Las Vegas Story

   Bishop Campbell was back at Meeting last Sunday. He and his family had gone out west for a vacation. He mentioned that they had gone to Las Vegas and had walked a little on the Strip. It made me think of the time I was in Las Vegas.
  It was a long time ago. A friend of mine had won a trip for two. The choices were Florida or Las Vegas. Since neither of us was really crazy about going to Florida, we chose Nevada. We would be there for three nights with a hotel and rental car.
   We decided to take a long weekend in October. It was a nice flight and I remember thinking that the airport was pretty nice too. We got to our room and got settled in. Our plan was to spend one day on the Las Vegas Strip and one day in Death Valley. We would spend part of the last day at Hoover Dam.
  I enjoyed walking around on the Strip. One of my hobbies is people watching and there was a lot of people on the Strip. We walked around all the casinos on the Strip at that time. There was the MGM Grand, the Excalibur and one that had a pirate ship in front of it. I think we went into Cesar's Palace and a few others.
  My friend wanted to do some gambling. I didn't mind. I don't gamble because I feel it is wasteful, but it doesn't bother me if others do. While she took her turn at the slot machines I sat somewhere and watched. It reminded me the the Native American casinos in northern Minnesota. There were the same kinds of people clutching big plastic cups of change, each hoping to win the jackpot. The only difference was that in Nevada the machines cost more to play.
  We were in the Excalibur,which has a medieval sort of theme. I had been spending a lot of time around the Minnesota Renaissance Festival and was not really impressed. It wasn't very authentic to my eyes.
  I wandered over to the wedding chapel. Most of the casinos seemed to have one. I was curious. It never occurred to me that anyone would want to be married in a place like that. I wanted to see what it looked like. It was really nothing special, just a few rooms with pews in them like a church. There were different packages that a couple could buy and if you wanted you could rent medieval costumes to wear. The costumes were all right, but I had seen better.
   There was a young couple sitting on a couch looking through one of the costume books. A lady came up to them and asked if they needed help. I heard them answer "no". They told the lady that they had a two o'clock appointment.
   I felt bad for them. They said they had a two o'clock appointment in the kind of tone you would use for a dentist or doctor appointment. It was so...matter of fact... No excitement. No happiness. Just a resigned, "We have a two o'clock appointment."
   Maybe I was very naive back then, but I wanted to go over there and shake them. This isn't an appointment for an oil change, this is an appointment to arrange your wedding. Your marriage. The first day of a great new adventure for you. The start of a whole new life. Possibly one of the best days of your life. If you can't go into this with a little more enthusiasm, then maybe you shouldn't take this step.
  I didn't do it of course, but the memory of those two people has stayed with me all these years. Did they marry? Did they look good in their costumes? Did they have a good time? Did they have any children? Are they still married? I'll never know. No matter what happened,I hope both of them are having successful lives.
  It did teach me something. When you go into something new, be it a marriage, a new job or even a new hobby go into it with enthusiasm. It's the start of something, make it a good one.