Lessons From My Father: Please Gamble Responsibly

Please rewrite the given sentence or provide more context for me to rewrite it.

Julie Walker, correspondent for Playinmichigan, reveals her personal link to gambling addiction as we near Sunday’s Super Bowl. If you or anyone you’re aware of requires assistance, reach out to the Michigan Problem Gambling Helpline at 1-800-270-7117.

We have nineteen yards! That’s right! Absolutely! Let’s advance the chains. Spike to halt the clock. It’s game time!

Incomplete.

Negative. Inhale. You can do it!

Incomplete.

Oh my goodness. Only nine seconds remaining. I can’t catch my breath.

Once more, it remains incomplete.

Absolutely not. Absolutely not. It’s the end of the game.

The final score is 21-17, with the New York Giants defeating the New England Patriots.

Once again, Eli Manning outperforms Tom Brady.

My heart was suffocated by anxiety, causing my sweat to taste like Jim Beam.

The friend inquired, “Hey, why are you getting so worked up about just $50?”

“I must confess,” I admitted. “I may have slightly deceived you. The truth is, the $50 I mentioned earlier only covers the commission fee. In reality, my actual loss amounts to $550.”

“Dude.”

“Yeah.”

Even my friend who is a bookie refused to accept my money.

“Listen, kid,” he said, breaking away from his typical bookie demeanor. “You’ve got a child to take care of. It’s doubtful you have $500 to spare for a bet. And if luck isn’t on your side, you’ll also be responsible for the $50 juice.”

I reassured, “No worries, we’ll be receiving our tax money soon.”

Moreover, there is absolutely no chance that Tom Brady will suffer two defeats against Eli. It is an undeniable certainty.

She get it from her Daddy

When I was growing up in Garden City, my Dad, Charlie Walker, would often take me to Silver Lanes, a dive bar and bowling alley. Back then, the place was filled with smoke, making it hard to breathe, and the floors were so sticky that I would sometimes struggle to walk. It was just like any other father spending quality time with their child.

I recall observing as his fingertips delicately moved up the length of every Newport Light, witnessing their transformation into a cloud of gray ashes that would inevitably descend onto his shirt. Occasionally, he would recollect just in time to swiftly take a drag, extinguishing the remaining ash into an ashtray before proceeding to ignite another.

While Dad indulged in his cigarettes and conversed with his friend, I sipped on Shirley Temples, the adorable “adult” beverage for a six-year-old.

After many years, I discovered that the person we were actually meeting was Dad’s bookie.

He didn’t attempt to conceal it, nor his routines. I simply never interrogated it. As I grew older, my dad taught me to gamble in a manner that felt as natural as mastering the art of riding a bicycle.

At the age of 12, my dad made a $20 bet with me on a Chargers-Raiders game. Confident in my choice, I went for the visiting Chargers, assuming it would be an effortless win. However, being new to NFL knowledge, I hadn’t done my due diligence in researching the teams’ records.

“Dad emphasized the significance of rivalry games, Julie,” he said. “You must understand that these games ignite passion even in the weakest teams. It’s crucial to be well-informed about every aspect, ranging from weather conditions to how the stadium might impact each team’s performance.”

Afterward, he proceeded to seize my money.

But, there’s always tomorrow

During our phone conversation this week, I began to comprehend the innocence of my younger self, Julie, as my mom, Shirley Walker, explained how my dad and his friends were constantly plotting to become wealthy. They always believed that one successful venture would lead to the ultimate payout, where they would never have to work again.

I was aware of our financial struggles. I understood that Dad went overboard with Christmas presents to compensate for the time when they had to give away or sell all my toys. I have vivid memories of sneaking out of our Tampa Bay apartment under the moonlight. We managed to survive for six months with Mom working as a waitress at Red Lobster and Dad taking temporary construction jobs.

