Sands of time

In Las Vegas, imploding old casinos to make way for new ones is almost a way of life. (And, judging by the casino hotel I stayed in there just yesterday, it needs to happen a little more frequently.) But in my old stomping grounds of Atlantic City, it hadn’t happened until last night, when they blew up the Sands real good.

I remember playing blackjack at the Sands when it opened in 1980 (and when it was called the Brighton, after the hotel that originally stood there), and yes, I was underage and got in anyway. (I don’t recall any of my friends ever being stopped at any casino hotel.) I would drop in occasionally for the next eight years until relocating to Los Angeles, but after that I never went again. If they blow up Harrah’s — or, perhaps, when they blow up Harrah’s — I will lose a large chunk of my history: just out of college, I worked at Harrah’s for almost a year, and often booked suites on the sly so I could host poker parties; at the end of one of them, my father sadly shook his head and said about one of my more, um, entertaining friends, “Joe shouldn’t play cards,” and then left with all of Joe’s money in his pocket.

Here’s the true lesson to learn from this implosion: that Kansas was right, and we are indeed all dust in the wind. Because if in Atlantic City nobody was able to save the site of the final concerts by New Jersey native Frank Sinatra, then there is no final hope for a legacy by any of us.