Bonanza in the Carson Valley

My recent return trip to the Reno area, for the third time in the last year and half, was a bit out of my way but was undertaken with enthusiasm.

The purpose was a week-long housesitting assignment in the small town of Gardnerville, about twenty miles south of Carson City in one of the few green valleys in the entire state.

My hosts were my old college friend Randy J. and wife Gail and their teenage son Eric. I had met-up with Randy again after nearly thirty years over Christmas, when they were down in Thousand Oaks. I had spent the holidays as a dinner guest at Gail's parents' house. It had been a marvelous reunion.

Randy had called me a week after that, asking me if I'd stay in their place while they were on vacation in Oahu. "Hawaii?" I laughter. Ironically I had been planning on going there myself. The housesitting assignment would be a pleasant consolation prize, and  I would also get to spend more time with my old friend, with whom I was having some very nice conversations about spirituality and life in general.

After they left for Hawaii, I was left by myself in the house with their dog Shasta, who instantly became my best friend. With no television in the house, I got much undistracted time to concentrate on work during the day and evenings, which turned out to be a good thing, since it was a hectic week "at the office" due to a chain of bug fixes I needed to make for the software update that I had just uploaded.

The only glitch in the television-free week was the airing of the Super Bowl on the second weekend I was there. After scouting around for possible places to watch, I settled on a  local fancy casino. But when I went there just before game time, I realized that a casino is a terrible place to watch a sporting event, since although they have many large televisions, they keep the sound turned down so as not to distract anyone from gambling as much as possible.

After trying a second casino and finding out this rule, I wound up at a local strip mall bar called Hamdogs on U.S. 395, somewhat seedy with lots of pennants of sports teams on the wall. I took a seat at the bar and put my hat on top of the video poker machine screening in front of me.

Going to Hamdog's turned out to be a good decision. I was befriended by multiple people there, and a had a good time watching the game. Part of the reason was that I didn't care who won, in contrast to everyone else in the bar, who were not only 49ers fans but were rooting for their hometown University of Nevada-Reno starting quarterback, whom everyone just called by his nickname"Kap".

Despite my disinterest in the outcome, I decided to adopt the "local" team, at least for outward purposes, and clapped and cheered when the 49ers scored. In the last minute of the game, when all of my fellow barmates had lost hope of a miracle comeback, I was the one cheering and yelling with never-say-die vigor, "ONE MORE PLAY!! THEY CAN DO IT!!".

All the people I met there seemed to think I'd be back the next day. They really took a shine to me. But to be honest, part of the reason was that I kept winning the free raffle of prizes that the bar was handing out during commercial breaks. Although I didn't wind up with the bar-b-que grill or the snowboard (neither of which I could have taken in my car at this point), I did snag the following: four matching beer glasses (two of which I decided I had to give away), a foam Jack Daniels #1 finger, a DonQ t-shirt with a picture of Don Quixote on it, and a cup holder.

But the biggest snag was when I won the halftime special prize---a full size bottle of Bushmills Black Bush whiskey. I was told I couldn't open it in the bar, so I just kept it front of me during the game. Its presence made me very popular and I kept getting repeated offers for a trade, all of which I politely declined.

Ironically I don't really drink---at least not by myself. The five beers I had during the telecast (one purchased per quarter, plus an extra one purchased for me by the drunk guy next to me who claimed to be dating an ex-Raiderette) were the most alcohol I'd imbibed in many months. The next day was a bit slow.

As I type this, the whiskey is still buried deep in my trunk shrouded by camping gear. I told a playwright friend in Oregon, who is a drinker and had recently sold me raffle tickets for his Catholic school, that I owed all my luck to him and that we would split it, providing the bottle made it to Oregon intact.