When I inquired about Dad’s greatest loss from Mom, I anticipated a substantial sum of money, perhaps around $40,000 on a bet involving the Lions or something similar. (Interestingly, Dad has a personal rule to never bet on the Lions, as he believes it is a guaranteed way to lose money. “Whether you bet with them or against them, you’ll still end up losing,” he always says.)

“Recalling such a significant loss is quite challenging for me,” Mom stated. “If I had to estimate, I believe it was around $3,000.”

“I said, ‘That doesn’t sound like a lot,’ but just to disclose, I cannot afford a $3,000 bet.”

Perhaps not at the moment, but this situation occurred almost three decades ago. Back then, we were juggling the responsibilities of raising a child, making two car payments, and managing a mortgage. Unfortunately, what we lacked was the financial stability for our son to experience any monetary loss.

During his bookie years, Dad remained committed to football, as Mom puts it.

“He didn’t place wagers on every single game,” she remarked. “However, he did place bets on a majority of them. This included Thursday Night Football, college games on Saturdays, and Sunday parlays…”

“Subsequently, he would consistently attempt to extricate himself from the situation every Monday.”

‘It was just getting some money back that he lost’

I mentioned to Mom that football betting does require a certain level of skill, and I recalled him being quite successful on a consistent basis.

Although he experienced occasional weeks of winning, it was merely a means of recouping the money he had previously lost rather than true success.

“You can never beat the house – gambling is never in your favor.”

Mom remarked that Dad, who struggled with ADHD and various mental health concerns, including addiction, never prioritized money.

She stated, “As long as he remained employed, he believed we possessed sufficient resources. We can always count on tomorrow.”

Every week, she would repeatedly inform him that it was beyond their financial means and plead with him to take a break for a week.

She said that he would call the bookie while she was at work, and then call her to instruct her, “Cheer for San Fran and the over; I have $1,200 on it.”

According to Mom, there isn’t a single specific incident that stands out as the turning point which made him stop betting with bookies. Instead, she recalls a series of small debts that accumulated over time, resulting in two bankruptcy filings, a failed truck lease, a lost apartment lease, and some funds for school expenses being affected during my lifetime.

Before the bookie swore to only wager on squares, pools, and fantasy football, Mom recalls exactly what she had mentioned during their previous encounter.

Look, Charlie! We’ve arrived to hand over this guy’s entire paycheck, and yet he’s cruising around in a luxurious gold Cadillac!

Seventies friends are forever friends

My mom, who recently celebrated four years of being a cancer survivor, mentioned that she has blocked out many memories from that time and finds it difficult to recall them. All I can remember is the fantasy football related moments.

I recall my “uncles” Kyle and Tim enjoying football games, particularly after Dad received a settlement for a work-related injury. It was thanks to that settlement that we were able to buy our first house just before I entered fifth grade.

Our basement became a football mecca thanks to Dad. Even before we had internet, he managed to organize the Invitational Fantasy Football League (I.F.F.L.) around 1987.

Kyle and Tim would come over to prepare for the draft, discussing the players and their fascinating stories with great affection. When Sundays arrived, they gathered to watch the games together, with Dad taking his usual seat in the center of the basement.

He had all four of the downstairs TVs wired with the DirecTV package, with each one blaring a different game alongside the unfortunate situation the Lions had gotten themselves into.

The whole situation appeared to be innocent and enjoyable. Dad and his friends exuded humor and charisma as they reminisced about their rebellious antics during their graduation year of 1971.

Everything was glamorized by them – the cigarettes, the weed, the concerts. Their ongoing joke was that they would never survive beyond their sixties.

They all failed to do so.

The school of hard knocks and half-truths

As I grew older, I gained a clearer understanding of my childhood. Through my journalism training, I developed the habit of fact-checking some of my father’s stories, such as the incident where he claims he was mistaken for Ted Bundy.

My father instructed me to apply for college loans so that he and my mother could repay them all at once using an account that he and my grandparents had established. He assured me that they had sufficient funds to cover an additional loan I had obtained for car repairs, which my former roommate had co-signed. Furthermore, he asked me to update my address in the school system to ensure that all loan-related correspondence would be directed to them.

