Stepping Out

Bing and I stepped out Saturday night. I guess in today's lingo you would say we went clubbing. Here's the scoop. A few weeks ago we were quietly gambling at the casino up the road apiece - it's in a northwoodsy Ojibwa reservation town by the name of Lac du Flambeau. That means Lake of the Torches and the name conjures images of birch bark canoes softly floating on a summer night long ago. But right now that soft rippling lake is solid ice down about two feet so the canoes are in dry dock and the torches lead to the casino doors. Well, my membership card was picked and I won a basket of goodies, 1000 credits on the card and two free tickets to the Bob Eubanks traveling extravaganza show with a chance to win $250,000. Eureka! Then last week when we were there, Bing's name was picked and he won too. The problem was that my tickets were for the 7:00 show and his were for the 3:00 show. We thunk awhile and decided to do the greedy thing and go to both. Now, what we could remember about Bob Eubanks was, that he ran the Dating Game and the Newly Wed game, so on the way there we checked with each other about favorite colors, where we met, favorite foods and anything that we might have to answer to win the big bucks. We also knew that the game shows usually pick people who are really eager to get up there so we were ready to be eager. The hopes dimmed a little when we realized there were about 498 other people ready to be eager too at each of the shows. And, boy oh boy, was I happy not to be picked for the first game because he picked four ladies who had to answer name, age and WEIGHT! Yeow! Then they brought a scale out to see who was telling the truth. The tall skinny girl won and the others were good naturedly mortified. Bob was pretty funny and interspersed clips from his shows that brought the house down and kept the crowd interested. He's seventy now. We were still trying to raise our hands pretty high again when he said we'd play the Newly Wed game cuz we thought we were ready. WRONG! So glad we weren't picked again because they asked things like how many lovers did you have and where was the strangest place you ever made whoopie. The folks again were good naturedly mortified and quite wrong with their answers just like the couples were on the TV show. They seemed to pick pretty happy laid back people who played along with the gags pretty well. They had four women dress up as disco dancers and dance individually and get the most applause from the audience and four guys dress up in tutus and dance ballet individually. A big square 350 pound guy captured our hearts with his earnest moves and an 86 year old woman who shimmied frontwards and backwards and flounced her feathery boa through her legs grabbed our hearts and applause. So they each won those games. Name that Tune was another game and it was pretty good that we weren't picked for that because the only two songs I knew were You Aint Nothin But a Hound Dog and Heartbreak Hotel and I don't think Dad knew any. There were some games that they just called out ticket stub numbers too but none of ours. Each show lasted only an hour and fifteen minutes so it was pretty easy to handle both. About ten people were called at the end of the show to try for the $250,000. They were eliminated till one was standing by calling red or black cards and the one left standing could pick three circles from a board of about twenty and if the money he picked on the circle added up to 1000, then he'd get the big prize. Otherwise they got to keep what their three circles added up to. Each of them got $850 so they were pretty happy. We didn't win but it was fun and that's what we usually say when we go to the casinos. And now we're clubbers!