A man on his bike at a stop light talking on his something _ Photo by Royal Hopper
Overgrown Children in the City of Sin
by Royal Hopper
“I want my drink,” a man once said while standing in a Vegas casino literally stomping his feet like a 5-year-old as employees at a sin City gaming establishment told him he had been cut off. Imagine a man well past his prime jumping up and down and screaming like a tantrum throwing child.
In the desert you take your giant daisies as you find them – Photo by Royal Hopper
Now further imagine a grown man peeing on a pool deck out of spite and starting a scrap with the security officers who arrived to escort him out and then crying when they put him in handcuffs.
The City of Sin is for adults goes the time honored refrain. Kids have no place here goes the cliche. This place is for grown ups. In fact the reason the City of Sin has survived all these years is that it is a city full of demanding sometimes dangerous overgrown children.
Think about it. This City is in the middle of the desert whose only real factory a rocket fuel plant blew up years ago. It has no standing water and only has enough water in its natural aquifers for 200 people. Without the gambling, drinking and playful things that are part of the Vegas legend it would be a bathroom stop on the way to LA with four gas stations, a couple of bars and a cheesy 100 room motel named after someone’s favorite aunt.
People come here to remember who they were and who they could have been and to indulge in appetites best left in the past. many times you see someone in their 70s rocker best or dressed like an Urban Cowboy warrior or rocking that sporty mullet. I once actually saw a man come out onto the pool deck at a Sin City casino hotel dressed to the nines in rebel gear..dark sun glasses, leather jacket, metal studded black pants, pony tail and all.
He stepped out toward the water and stood staring at his image in the clear water. “Oh who am I kidding,” he said sliding the jacket and glasses off and turning around just as his grand daughter came running up behind him and jumped into his arms from a running start.
These days everyone comes to Las Vegas ..not only do drunken accountants come to Sin city to pick fights with drunken decorators …Young athletes from every sports come here with their parents to decide the champions of their sport….be it volleyball, basketball, Taekwondo or Karate.
You see them sometimes wandering in groups through the casino watching their parents spend their vacation money before being shooed away to place kids are allowed. It is not actual children that keep the City of Sin alive and thriving.
Las Vegasis in fact thriving exacly because most of its visitors have never really grown up and they come to Las Vegas to let their inner 17-year-old out to play.
That is life and childhood in the City of Sin
Love you Sinners
Take Care
This guy is either homeless or has very low standards in camp sites _ Photo by Royal Hopper
Royal's Sin City Journal 