First Posted 23 September 2004

Why I live here

I did get out of the house, originally to get a newspaper or ten since our pictures were in it but, I ended up stopping by my florist, The Art Of Flowers, and saying hullo to my good friend Becky. She does all the arrangements for our benefits and helps out at the Red Ribbon Bingo as the raffle ticket seller (Among other volunteering, she was awarded a Congressional citation for her work). She gave me a beautiful single stem yellow rose, the colour of friendship. How nice. I wandered down to my hair stylist at the House Of Hair but Margarita (who donated my latest hair style as part of the cause) was under the weather, so I left the rose for her to cheer her up when she comes in to the salon to-day. I moseyed on down to the boardwalk, it was rather warm in the sun and I now have a bit of a farmer's tan going on because of my midday constitutional, I wandered by my old restaurant (who donated dinner for two and an ad in our program book) and ignored everyone there, I just didn't feel they needed to see me, and took the walk through Caesars/Bally's Wild West/Bally's/Claridge/Sands (all owned by the same company and put an ad in our program book) because the sun was getting on my vampire nerves and the casinos are oh so air conditioned. Exiting the Sands (funny how no one noticed my hair among the blue and pink rinse set in the casinos) I made my way to the offices at the club to pick up my paycheck. Ellen Eccles (her husband was honored, posthumously for his help in our cause), the secretary in the offices, and I laughed about the mistakes in the Atlantic City Press (who put an ad in our program book and covered the event every year) and I picked up my check and cashed it at the Brass Rail, where I chatted with Ed, the asst. manager of the club (who donated his time the night of the pageant). I took the casino throughway back to the boardwalk but once again the sun beat down far to hard on my delicate skin so I ducked into the passageway that goes underneath Convention Hall (Miss America, let me hear you holla!) and took a Jitney bus (the Jitneymen's Association put an ad in our program book this year) home. I chatted on the computer all night with Shannon (who got the bug and will probably become our biggest supporter), a bartender at the club and we gossiped about everything. She's so cute. It is heartwarming to know that I live in a city like this. There are few places that you can live where the sense of community is this strong. Some people have often asked me what it is that keeps me in this city. This is why I live here.