[Leica] Mark Rabiner and That City of Lost Wages

[marcsmall at comcast.net (Marc James Small)]

At 12:19 AM 3/3/2007, Mark Rabiner wrote:
 >
 >>
 >> Cafe Dominic:  Guadalupe St. art district, near Site Santa Fe:  Can't be
 >> beat if you're in the area.  Try the Sopa Azteca.
 >>
 >>
 >> Feel free to contact me offlist if you have questions.
 >
 >
 >Well I just look on the map to see where Albuquerque is and what do I see
 >just one inch to the right of Sante fe? 50 miles?
 >VEGAS BABY VEGAS!
 >A place I've always had no desire to go to!
 >For some reason I just hate gambling and everything which goes with it.
 >
 >But maybe a quick drive through.

Mark

Years back, I knew Albuquerque and Sante Fe and 
Taos fairly neatly.  Neat towns, though the best 
eatery back then was Rod's Steak House up in 
Williams, Arizona, a grand place for the 
provision of barely-raw beef and, back then, 
there were no eels on the menu.  That was back in 
the Longago.  The last time I was in Taos was in 
the early 1970's and I no sooner parked my car 
and walked to the curb (kerb, for the purists!) 
than I met a classmate of mine from Washington & 
Lee University back in Virginia.  Go figure:  it 
is a desperately small universe, and I keep 
expecting to meet Mark Rabiner doing an early 
afternoon stroll around my neighborhood down here 
in the exurbs of Richmond, Virgnia.

But LOST WAGES?  Gads.  My father worked his way 
through college at the University of Nevada, 
Reno, by dealing black-jack at Harold's Club.  I 
was raised at an early age with two principles in mind:

a)      Never gamble.  The house always 
wins.  (You Mac guys are probably deprived of 
this wonderous accessory, but those of who use 
IBM Windows gear get an inbuilt Solitaire program 
-- Klondike, for those who are specialists, and, 
yes, I wish they gave us Canfield, a more subtle 
game, especially if you play it 
double-decked.  Play a thousand games and keep a 
game-by-game score.  The house always 
wins.)  (For that matter, I am probably the only 
person surviving to have shaken the hands of both 
Harold Smith, Sr., and Harold Smith, Jr., and 
also of Mr Shippley, the founder of the GIA for 
whom Eric Welch now works, though I did so at a rather tender age.)

b)      Avoid Las Vegas.  It is all glitter and 
not much else.  Hell, they are doing the Annual 
Zeiss Historica Society meet there, and I shall 
be absent, and cheerfully so.  For the most of 
you who are fervernt left-wingers, the folks you 
love to hate, Neal Boortz and Hannady and 
Limbaugh all love Lost Wages.  I do not.

My wife and I are arguing over our final 
retirement home.  I want to retire to somewhere 
around Flagstaff, Arizona, a town with no 
humidity, a bit of snow, and with a University 
nearby.  My wife wants to set up a Bed and 
Breakfast in Maine.  Go figure.  She won't retire 
for another decade or more, but I'm already 
applying Vaseline to my camera lenses:  those 
N'or Easters do a mighty job at piling up the saline against optical 
surfaces.

<he grins:  we might still get to Flagstaff!  I'd 
be happy to be parked beside Rod's Steak House, 
but that is a different matter.>

Marc


msmall@aya.yale.edu
Cha robh b?s fir gun ghr?s fir!