The Strangest Job I'm Glad I Ever Took

 

 

July 17, 1984. It was a quiet Monday morning in Las Vegas. My partner and I were dozing when the phone rang. I jumped with a start, leaving a beautiful dame and a gin and tonic on a Pacific island beach in my dream. My cup of coffee spilled all over my shirt. I cursed at the way the week had started.

 

The phone call took me by surprise. "You want me to do what?!" I couldn't believe the Showboat Hotel manager on the other end of the line. "Serve as nursemaid to a bunch of jugglers?! You gotta be out of your mind!" Then I remembered the rent was due and the man from the electric company was showing up at 10 to cut off the power. "OK, OK," I grumbled.

 

Checking registration cards isn't exactly my specialty, but neither is starving on the sidewalk. "Stall the electric company and run some more water through the coffee grounds," I told my partner, then grabbed my straw fedora and headed out the door. It had another hole in the brim. Even the moths in the office were getting pretty hungry .

 

Freemont Avenue, the main road to Los Angeles. The Showboat was the first big gambling stop for all those weekend suckers coming out of California. It's not Ceasar's Palace or Circus Circus, but you can lose just as much money there as anywhere. It had started raining by the time I pulled into the parking lot. It was the first shower in about 100 days. "Maybe it'll drown those cockroaches," I thought hopefully.

 

I strolled across the casino floor to the sports pavilion where I was supposed to set up shop. The management had strategically positioned buckets on the floor to catch the rainwater dripping through the roof. I casually dropped a quarter in a poker machine as I passed by. If I hit a royal flush, I could go home and forget this weird assignment. Drat! No luck.

 

Resigned to my fate, I rode the escalator up to the second floor. The sports pavilion was big and dimly lit. The only time I had seen it before, it was filled with chairs and cigar smoke. Hot lights had shone down on the center ring where two boxers pounded each other's brains out. That was my kind of excitement! I didn't know what to think about this juggling stuff.

Nobody seemed to be around. I was standing in the doorway just about to make a break back for home when a walrus­looking fellow walked up and introduced himself as Rich Chamberlin, "convention chairman and IJA secretary!" he said cheerily. I later found out he taught school and operated a magic shop. He seemed harmless, but I wasn't sure.

 

Rich stationed me at the door. Curious as to the nature of the assignment, I asked about it. "If someone tries to get in without a badge, should I rub 'em out, or just rough 'em up a little?" I asked. "No, just send them on back to the registration desk," Rich replied. I muttered to myself, "What a bunch of lightweights!"

 

Before the week was over, 503 people registered, and another few hundred curiosity-seekers walked in for a peek. I'm proud to say no one got in that shouldn't have. Rich told me the hall was going to stay open all day and night until next Sunday. I felt like complaining, but I had a reputation to uphold so I kept my trap shut and sent out for a 10-gallon urn of coffee.

 

About the time it arrived, so did all these people. One of the first characters I saw, (but only the first of many characters!) was Jim Neff, who came walking up with his head cocked sideways and a ball resting on his ear! Can you imagine that! When he shook my hand, he tipped his head and the ball rolled up to his forehead! Geeez!

 

Everyone had a bag slung over their shoulder. I was gonna start inspecting them for explosives and guns, but Rich told me that wasn't necessary. It turned out to be a pretty friendly crowd after all. They looked like any group of Las Vegas tourists - until they started unloading their bags and playing around on the floor.

 

When I looked around and saw this 11-year old kid, Anthony Gatto, juggling seven balls standing on a guy's shoulders, I knew I'd better start paying attention! So I got to know a few of them, and let me tell you, these jugglers are alright people!

 

Take Andrew Conway. He's an alien. What I mean is, he's from England, but now he runs computers in San Francisco. Not one of the best jugglers there, but plenty jolly. Dick Crowshaw told me that thinking about juggling was the only thing that kept him sane as he installed tile in sweaty little motel bathrooms down in Florida. Florida! Geeze! That's a long way to come to get your jollies!