled inside for a late lunch. As we ate our food and drank our cokes my brother looks for the waitress in order to get a drink refill. She was a mature woman of about 50 and she was helping guests in another wing of the restaurant, so my brother decided to just go behind the counter to the soft drink dispenser and help himself. Well, this breach of protocol was not appreciated by our waitress who returned to our section just time to notice his transgression. Words were exchanged between the two.
Well that set the tone for our discontent, and then I ordered a piece of lemon meringue pie which fell short of my expectations. Now my brother and I were both unhappy with this culinary experience. We already had our check and on the back there was an area that said "Comments." My brother procured a pencil and begin to express his inalienable right of discontent. At that time the waitress had had enough and decided to express her inalienable right of discontent by saying to us, "We have ways of taking care of boys like you."
While the American colonists had their Boston Tea Party to vent their frustration, my brother and I had our Dine and Ditch to vent ours.
The plan was set in motion. My brother would take the car to get gas, then he'd swing the car in front of the restaurant where I, in a timely fashion, would exit the restaurant and hop in. It worked just as planned. As we're just starting to drive off the waitress flys out the door and says we forgot to pay the check. With the top of the car down my brother raises his right hand from the steering wheel to signify a waive and he says, "Goodbye, bitch." And off we go.
Well, we didn't think about it at the time, but there are only two basic ways out of Barstow, left or right. We headed left to Los Angeles. The CHP is aware of this not so arcane fact too, and a chocolate brown Austin Healey is not hard to spot. Proof of that was borne out about 10 miles outside Barstow when a vehicle with a flashing light bar came up behind us and pulled us over. We had the top of the car up at the time and the officer asked us through a loudspeaker to put our hands on the ceiling. We complied.
My brother was only 9 months older than I (I was a three-month premie) and he had a penchant for defying the law. He racked up all sorts of wants and warrants for various driving infractions and such. He got a kick out of it when he went before the judge and the DA would hold up his rap sheet and it would unfold halfway to the floor. My brother also spent some time in the can, a week here, a night there. He enjoyed playing the system. Often times when he would get a ticket he would give a false name and address and say he had no license in his possession. Then an hour after he got the ticket he would call the police and report his car as being stolen. I'm not sure how this would fly today but it flew then.
So anyway we are on the shoulder of the freeway with our hands on the ceiling of the ragtop with a CHP officer in command. We were taken to Barstow CHP headquarters where I am released but my brother was being held for various wants and warrants. I needed to come up with $400 in order to cut him loose. I was not held because Peggy Sue's declined to press charges as long as we paid our tab (which once my brother was released we did).
I have a friend named Rich who was a sergeant at George Air Force Base in Victorville. He lived off base in a new single-wide mobile home. He had pulled a low number in the draft and instead of being inducted into the army he joined the Air Force. (I believe there were 365 numbers pulled and the first 100 were called up.) As an enlisted man in the Air Force there was little chance you'd see duty that would get you killed in Vietnam. He had been in the service about three years and things were hot and heavy in Vietnam when he joined up. I myself made what I believe was the last draft in 1971 and pulled up number 300-and-something, so I was saved from the hell of the Vietnam War. My brother pulled in the 300s also.
So anyway, my friend Rich had a job moonlighting at a shoe store selling shoes and he was able to convince his boss to loan him $400 to help his friends in need. I'm not sure what excuse he used but I doubt the real circumstances of the loan were made clear to what would've probably been an unsympathetic boss. So Rich drove from Victorville to Barstow to bail out my brother. We all proceeded back to his home where he graciously provided us dinner and a place to sleep for the night. The next day we made it back home to a suburb of Los Angeles.
And so ends my brother and my not-so-typical four-day, three-night Vegas vacation in the summer of 1974.
Last edited by: Greasyjohn on May 4, 2016
August 7th, 2015 at 11:24:41 AM
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Dear Greasyjohn,
You are indeed a gem, I knew it all along....
Which reminds me, back in 1973, best buddy Keith and I decided to drive to Daytona Beach to celebrate our high school graduation.......
You take care, take great care.......
Later .. 2F
You are indeed a gem, I knew it all along....
Which reminds me, back in 1973, best buddy Keith and I decided to drive to Daytona Beach to celebrate our high school graduation.......
You take care, take great care.......
Later .. 2F
Youuuuuu MIGHT be a 'rascal' if.......(nevermind ;-)...2F
August 7th, 2015 at 2:08:02 PM
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Great story. My first year in Vegas was 1975. I stayed
DT mostly, there was nothing on the Strip worth
doing. I was way too well behaved and proper to
do any of the stunts you guys pulled, though. I was
too afraid of getting into trouble. I was afraid of
what my dad would have done, even though I was
in my early 20's.
