Word: flamingoes
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Nevada's wide-open Las Vegas (pop. 26,000) had seen a lot of memorable gambling joints-the opening of the late "Bugsy" Siegel's flamboyant Flamingo in 1946 had closely approximated bank night in a Turkish harem. But it had never seen anything quite like the uproar that rose last week when Wilbur ("God, how I hated that name when I was a kid") Clark threw open the doors of his sprawling $4,000,000, Bermuda-pink Desert Inn, invited the world to come in and help him get rich...
...gardenias hung from its limbs as presents for the ladies) and the big bar with a nude painting that lighted every hour on the hour. They jammed about the five dice tables, three roulette wheels and four "21" tables. The house had some fevered moments-gamblers from the competing Flamingo took a whirl at breaking the bank, but left in disgust, $60,000 losers. Movie Star Bud Abbott sat at a "21" table for two hours, finally got up with a quiet smile and $10,000 in winnings...
...tattered stranger appeared at the sophomores' door, claiming that he was "a poor merchant seaman off the S.S. Flamingo" who had gotten drunk on pay day and had been robbed of all he had in the world. His spiel ended with an appeal to the open-mouthed listeners to have a warm spot in their hearts for "a poor Irishman who had a wee bit too much to drink...
This was evidently the right tack Craven, who boasts "a wee bit of Irish blood," forked over three dollars, and Ensign followed up with two. The stranger promised to return the money on the 21st, when he would rejoin the Flamingo in Brooklyn...
University police jolted the pair with the information that the merchant seaman has been stranded from the Flamingo since...