Commentary: Spending time with the wild and crazy

Summer vacations tend to follow certain routines.

Visit historic buildings whose wooden floors creak with every step. Take a side trip to roadside attractions like the world's largest cow (hint: it's made of six tons of reinforced fiberglass and it's in North Dakota). Head over to Yellowstone National Park and get stuck in line at the gift shop buying postcards you intend to send to family and friends but never do.

That's one option.

Or you can do what we did on our most recent trip. Meet wild and crazy people.

Of course, you need the proper setting. Las Vegas, trust me, is the gold standard for wild and crazy.

Our first stop took us to the Mandalay Bay Casino to buy tickets for the Broadway musical, "The Lion King." The guy selling tickets greeted us with a warm handshake and offered front row seats for the next night's performance.

"You're going to love these seats," he said. "I guarantee it."

Then my wife Leslie and I started talking about other shows we had seen in Vegas. Leslie told the ticket seller how much she liked the Cher concert we went to last summer at Caesar's Palace. His eyes lit up.

"Cher and I have been friends for more than 30 years," he crowed.

Then his smile vanished.

"We're not friends anymore, though," he confessed.

That's when my wife and I took the bait. We asked why.

"It's easier to show you than to tell you," he said. He reached into a pocket and pulled out a stack of business cards. He handed me one.

At first, I didn't get the connection. Why is this guy showing me a business card with a photo of a woman in seductive black hair and oversized earrings? Then it suddenly hit me. That woman is that guy. He's a Cher cross-dresser.

"Ohmygod," Leslie and I exclaimed on cue.

So how do you put a price on that kind of summer-vacation encounter? Actually, you can. The front-row tickets cost us $180. It turns out the seats were fabulous, but what do you expect from a cross-dresser in Vegas?

While many summer travelers have to deal with daylong treks over boring, wind-swept highways, Las Vegas affords far better modes of transportation -- from monorails to shuttle buses to helicopter tours of the Grand Canyon. But the best way to meet and greet the city's diverse population is from the backseat of a taxi-cab. That's where we met Eddy Biggs, a self-proclaimed Texas Hold 'em poker star.

Eddy fit the bill as a cabby. He was chatty, funny and quotable. In the brief 12-minute ride we took from the Rio casino to the Bellagio, Eddy gave us all the details, from his love life to his extra-curricular activities, namely high-stakes poker.

When I asked about the biggest poker game he had ever played, Eddy described a crushing loss he had experienced at a poker tournament broadcast on cable television. He had four queens heading into the final "flop" of the cards. He pushed in all of his poker chips -- a dramatic move for any poker player. A guy across the table called him and pushed in all of his chips. An equally dramatic move. It was all or nothing.

That's when Eddy uttered the only words he ever says during a poker tournament: "Call me and you're calling home."

A nice bluff when it works, but not this time, Eddy. The final card the dealer turned over was a king. The guy who bet Eddy had two kings showing and one in his hand. That final card gave him four "cowboys" and the pot. Eddy said he could have pocketed $500,000 if he had won.

Instead, he's still driving a cab.

What's a summer vacation without swimming. For the five days we stayed at the New York-New York Casino, we were neck deep in water every afternoon. While bobbing in the water under a blistering afternoon sun, we met two older men who greeted us like long lost friends. They were brothers and natives of Pakistan. One lived in Dallas and worked for a cellphone company; the other was heading back to Pakistan since his green card was about to expire.

What intrigued us about the Pakistani brothers was why they were in Las Vegas. The brother who lived in Dallas said he and his brother were there celebrating his 40th wedding anniversary.

So where are your wives, we asked.

"Oh they did not come," the brothers replied.

And why not?

"Because they would feel too uncomfortable," they said. They tried to explain, in halting English, about Pakistani customs and how women do not go in public except shrouded in layers of clothing. In America, there are too many scantily clad women, they argued.

After surveying the poolside attractions, I nodded in agreement. Then I asked if the sight of bikini-clad women bothered them.

"Oh no, not at all" came their eager reply.

The brothers grinned.

So ended our summer vacation. There's something about these trips that brings out the best, and the worst, in all of us. We learn to relax, enjoy the scenery and fudge about the truth. It's not all bad. In fact, it's kind of liberating, especially when it comes to accepting business cards from strangers.

* Editorial page editor Spencer Hatton can be reached at 509-577-7704, or shatton@yakimaherald.com.

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