Not sure what made me think of her, I guess it was when I was running the vacuum cleaner I thought of her, and I will explain why.
She was one of those who trained me as a deale in Reno. She was a whiz with numbers, as good as a calculator. She was also a 21 dealer at the Nevada Club and through after shift drinks, etc., became a good friend She was a dealer "icon" to me, her ability to deal the cards and her razor sharp mind. She also dealt craps, and was a whiz at that also, payoffs just came to her naturally. When she was on the table, her end was ... neat, arranged well, not sure if there is a word for it, but she was a pleasure to work with. Her stacks of silver dollars, which we used in those days, were all symmetrically perfect, she was very "neat" on the table.
I think it was on a Sunday, after shift, we were all at the bar at Kelley's Nugget, and it ended up, she invited me and another dealer, whose name escapes me, to come out to her place for dinner. Home cooked meals were scarce in those days. She had some errands to run, gave me the key to her door, a rental house on North Virginia, almost across from the Reno Campus.
Anyway, she left, we had a few more drinks, and headed out to her place.
We got there, parked in front, went in, and the place was a mess. She never did laundry, she would buy new (we made a lot of money in those days) and when the pile got too high she would haul them off to the Goodwill Store. The kitchen was a mess. It took us an hour or so to clean the kitchen, do the dishes, and get it workable.
About that time, she came in with a load of groceries, smiling, and, as it worked out, I cooked the dinner.
By the time we left, we had cleaned her place up, cooked dinner, cleaned that up, and left, left a smiling Mary Ann Sterns standing at the door ...... like a .... "It worked again" look.
Shortly after that, she moved to another place, and the other guy, whose name escapes me, rented the place for a few months. There was a bar across the street, not that far from town, nice place. On one occasion, we had a few too many after a shift, I think I had the night off, ...... well, I lost my car, forgot where I parked it, it was no where near our house, took us a few days to find it .... oh yea, that was the day I stole a five-gallon new milk can, from behind one of the clubs, and, well, collected money around town using that can to hold the money ..... collecting for the Cutty Sark and Milk Fund ... that is another whole story. As I understand it, my boss, kept the can as a souvenir in his rec-room at his home ... memories of the old days.
The bad news, as I collected donations, I invited everyone to a "kickoff" party at that house on North Virginia .... I woke up, later that night surrounded by people, on the couch in the living room, in my underwear ... the collections went well, I had enough to feed and quench all of their appetites and thirsts ... that's all I remember ...........................
