Spring is Coming
Dust Off Your Dollar Bills
Last week, I had to set up a booth at a farming conference. It was my first time in a den of vice—well, technically, my second. The day before, I had gone to the wrong den of vice, thinking it was the right den of vice.
“I’m here to check in for the conference,” I said. “My name is Stephen Bishop.”
“Conference?” the front desk clerk asked. “I don’t think we have any conferences booked for this weekend.”
“This is Harrah’s Cherokee Casino, right?
“Yes, it is, but we don’t have any conferences scheduled. Do you remember the address for your conference?”
“I think it was like 777 Casino Drive.”
“I’m sorry. This happens all the time, but you’re at the wrong casino. This is Harrah’s Cherokee Casino in Murphy at 777 Casino Parkway. You need to be at Harrah’s Cherokee Casino in Cherokee, which is 777 Casino Drive. It’s about an hour away, back through the gorge.”
I can tell you as someone who has traversed the gorge, in different directions on the same evening, that nightfall imbues all the normal hazards—falling rocks, blind curves, and the raging Nantahala River running beside the road—with a slightly menacing sense of abject terror. You’d think not being able to see the hazards might reduce the sensation, but it does not.
The correct casino was many scales of magnitude larger than the incorrect casino. And, much to my surprise, my room was big and clean and nicely decorated, the service was outstanding, and the food wasn’t half bad—it’s almost as if they wanted you to stay awhile. I ate twice at Gordon Ramsay’s food court, and his fish and chips and street tacos were quite scrumptious. I doubt Gordon even knows he has a food court in Cherokee, North Carolina, but who knows, maybe he was slaving away in the back?
Admittedly, my only other point of reference for gambling facilities dates back to my childhood. Back then, video poker parlors were everywhere in South Carolina, kinda like Dollar Generals nowadays. The parlors were about the same size as Dollar Generals, but they had the eye-catching design aesthetic of a bouncy house. Parlors were often super concentrated on the state line so North Carolinians (living in an uppity state where politicians prohibited gambling) could easily cross over the line and try their luck at games of chance. Usually, right next to the parlors were fireworks stands. In South Carolina, you could buy the big stuff, like rockets with warning labels about downing satellites. If you happened to win the jackpot, you could just walk next door and spend all your winnings on an arsenal of pyrotechnics. I believe economists call this “burn-it-up economics.”
Surprisingly, most farmers seemed to be in good spirits. Nobody won the jackpot that I know of, but spring is coming. In the spring, despite the odds, farmers always think this could be the year—the year of great weather, bumper crops, and premium prices. Six months later, we all wonder if we lit our money on fire, but that’s farming.
But maybe, just maybe, this could be my lucky year. If I hit profitability, I will inevitably spend it all on more farming stuff, which is better than spending it on rockets, right?
"I doubt Gordon even knows he has a food court in Cherokee, North Carolina, but who knows, maybe he was slaving away in the back?"
You'd have heard the cursing, I'm sure.
Now I'm imagining a very long and terrifying gorge with a casino at either end. I guess if you've made it through the Gorge of Death, you're clearly on a lucky streak, so why not try for that jackpot?
Using your winnings to shoot down Starlink satellites seems a worthy cause. And surely, with so many of them, like shooting fish in a barrel?
Here's to a bumper crop. But not a glut, definitely not one of those.
Looks to me like Gordon disapproves of you being there. Come to think of it, his picture looks pretty stern at the Harrah's Cherokee West Hartford, Connecticut.