DT mostly, there was nothing on the Strip worth
doing. I was way too well behaved and proper to
do any of the stunts you guys pulled, though. I was
too afraid of getting into trouble. I was afraid of
what my dad would have done, even though I was
in my early 20's.
"It's not called gambling if the math is on your side."
August 7th, 2015 at 2:19:07 PM
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Loved the story, Greasyjohn. I was in Vegas in 1975 as well, playing the juicy single deck blackjack while trying to avoid a dirt nap in the desert. :-)
Many people, especially ignorant people, want to punish you for speaking the truth. - Mahatma Ghandi
August 7th, 2015 at 5:15:24 PM
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Quote: EvenBobGreat story. My first year in Vegas was 1975. I stayed
DT mostly, there was nothing on the Strip worth
doing. I was way too well behaved and proper to
do any of the stunts you guys pulled, though. I was
too afraid of getting into trouble. I was afraid of
what my dad would have done, even though I was
in my early 20's.
Being afraid of what your dad would have done is a compliment to how he raised you. I think he just wanted you to grow up with a good sense of right and wrong.
August 7th, 2015 at 6:46:55 PM
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Quote: GreasyjohnBeing afraid of what your dad would have done is a compliment to how he raised you. I think he just wanted you to grow up with a good sense of right and wrong.
Part of it is who you hang around with. All
my friends had jobs and girlfriends and
stayed out of trouble. Having a kegger
by the river is about as far as we went.
Drag racing on a straight as an arrow
country road on Fri nights was a hoot,
too, it's a wonder we never got caught.
I knew guys who were always pulling
stunts and they were known to all the
local cops. Being one of them was not
very attractive.
"It's not called gambling if the math is on your side."
August 8th, 2015 at 12:10:23 AM
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Great story, GJ! Thanks for going forward with it!
If the House lost every hand, they wouldn't deal the game.
August 8th, 2015 at 3:25:40 AM
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Quote: TwoFeathersATLDear Greasyjohn,
You are indeed a gem, I knew it all along....
Which reminds me, back in 1973, best buddy Keith and I decided to drive to Daytona Beach to celebrate our high school graduation.......
You take care, take great care.......
Later .. 2F
Thanks for the compliment. I graduated from high school in '71.
August 8th, 2015 at 6:36:44 PM
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Quote: beachbumbabsGreat story, GJ! Thanks for going forward with it!
Thanks, Babs.
August 10th, 2015 at 1:47:52 AM
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A very entertaining tale, Greasyjohn. I'm sure most here had some hair raisers back in our youth. Speaking for myself, I was so dumb back in the day, it's almost a miracle that I survived relatively intact. It's funny how your attitude towards a bit of harmless larceny changes when you become more mature.
August 10th, 2015 at 11:52:58 AM
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I'm glad you enjoyed the tale, RB,
Yes, it's a miracle that I survived too thinking of all the antics I pulled when I was young. I was a risk taker.
Now, I have more respect for the life I've been given.
Yes, it's a miracle that I survived too thinking of all the antics I pulled when I was young. I was a risk taker.
Now, I have more respect for the life I've been given.
August 10th, 2015 at 1:20:30 PM
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Great story GJ. That's called a real life adventure with many of lessons and memories... Great story.
I think it's about your time to give a 40 year old trip report then! I wasn't able to play in those juicy games and will never see one in my life, so all I have are the great stories people who actually played them can share. Let me live 40 years ago vicariously though you! lol
Quote: 1BBLoved the story, Greasyjohn. I was in Vegas in 1975 as well, playing the juicy single deck blackjack while trying to avoid a dirt nap in the desert. :-)
I think it's about your time to give a 40 year old trip report then! I wasn't able to play in those juicy games and will never see one in my life, so all I have are the great stories people who actually played them can share. Let me live 40 years ago vicariously though you! lol
Playing it correctly means you've already won.
August 10th, 2015 at 5:34:58 PM
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Quote: RomesGreat story GJ. That's called a real life adventure with many of lessons and memories... Great story.
I think it's about your time to give a 40 year old trip report then! I wasn't able to play in those juicy games and will never see one in my life, so all I have are the great stories people who actually played them can share. Let me live 40 years ago vicariously though you! lol
Hey Romes,
Talking about juicy games you'll never see in your life, how about this. Westward Ho used to have SD, DA2, DAS, S17. The game had a +.13 EV. But I regularly lost there. This was back around 2000. Even though I regularly lost there I'm not superstitious and I continued to play their good game. When Westward Ho closed in 2005 then Barona had the best blackjack game in the country. It was SD, DA2, DAS, H17, LS. The game had a zero EV.
Once me and my then girlfriend Lois were sitting at a blackjack table at the Westward Ho with one other guy. It was so obvious all three of us were moving our money with the count. All of our bets raised and lowered at the same time. I looked at the pit boss and could tell she didn't know what was going on. As a blackjack player those are the times you remember.
