"Looks like the Indian casinos are running out of suckers. No, in case you haven't guessed, I'm not a gambler. Well, let's put it this way. I'm not a gambler with my money. I'll gamble with my life and my time, but not with my money. I learned a good lesson when I was a teenager. I got caught up in one of those con games at a traveling carnival and lost my paycheck. It wasn't a lot of money - I was working for MacDonald's at the time and it was back when newspapers were smelted with molten lead - but it was all I had. The con game worked. The day after, I felt like a complete and total sucker. For the longest time, I hated the SOB that ran that game, but I came to realize he taught me a valuable lesson and it only cost me $35.

When the casinos opened on the reservations in Connecticut, I visited both to check them out but I didn't gamble. I thought that the bar in the Mashantucket casino would be a good place to smoke a cigar and watch a football game on the tube. I did once - wearing a nice sport coat and dress slacks, looking like a winner - but, soon after, they outlawed sitting around the bar smoking cigars, watching TV and looking like a winner.

Later, I went to the Pequot museum a few days after it opened. First-rate joint. I don't know what it looks like now - I haven't been there in years - but it was educational and informative. I recommend it to anybody who wants to learn about Stone Age America long before the Europeans arrived with their smallpox and syphilis."

Get the Story:
Bob Englehart: Englehart's View (The Harford Courant 10/7)