THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, September 16, 1995 TAG: 9509160280
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Charlise Lyles
DATELINE: ATLANTIC CITY LENGTH: Medium: 69 lines
Mattie Lyles was a gambling woman.
In musty, jazzy gin joints into the early morning, there she sat, back rounded, shoulders hunched, a curled hand of cards fanning her floraled bosom, scheming for four of a kind or a full house.
Though my paternal grandmother, she never rocked my cradle. Shuffling the deck and discarding unwanted cards in stud poker was her style.
Naturally, Momma abhorred Grandmother Mattie's exploits and paucity of maternal instinct. Out of sheer fear that her children would grow up to be gamblers, Momma forbade in her house cards, dice and other trappings of Lady Luck.
So it was that I grew up believing, and have kept on believing, that people who gamble are bad people, very bad.
Until I met Molly.
On assignment to Atlantic City for the Miss America Pageant, I wandered into Trump Plaza just to see - not touch - the lurid world of casino gambling that Momma had shielded me from all these years.
And there was Molly, smiling gently amid the strange jangling music of the slot machines.
``Sit down right hear, deah.'' Against my arm, she rubbed a palm soft as a blister about to burst. ``Touch me, maybe you're lucky.
``Go on, try it yourself. Don't you know how to work it?'' she asked. I faked it until I figured out the simple maneuver that can transform you into a fool. About $482.1 billion wagered away each year, those reports on pathological gamblers say.
Molly leaned back comfortably in her slot seat as if in a rocking chair. Her powder blue sweatshirt seemed soft as the sky over Cape May. A cute white hat with matching blue ribbon capped her sparse silver curls. Her canvas purse could've held children's storybooks.
Such a nice lady, Molly Harris, everything a grandmother ought to be. As I surveyed the rows and rows and rows of slots, nearly everyone seemed like Molly, like a grandmother.
Cradling a plastic cup of coins, eyes locked on those reels - which were turning up 0 matches - Molly and her arm never stopped working.
``I ran a millinery shop in Bethlehem until I retired,'' she said, pointing to the hat. ``My husband, we come down here about once a month or so.
``When we first started coming here I had so much luck,'' she said, a tinge of distress in her tone as she jerked the handle down.
``I think we're all dumb for gambling,'' she went on. ``But we're not compulsives like a lot of these people. It's OK to have fun, I guess.''
Her arm kept pumping for luck. Still no coins rained down the trough. ``You didn't bring me any luck,'' she sighed finally, after nearly 20 quarters were gone.
``Go on,'' she urged me. ``How much are you going to put in there?''
``$5,'' I said. ``Go on,'' I heard the sister-girl gambler, the proud descendant of Grandmother Mattie Lyles, say inside my head. ``Go on girlfriend, pull that lever. Win you some money!'' For a moment, I listened, pumping quarters in.
Then it spread over me like a rash, that sullied feeling you get, even at age 36. I had broken my mother's cardinal rule.
If only Molly knew what a hold Momma's words had on me.
The difference between Molly and my Grandmother Mattie, I hope, is that Molly knows when to stop, and can stop. Grandmother didn't. Was it in my blood not to stop once I started?
I was scared to take that chance. by CNB