The only one vice I never indulged in, ON PRINCIPLE, is gambling.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve no objection to people gambling, or to gambling itself, or to any victimless crimes — especially not on moral grounds. People have always indulged in those behaviors, they always will, and whether they do it or not is none of my damned business.

No, the principle behind my not gambling is two-fold. First, I get no thrill out of the supposed “games of chance.” And second, as day follows night, when it comes to gambling I’m a clueless cluck.

I have enough smarts to know you’ve no real control over the slots, roulette and craps. Yeah, I know there are lots of dice and roulette systems, and I’ve known guys who’ve prided themselves on theirs. I’ve also seen them all go from All Systems Go to All Systems Kaput in one long and painful session at the table — often their last one.

The games with the biggest chance of winning are cards. I’ve always been a total incompetent with card games (except Old Maid and War), but I have friends who have excellent skills and win-loss records. Usually, they play blackjack at the casino; with their cronies they play poker and rummy. That said, I just exhausted my knowledge of The Fifty-Two Fiends.

Back in my Gilded Youth, gamblers were an obvious presence in My Home Town. Gambling may have been seen as wrong in both the eyes of the law, as well as the of the judgment of the upright, but I don’t remember anyone I knew casting aspersions and curses on it. Instead, gamblers had the status of Rascals of Affection, and were generally regarded males who grew old, but never quite fully grew up. Plus, they added an additional splash of color — even though it was to an already-colorful town.

Where there are gamblers, there are bookies, and we had more than our share. Or at least there were before the state realized it could snatch the filthy lucre from the “criminal element” and hold it in their own grimy hands instead.

Because there were few full-time gamblers in The Glory Days, there were also almost no full-time bookies. In fact, almost all the bookies were gamblers themselves, trying to cut their losses. But if there was one full-time bookie in town, it was Sam.

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The perfect gentleman

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I’ve no idea of Sam’s background, other than he was an ethnic Armenian who’d grown up in Greece. Since I was a kid, to me he was an old man, which means he could’ve been anywhere from 50 to 70, though I think he was closer to the latter than the former. I assume he came to town because of TB, but I don’t know that either. But what I do know is he was a town fixture and it seemed every time I went downtown, he was strolling on the streets. Everything about him was understated. He always dressed in suits of muted colors that fit him perfectly and were cleaned and pressed to perfection. His shoes were shined, his hands were spotless.

He looked and behaved like the perfect gentlemen. He tipped his hat to all the women, he spoke in tones as subdued as his ties, and I never heard him either raise his voice or swear. I loved to hear him speak because his delivery was slow and clear, plus he enunciated all his words perfectly, something I’ve noticed only in people who speak English fluently, but it wasn’t their first language.

So, cutting to the chase, what was Sam’s hustle?

He sold Irish Sweepstakes tickets.

The Irish Sweepstakes is no more, but in its heyday (from the 1930’s to the 1960’s) it was a huge deal. Its purpose was to raise money for Irish hospitals, which it did plentifully, wildly, and crookedly: As the biggest lottery in the world, it hauled in money hand over first. A bunch of it went to the hospitals, another bunch went to the winners and a final bunch (maybe the largest) went into the pockets of the gonifs running it, since it was a private for-profit business.

Anyhoo, the draw with the Irish Sweepstakes was its huge payoffs, And beyond that, it was the only game in town: Lotteries were illegal in the U.S., Canada and England, so if you were looking for a life of leisure for only a buck or two, this was the way to go.

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The IMperfect gentleman

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And now my personal connection to Sam. My mother was as straight as they get, and didn’t smoke or drink, and for sure NEVER gambled. Yet she always bought sweepstake tickets from Sam for a couple of reasons. Of course one was the potential Pot o’ Gold at the Rainbow’s End; the other was due to Sam himself: Perfect gentleman that he was, he could be trusted with your life. And while that may be true, he sure couldn’t be trusted with your money.

Here’s the thing about the Irish Sweepstakes: In order to cash in a winning ticket, you had to be in Eire itself. I’m not sure how many folks who bought tickets knew that … including Dear Old Mater. But as bad as that may be, it gets worse.

As I’d said, Sam was one of the local landmarks of my youth, but at some point during the eight years I was gone from town, he disappeared. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but given my curse of digging into the past, about twenty years ago, he crossed my mind. I asked around, but almost no one remembered him. Or if they did, they just recalled him being our version of a boulevardier.

But finally I struck gold — and TWICE, no less!

My first strike came from Dew Drop Morgan, who remembered Sam well. We chatted a bit and when I mentioned my mother buying the sweepstakes tickets from him, he shrugged and gave his trademark grin.

“Didn’t you know?” he said.

“Know what?” I said.

“The tickets were all counterfeits,” he said.

I was completely taken aback. The perfect gentleman making his life’s work ripping off the peeps of My Home Town — including my own mother?

Could it be?

It not only could, but it WAS.

For all anyone knows, counterfeit tickets in the States probably outnumbered the genuine ones. And no one (except the gambling cognoscenti) ever knew because no one pays any attention to a losing ticket. Oh well, one more fond childhood memory shot in the dupa.

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The perfect ending

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But as happens often in my Old Home Week Archeology, there was an up side to this tale a well.

I think almost everyone in town knew who Sam was, but didn’t know much else about him. For sure, no one I’d ever talked to knew his last name. But that changed fairly recently (which to me could be fifteen years ago) and my source was Donnie Gay.

When I mentioned Sam, Donnie broke into a big smile. Just for the record, Donnie was always upbeat and fun to talk to and had a smile so spectacularly beautiful, she could light up the midnight sky.

“Oh, sure I knew him,” she said.

Then I went for the biggie, expecting no results.

“Did you ever know his last name?” I said.

“I did,” she said. “It was Kashkarian.”

“I knew he was Armenian, and that sounds like an Armenian name,” I said. “So that makes sense.”

“You wanna know what makes more sense?” she said.

“What’s that?” I said.

“His nickname.”

“Nickname?” I said. “I didn’t know he had one.

“He did,” she said, “and it fit perfectly.”

“What was it?” I said.

She paused, beamed out another world-class smile.

“It was,” she said, “Sam Cash and Carry.”

No more need be said, because if ever there was a punch line made in heaven, that’s it.