Eighteen Wheeler Philosophy

The..NUGGET...caper of ‘78!

By Mel Hansen, Eighteen Wheeler Philosopher 

Boone Weston!  Remember back when you were a senior and I, a junior in high school and we came out here to play ‘Bendover in baseball?  After the game, of which we won, of course, we came to the Nugget to eat, on the Utah side of course, and afterward you, Rusty, Kris and I were standing on the Utah side of the casino watching an old guy shoveling quarters into the row of slot machines.

Coach came up to us and told us to make sure we didn’t cross the line into Nevada, and he went to pay for our meals.

Well, of course, one of us was going to cross the line and put some quarters into a one arm bandit.  After such a challenge had been issued not to. So we discussed it over for just a brief second or two and decided you were the man for the job. I mean, Hell, those slot machines were only 10-15 feet away.  Boone certainly was faster than Flash Gordon, no way in hell could your speed be caught on camera, let alone by the human eye.

So we each divvied up a Georgie Washington quarter for you to invest for us, and away you went!

 You were a thing of athletic beauty, the way you moved across the starting and forbidden line, put all 4 quarters in one slot machine, pulled the arm and back behind the line before the dials quit spinning!

And I’ll be damned if your speed wasn’t rewarded.  That one arm bandit started going ding! ding! ding!..and started puking out quarters like crazy! We four just stood there with our mouths open, wide-eyed, looking at each other.  Saying, "what in the Hell do we do now?"

The kind ol gent that was there looked at us.  Probably a little pissed, he had been dumping quarters into that machine with no luck, but said to us,  "Hurry up and throw me one of your hats, ya lucky little shits, and I’ll fill it up for ya so ya can get your...assets...out of here before security shows up and throws ya all in jail."

Again! With blinding speed and accuracy, off came your hat and a perfect throw to the ol boy. who was pretty damn quick his own self in filling it up and returning it back to you.  Then we four sprinted out to the bus with the returns of our investments! OK. “ill-gotten booty”.

Always felt bad that we didn’t give our man on the inside his share though, or Delford for being such a superb”Wheel Man!”

Or Coach!  For being the mastermind in issuing us such a challenge in the first place!

I believe we got a nontaxable return of around $45-50 bucks, on a $1.00 dollar investment.  Not bad!