Jaybird knew gambling can be addictive, and he made sure I never became a gambler by letting me gamble. Before long, I was handing over all of my hard-earned weekly allowance to him
As a boy growing up on Dad’s Mississippi Delta farm in the 1950s, I looked forward to Saturdays, mainly because I didn’t have to go to school, but also because Friday’s paydays were always followed by Saturday’s dice games.
I watched and listened, crouched beside Jaybird, my best friend and mentor. After I grasped the fundamentals of craps, as the old black man called the game, he spotted me some change and let me join in.
“If you win, repay me and keep the rest,” he said. “If you lose, repay me from your allowance for doing chores.”
