Pop Goes the Cherry

So I’ll bet when you woke up this morning, or perhaps even late afternoon/evening - depending on the level of your gambling and drug addictions - you least expected to think about the music group the Proclaimers in any form. Well neither did I, but the voices of Charlie and Craig Reid were the first lucid sounds that made it through my ear canal and into my brain thusly.

You remember these guys right? From the early ninety’s - they did that ‘500 Miles’ song:

“I would walk five hundred miles and I would walk 500 more...just to be the man who’d walk a thousand miles to fall down at your door…” (I’ll get back to that obvious italic shortly).

The song is intoxicating, frankly. Go ahead, rolls some eyes, but if you should find yourself alone in the car someday in the not-so-distant future, god help you if it should pop-up into a thirty minute, commercial free, fabulous flashback block on your radio. Or in my case, in bed past noon with the TV station stuck on VH1 Classic after a late night of vintage Queen concerts. Either way, you will sing along…oh yes, you will sing along.

When I was about eleven this song was a surprise hit because of the movie "Benny and Joon" starring today’s Jack Sparrow (for the kids).

I can’t help but smile when I hear them say thousand. Not only is the pronunciation comical, but this is the very word that spawned my first bet.

My best friend at the time was convinced that the line ended:

“..Just to be the man who’d walk five hundred miles to fall down at your door..”

He clearly forgot to add. (500+500=1,000)

Realizing at this point that, A - my best friend was incapable of simple arithmetic. And, B - The timing was perfect to use his simple oversight against him.

Oh, who could blame me? He wouldn’t let it go, he was so sure he was right! So very sure. So what do these weather conditions create? An eleven year old boy making - and winning his first bet. We went as far as calling the local Top 40 radio station to confirm. (No Google yet!)

Devious for such a young kid or not, I carry this idea with me each time I’m at the felt. It just takes one little oversight. I'm always looking for it and paying attention to that inevitable lapse in my opponents' judgment and trying to remain aware of my own. And if I can get someone to put their money where there mouth is - at just the wrong time - it sure pays off.

Then again, as it approaches 1PM, I can’t really start paying attention to much of anything until I get outta this bed.

Big Flops, Bigger Pots,
Del