Before I get into Reno I have one more short story about Yakima
I got word from my brother that his ship was coming into Bremerton Washington for repair. He had gone back into the Navy and was aboard the USS ORISKANY which was an aircraft carrier. It’s funny these were the days way before cell phones but somehow we communicated. I really wanted to go see him. I made plans to go on a Saturday night after work. Somehow I talked Jim into going with me. We left right after work drove to Seattle then boarded a ferry to cross Puget Sound to Bremerton. Now this was quite a trip for a small town boy. We were cleared through the gate and drove to where the shipped was docked. OH MY GOD. Have you ever walked up to the bow of an aircraft carrier? That thing was huge. We got to go on board spend some time with Tom. He gave us a tour and boy that was cool. As I recall the USS Missouri was docked right next to the ORISKANY and we toured it also.
Now for Reno How can I possibly describe what it was like for a 20 yr old young man to find himself in Reno Nevada. Everywhere I looked was good entertainment ,money and beautiful women. I felt like Gomer Pyle. Goooooooollllllleeeeee. Now I know from my stories you think we were always broke. Well in the beginning we were. But believe it or not we finally got on our feet. But we weren’t there yet. We had just quit a job and didn’t have another one to go to. Our new manager George said just settle down I’ll get it going. We believed him and sure as the world he did. It took a little while, a week or so and there were some tough times. One day we were in a Casino, George gave me a handful of Nickels and said go play that slot machine next that pretty girl. I. Checked her out and dang she was gooood lookin. I go over there, I was playing slow trying to make my Nickels last, sure as the world we struck up a conversation. She asked me ” do you ever win playing these things?” No I replied I’ve never won anything I tell you what if I hit anything we’ll split it. On the next pull I hit a jackpot for seven dollars. Now that doesn’t sound like much now but in 1964 when you’re broke it was a lot. Dang what do I do now? The Nickels were falling in the tray and I’m thinking dang I could eat for two days on this. I mean at the time. McDonalds hamburger was 15 cents. All this was running through my mind as I was scooping up Nickels Yep you guessed it I ran. I’ve never seen her again. Thank goodness. We were only in Reno a few days and George found us a place to play. Not only that but it had a place for us to live attached. Only one drawback it was a country and western club. No problem George said you’ll start drawing your crowd as soon as the word spreads. Well I hate to admit it but he was right. Now for the first few days we had a lot of request for country songs and we knew very few. Somehow it all worked out and they really liked us. We started drawing good crowds and the word got out. The name of the club was ” The Silver Sage”. Several years later it was bought out by a guy we worked for in Portland and completely rebuilt and we worked there again. Small world. Well as the word spread we were cutting in to the crowd from the club down the street. It was a pretty rough club but drew a large young crowd. It was called The pPlantation Club and was owned by a guy that looked like Burl Ives. Sure as the world he and George started negotiating. First thing you know we moved down the street. This guy’s name was Clancy and as strange as it may seem Clancy had a wife and Clancy had a girlfriend and even stranger they both worked with Clancy at his club.now Clancy’s girlfriend, Mary thought she could sing. Ever so often Clancy wanted us to let Mary sing a couple songs. You’ve heard the old saying rode hard and put up wet? I’m not sure they ever put Mary up. She was bleach blonde and looked hard. But we let her sing. Now how does a guy have a wife and a girlfriend? I can see that happening with my first wife. She would go all Lorena Bobbitt on me and the second wife would just say well I hope you can live on what I leave you.
We really had it made working at this club. Our manager George and his wife Lawanda was there about every night. They would be in the crowd and Lawanda was our scout. She would hear some girl say I like the organ player or guitar player or whatever. Then she would pass it on to us and the way was paved. What a deal. For the next few months we had a heck of a good time. One really funny thing happened one day. George and Lawanda were over at our apartment. George had been working on Clancy for a raise for us. He was telling us about it. Well keep in mind in those days no way did you say dirty words in front of a lady and certainly not the F word. Gary Sullivan was lying on the couch. George told us something that Clancy said and it made Gary mad ” well f—– him” Gary said then he remembered Lawanda was there. He turned 50 shades of red and apologized about fifty times. It was funny.
Ever so often a fight would break out but they had good security and they got it under control pretty quick. One night a fight broke out and this guy was knocked out. The security guy was a big guy. He just grabbed him up and threw him over his shoulder and headed for the door. The guy was completely out but just as they started through the door he woke up and raised up. Whack His head hit the door frame and he was out again. It was hilarious it looked like something you would see in a movie. We laughed about that for weeks.
The good thing about being young and single in a place like Reno is that most of the ladies made good money. They would invite you out for dinner or to see a show or whatever and they would pay. Gary Sullivan was a master at it. He was popular with the ladies, although pretty particular, I don’t think he ever paid for anything. We also enjoyed the Casino Cabarets they always had good bands or good comedy acts. You could go downtown and for the price of a drink see some great entertainment. We made it our goal to work those kind of places. It took a little time but we got there.
Next : on to the Driftwood Lounge
Allen Crawford's story blog 