The well dressed Texan cranks his one-arm bandit machine alongside a skinny teen clad in a baggy, basketball-themed outfit. The teen’s grandfather, weary looking, but comfortable in sweat clothes, plays alone, eight machines down from his kin.
“Now that Buffalo Thunder’s open twenty-four hours, my grandfather can gamble here all night – and – it’s not so bad they serve alcohol, right? Sure I have to drive him home, but they allow eighteen-year-olds to play here now, so I can slot all night too. It rocks!”
“Till you run out of money,” The Texan says.
“Oh, no, he just cashes his social security check here – another new rule.”
“Really? How does New Mexico do it?”
“The pueblo doesn’t have to pay revenue-sharing to the state now, or something like that. I dunno. Who cares? Rock on.”
Such changes are part of the Pojoaque tribe’s new proposed gambling compact to the federal government. How can people even THINK of such ideas?
Keep on rockin’ in the free world, New Mexico.
Sometimes I feel like I don’t want to live here anymore.
Mike Andberg 