My Grandparents, Lutes Casino and Bingo

Feb 8, 2009 – 10:43pm

Well, it was a very nice day today overall. After I got ready to start my day, I put the leash on Jake and we hit the pavement around the RV Park. We went for a nice long walk. Well, the RV Park isn’t that big, but we made the best of it. We saw some people walking their dogs and found Buddy again.

Remember Buddy, that little brown dog that Jake got along with a few weeks back. (I can’t post pictures on this blog entry because I’m on the wrong laptop to do that – I’ve got two laptops with me and my mom has taken over my good one to send out emails to her friends back home), so anyways, we were talking with the owner of Buddy, nice guy and his wife, probably in their early 70’s and we hit a few good conversation topics.

We got around to talking about the Grand Canyon since they have never been there and I have. So I was describing it to them and telling them about some of the other many places that they should see in the good ol’ USA that I’ve been to and is worth seeing. And then they asked me a question that I can’t say I’ve gotten before…..

They asked me, “If you are traveling with your Grandparents, when do you go to school?” I stood there trying to believe that they had me confused with someone else, but everyone else in this RV Park is over 55 years old. I tried not to laugh, I don’t want to embarrass them with their authentic question since these were some of the nicer people in the RV Park that are just confused.

I’m not kidding, this sprung out of no where. Okay. Listen. To my blog readers. I’m sure to the “over 55” RV Park residence I know I’m young and I may “look” a tad younger than I really am and I’ll be the first person to admit that I may not “act” my age sometimes, and being on vacation like I am, I’ll go as far as to say I don’t even dress my age sometimes either (flip flops, jeans and an 8 dollar Branson Missouri t-shirt).

But, during conversations, I try to have decent, intellectual, informative conversations to at least let people know that I’m not a little kid or a high schooler. Now, I’m sorry, but I not going to disclose my exact age on here, but I will tell you that for me to “qualify” living in this RV Park on my own, I have quite a wait.

So, back to the conversation with the people I was talking with, I told them my exact age and they snickered and apologied for thinking ummmmm…..I don’t know What they were thinking and I smiled and took it good grace like I do whenever a bouncer at a casino thinks he’s going to “catch” a minor entering the casino “this time”.

The whole conversation was funny, but a select few “residence” here have issues with me being here and their “attitude” is far from new to me. In the past few years from other “Over 55” RV Park residence, I’ve gotten, “You don’t deserve to be here, you haven’t work 50 some odd years to enjoy this life.” and I’ve gotten, “You can’t be enjoying this yet, you’re too young”.

I AM going to say that ALL (obviously) ALL of these comments have come to me from residence in an over 55 RV Park only. The RV Park personnel and staff members here treat me pretty decent. This RV Park is a great place to stay and the staff welcomes everyone with open arms. There will always be someone in every RV Park out there that has issues and no matter how perfect you try to be, you will never satisfy them.

I had a lady in this RV park, I would say she was in her late 70’s, sneak up from behind me two weeks ago and put her arm around my arm and asked me what I was doing here. Just like that, “What are you doing here? What are you doing in this RV Park?” I don’t get upset or even close to irritated because I know when it’s my turn to “move in”, they will probably of “moved on”. The lady that linked her arm thru mine with her blunt question, reaked alcohol so I’m sure Mr. Walker gave her the push behind her to carry out her bold actions. So this was my morning, at least the rest of my day went smoothly…..so you think.

For lunch we went to Lutes Casino, remember I talked about this place before. Home of the Famous Hamburgers, but not a slot machine in sight! Oh so yummy, food was predictably great, and I had my frozen strawberry Margarita with it (no, I did not get carded). We had a nice time there and then came back to the RV at 6:15.

I looked at the clock, my mom looked at the clock and we both thought the same. Bingo Time!!! Bingo starts at 7 at the RV Park and we’ve been a few times. Tonight there were about 150 people there. Every single time we go to Bingo the lady in charge of Bingo goes over “a few rules” to make sure everyone is within the qualifying parameters to play.

I sigh to myself every time she gets to rule number 3 “you have to be 19 years of age to play Bingo” because some of the really older folks who are Bingo die-hards whip their little heads around you’d swear they will get whip-lash one of these times. I mind my own business and smile and we get thru the rules of Bingo and everything is fine…that is….until Tonight.

Now when ever some little ol’ lady wins Bingo, you always here someone say, “Oh, that Maggie won, good for her” or “Look, it’s Betty’s turn, congratulations Betty”. Yeah, I somehow didn’t get that same hospitality and in my honest opinion, it’s quite alright. Hey, it’s not my fault I’m not 55 years old. I didn’t ask to be born when I did.

So when my mother got Bingo, she shoved her bingo card to me for me to check if it’s a valid winning combination of dots, and knowing that I didn’t want another number called out and miss the opportunity for her to get Bingo, I scanned her bingo sheet quickly and sure enough, she had a winning card, so I yell out “Bingo!” Ohhhhh boy. Anyone happy for me??

Well, they are alot of nice people there so I’m going to believe that some had that heart to think that I’m a nice deserving person with my mother’s winning bingo card in my hand, so I stroll on up to the podium to redeem the $14 prize for my mom and you could of heard a pin drop.

That’s cool, everyone’s cool. I returned to my seat and I handed my mother her $14 bucks and whispered to her, “YOU are getting your own next time” as she chuckles. Yeah, very funny. Bingo is taken quiet seriously in some places, and I’m starting to think this place included.

So we continue playing and I look over at my mother’s bingo card and see that she is “waiting”. She’s got one number open for another winning card. I sigh. Why me. The number she is waiting for to be called……..is called. I look at her, she looks at me, I squint my eyes at her, and she smiles at me and before the next number is called I yell, once again, “Bingo!”

I swear she’s there to embarrass me. So I take my mother’s winning bingo card, once again, up to the podium. Instead of hearing all kinds of positive reactions around me, it was quiet enough for me to hear a snippy, “HER again.” from someone. The lady at the podium looks at me and says, “Again?”

I tell her that these are my mother’s winning cards and she’s sending me up here to do her dirty work. The lady breaks a smile and says, “Great!!! Wonderful!! Tell her that she’s going a great job of winning. Keep up the good work.” I just smile and collect my mother’s $14 dollars again and stroll back to my chair as my mother is sitting there still smiling away. I lower my voice and tell her, “If you win one more time……”

But we finished up Bingo and returned to the RV for some TV and Jake play time. So that’s how my day went today. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining one bit, just sharing with you how my days sometimes goes in an “over 55” RV park. It’s okay and I don’t make up excuses for it.

It’s just that people are interesting and maybe you would of reacted differently if you were in my shoes but I’m lucky to be where I am today, I’m happy to be in good company and I know how to pick my battles. Now, if you let your dog run loose around my leashed dog, this would of been a completely different story. Have a great night and have a super week!