Gambling and my younger years
My Hate For Poker
So, as you can see in my previous post, my hate for poker was solid, almost inbred. And as I grew older, it only increased; people at my school, when I was about 9, started playing with cards for money. At first it would be Pokémon cards, without any money involved, but after a while they discovered the game of “wiezen” as it is called in our language. It is a game, not very similar to poker, but with some skill involved, and the ability to put cash on the table. Every time I entered their hiding spot, which was behind the rubber tires in a far corner of the playground where there was no teacher to be found, I felt anger coming onto me. Every cell in my body wanted to grab their chips, eat their cards and flay them alive.
Childish Gambling
This irrational hatred, was uttered in the form of childish sighing and urging them to stop, screaming the words “Aaaaaaah” and “Waaaaaaah” very loudly, until they tried to beat me to silence. What they never dared, since they knew the teachers would then come to know about it, and discover their obviously banned casino game. I would never have told the teachers though, since I felt like they would be overexcited and play along with the children, this idiocy of mine was probably stemming from the fact that I saw my father, so obsessed and passionate about cards and money.
In my eye, grown-ups were much more susceptible to gambling, and in the end, I think the younger I was very wise. In some sense.
A Strong Gambling Repulsion
Poker and my dad
My first confrontation with poker was when I was a toddler, I don’t really remember much of it, but I’m sure it is my first memory ever. I was sitting in the living room, playing with my blocks when suddenly my father came bursting in, he was weak, I felt it. His arms hanging from his body like 2 giant steel bars, his legs were almost made of foam, and could collapse at any minute under the weight of his remorse. He started crying, like I never again saw a grown man cry, total despair, his face was honest and broken. He looked at me and immediately blurted out that I didn’t deserve this, that no one deserved this. No one deserved him.
“Poker has broken me, I was an honest man, a hard working upstanding citizen, you were my family.”
This was the note he left on my mother’s night stand, before he left, and we didn’t see him ever again.
I never really knew how he looked like, since my mother burned all his pictures, but when I saw this YouTube video, I really always have this image of him, this idiot with cards, having no clue whatsoever.