Half Way

We are half way through this summer’s meet at Saratoga and a little more than half way through summer. That’s depressing, especially since Mother Nature has robbed us of many potentially good summer days. Those lazy, hazy, crazy days have been non- existent. Dog days have stayed off the porch. July went down in the history books tied for tenth place as the wettest month. August has ushered in one deluge after another. Today’s afternoon forecast was sunny and rain, sunny and rain, followed by more sun and rain and later - the same. Every twenty minutes or a five miles change in geographic location brings a new forecast. If it wasn’t in the sixties, you might confuse Upstate New York for the tropics, or at least central Florida. (Well, maybe not.)

My job is to stand in the rain at the horse crossing gate and try to be oblivious to the rivulets of water running down my back under my belt and between my butt cheeks. It has been hard to ignore the rising currents sweeping over my shoes. Occasionally a cooler full of beer floats by, unclaimed by the patrons who abandoned their lawn chairs for the higher and drier ground of the grandstand. Rumor had it that the clubhouse was to be renamed the Ark. The rain has affected attendance, betting and the card (races were cancelled after a portion of the far turn turned into a gulley). Even the nonchalant attitudes of the ponies who escort the thoroughbreds to the starting gate have been tested in the unrelenting rains during the first three weeks of the meet.

Dad commented that the weather reminded him of our trip to Europe where it rained for nearly seventeen days. Yes, but worse because I have to stand in it for hours on end. If it wasn’t for the fact that Dad absconded with a security poncho twenty years ago when he worked as a guard I’d not have rain gear for these monsoons. I was issued one shirt, a pair of pants, a ball cap embroidered with SECURITY and a cheap tin badge that not even Marshall Dillon would have pinned on his one eyed deputy before heading out to rustle up some bad guys.

The big excitement at my post involved a young spinner(Spinners are the guys who continuously go through the turn styles collecting vouchers for whatever made-in-China-giveaways the track is enticing the public with to boost attendance and wagering. Twenty minutes after the gates open anyone in the world can go on Ebay and purchase for twenty bucks the free-with-paid-admission cooler bags, hats, t-shirt, etc. tattooed with the track’s red logo.). The kid had about thirty stadium seats precariously perched on a hand trolley. Just before he reached the exit gate they fell over. He was in the process of picking them up when another patron approached him and asked if he would accept his voucher in exchange for one of the seats. The kid said no. After all he had collected them to sell and a voucher meant he’d have to retrieve another seat.

Meanwhile the guy’s wife reached down behind the kid and made off with two seats. I shook my head in disbelief. I volunteered to watch his loot while he went after her. All was recovered and I avoided a tedious process of filling out any paperwork or even making a report.

Given the financial state of the New York Racing Association I took may pay checks to the bank before they could bounce. I have now paid the balance on my desk. After next week I’ll have my airline ticket, but at $10.00/hour I’ll have to dip into the piggy bank to pay my property taxes in Hawaii.