My dad informed me that they were actively making payments, and I never received any notification indicating otherwise.

I was blissfully unaware until the day I woke up, eight months pregnant, to an angry voicemail from my ex-roommate. Unbeknownst to him, his credit score had always been impeccable. However, when he and his fiancé tried to secure a mortgage, they faced rejection. It turns out, there was a $4,000 loan he had defaulted on, and now the outstanding balance had skyrocketed to an astonishing $9,000.

The loan I have is worth $9,000.

Oh, baby

A pregnant woman’s anger knows no bounds. I immediately contacted Dad, but his response was evasive. He mentioned something about requiring the money for a bankruptcy, but his explanation kept shifting.

In order to rectify the situation, the loan sharks demanded a payment of $6,000 and insisted on us adhering to a payment plan before they would update my friend’s credit rating. Unfortunately, we had to utilize all the funds we had set aside for our wedding and our down payment for our future home.

Today, as I write this story, I find myself in a basement apartment where radiators reside on the ceiling, and unfortunately, we have no control over our own heating. It has been my abode since my college days, and I remain in the same complex to this day.

It’s been eleven years, so it’s not solely my Dad’s responsibility that we’re still residing in this place. We’ve encountered various hardships along the way, and certainly, the pandemic has only added to our challenges.

I often ponder how much our lives would have improved if Dad had simply been honest with me. Deep down, I understand that he believed he was just one major victory away from success. I was aware that if he had the means, he would have gladly given it to me.

Despite his significant challenges, he possessed an immense capacity for kindness. He selflessly dedicated his time to coaching me in softball and went above and beyond by organizing birthday celebrations for our Dachshunds, complete with steaks. Every weekend, he would make the long journey from Goodrich just to watch his sole grandson, refusing any payment due to my education pursuits.

Mom: You are *exactly* like him

I am a Daddy’s girl, just like him. He instilled those values in me, you know. And considering his numerous, well, mishaps in life, he rarely passed judgment on me.

As a new Mom to a 1-year-old, in February of 2012, I made the risky decision to wager our rent on Super Bowl XLVI. Desperate to gather funds for a down payment on a house, I turned to my Dad to express my frustration.

His yelling caught me off guard, as I never anticipated such a reaction from him. He sternly advised me to avoid repeating his own mistakes and emphasized that I was his little mini, implying that if he possessed an addictive personality, then I too possessed one.

Indeed, this occurred prior to my decision to quit smoking cigarettes and consuming copious amounts of diet soda. Remarkably, my father’s influence had a lasting impact on me this time. I no longer engaged in gambling with a bookmaker.

Currently, my focus lies solely on participating in fantasy leagues and an annual pool. In the event that I decide to place additional bets, I strictly limit myself to a maximum of $50 or $100, and this predetermined amount is always within the boundaries of the law.

Despite her general distaste for gambling, Mom admitted that she felt relieved when Dad stopped associating with the bookie and instead focused on fantasy sports, squares, and similar activities.

“It’s alright since it’s something we can manage,” Mom reassures. “You just need to secure the funds beforehand, which gives us a level of control.”

Despite surviving a suicide attempt on Father’s Day in 2009 and being required to stay in a Flint hospital as mandated by the state, my dad made efforts to improve his mental health. He even began attending therapy sessions. Concerned about the possibility of inheriting his struggles, he frequently recommended that I seek therapy as well. Interestingly, I never followed his advice.

I lost him eventually.

At the age of 64, Charlie Walker passed away on January 6, 2018, following a two-month struggle to recuperate from a stroke. Remarkably, his demise occurred amidst the passing of his closest companions.

Tim passed away within a year due to a heart attack, just like Kyle, who they lost in 2005.

All of them missed out on hitting the jackpot.

If you or someone you are acquainted with requires assistance, please dial 1-800-270-7117 to reach the Michigan Problem Gambling Helpline.

Please rewrite your request.