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Chapter Eight: Dad’s Day
- University Press of Mississippi
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96 C H A P T E R E I G H T DAD’S DAY THERE WAS SOMETHING OF HEMINGWAY IN MY DAD. IT STARTED WITH the good looks: the leonine head with its shock of thick hair, broad forehead , fine nose, strong jaw (if perhaps a bit jowly). I associated my father with all the granite-jawed American leading men I grew up admiring. He also shared Hemingway’s love for all the“manly” sports: horse racing, boxing , bullfights, cockfights, jai alai, and the gaming tables. Gambling was his life. If you dropped your hat, he was liable to bet whether it would land on its brim or its crown. Before going into the operating room for a critical procedure, just weeks before he died, the nurse asked if he was allergic to anything. Though he was suffering from senile dementia, he answered without missing a beat,“Yeah, slow horses.” Dad also had the mixed blessing of never working a day in his life, an eccentricity that enabled all the others. Because he had all the money he needed, he could pursue whatever caught his fancy at the moment. He ran a riding stable in Baton Rouge for a time in his twenties, a bar on South Rampart Street for a short while in his thirties; he owned Thoroughbreds that were trained and cared for by others, and he owned real estate, mostly inherited and largely overseen by Latter & Blum. For the long length of his life, his day was almost entirely his own.While my schoolmates’purposeful dads were commuting to the office, my father drifted through the day in the idle, worldly way of mobsters and Hollywood idols. DAD’S DAY 97 But still, he had that day to fill, a challenge that never seemed to bother or bore him. He didn’t give a damn what others thought. If asked what he did for a living, he had a simple answer: real estate. Let them imagine what they would. “Real estate” was what I learned to put on school forms. It always felt half a lie, somehow not as true as whatever my classmates put. What other fathers did at least involved some effort. Depending on the season, Dad spent his day at the golf course, the track, the betting parlor, or the New Orleans Athletic Club. During the racing season, he rose early to get the Daily Racing Form or to oversee tending the horses on the backside of the track, or both. Every morning at a.m., he delivered the Racing Form to his handicapper Paul Stern’s house. It was in Dad’s interest to give Paul enough time to pore over the horses’past performances : what kind of track they preferred, fast or slow, dry or muddy; how they fared in their last outings; what their recent morning training times had been. I’m not good with figures, Dad would explain. 8.1 Rodney with swim trophies. [3.17.28.48] Project MUSE (2024-04-17 02:14 GMT) DAD’S DAY 98 Paul the Tout was a wizard and the Daily Racing Form was his wand. Pudgy with a dark brow and a diffident, elfish smile, he was always bundled in a cloth overcoat, his hands deep in both pockets. My father swore by Paul’s handicapping skills. Paul was the high priest of the tote board, a genius mathematician, a sorcerer of horseflesh. Paul’s fee was based on Dad’s winnings and Dad had money to wager. Dad’s big bets would wait for the sure thing, often a “chalk bet,” which is to say a heavy favorite that Paul felt deserved its favored status. Dad would wager several hundred dollars, or sometimes thousands, to show. By law, the least the track must pay to show, coming in third, is $2.20 for a $2.00 bet. Dad didn’t believe in swinging for the grandstands. He was happy to take a 10 percent return on his money every half hour if he could get it, all day long. You can make a living this way, son. You’re better at numbers than me. Of course, magician or not, the odds are still against you, always with the house, no matter how you bet. That was the other part of his sermon. In the long run, you are going to lose. But that never stopped him. Dad rose early even when the...