Celebrated

***Caesars Tahoe; Stateline, Nevada. Only the name has changed.***

From April 1993 through August 1999, I worked at Caesars Tahoe. Needless to say, the entire experience was magical.

Seriously though, folks, there are three things people typically ask me about said occupation:

1. What is the secret to gambling? Answer: Don't play.
2. What is the weirdest thing that happened to you there? Answer: Tough call. Watching a guy take a leak in a slot machine coin try, in full view of everyone? An armed robbery in our casino? Seeing Patrick Swayze's penis? 
3. Did you ever meet anyone famous? Answer: Yes.

Now let's get something straight from the get-go: Celebrities are fine, but I've never really understood why we celebrate them. Give me some of your cash, bigshot, then we'll celebrate. Oh okay, some entertainers should be celebrated--Wayne Gretzky and Ronald McDonald, to name two, but generally I just don't care. I prefer to leave it at, I appreciate you entertaining me, Mr./Ms. Superfreak, but really, no, I don't want your autograph or to touch you.

That said, as a group over six years, the collection of these people that I met is fairly interesting. In fact, someday I will sit down and list them all, just because. The better list though is the group of non-celebrated characters I met along the way, believe you me. Those are the folks who will someday be characters in my short stories, whether they like it or not. Dennis Rodman, Charles Barkley, Michael Jordan, Mario Lemieux, Dan Marino, Jack Wagner (I still have no idea who this plastic man is), Carmen Electra, Marty Schottenheimer, John Smoltz, Oscar de la Hoya, Charlie Sheen, Chris Isaac, Bobby Brown, blah blah blah are generally not half as attention grabbing as casino regulars George, Ralph, Carol, Frankie, Hal, et.al. are, though a couple in that celebrity list are pretty cool cats.

For the most part, though, it's the the nice, interesting average Joes met along the way that you remember.

My parents moved to Minnesota several years before I, so naturally I would visit from time to time. During one of those visits to Minnesota, my mother and I had lunch at the Union Depot in St. Paul, at a place called LeAnn Chin's--delicious Chinese food it was.

A year, maybe two, later, a nice woman seated in the VIP slot area at Caesars made a simple request, and being the customer service-centric man I am, I was happy to accommodate. In the process, I took her Emperor's Club (player-tracking) card, took a look at it and her account, and, well, it was a woman named LeAnn Chin. Her account listed her as from Minneapolis.

I always enjoy it when someone tells me they enjoyed something I was associated with, so I really wanted to compliment her on the delicious lemon chicken I had at her restaurant. Or was it her restaurant? I'm sure there is more than one woman named LeAnn Chin in the world, but in Minneapolis? So I returned to her, told her my story of eating at LeAnn Chin's in St. Paul, and asked if indeed she is THAT LeAnn Chin. She was, and we had a brief conversation about her, her restaurants, and when my fortune from her cookie would come to be. Very nice, soft-spoken woman.

For the record, she gambled at a very reasonable level for a woman of her means--and of course we the casino knew all about her means.

Anyway, LeAnn Chin died Wednesday, here's a nice recap of her life. While people outside of Minnesota likely have no idea who she is, everyone in Minnesota, and especially the Twin Cities, knows LeAnn Chin.

So, celebrity or average Joe? The latter to me, and those are the ones I remember.