He and myself were colleagues in our 20s, and loved playing poker. He was a little older and would host home games all the time, and introduced me to some underground games at some of the seediest spots you have ever seen. One was in a strip center next to a Chinese Grocery store which were owned by the same guy, and I am telling you the swings were wild, sometimes there was $50K on the felt. They never let more than 16 players play at a time/two tables, just to keep the temptation of robbery down. There were two rooms, one for watching TV, the other for poker. The owner refused to allow anyone to eat at the tables, you were permitted to order and eat in the other room as long as you were not gone for more than 15 minutes otherwise your seat was filled. You could drink and they had beer and wine, no hard liquor though. There was a Red Roof Inn and Motel 6 across the street, and if you were too drunk to drive and busted the owner would comp you a room.

Anyway, my friend and myself left about 9am after an all night session. I busted out and so did he. We were each pumping gas and he noticed my tail light was out. He was like, you need to get that fixed, one day at night when you have a few too many you could get pulled over. I was like whatever. There was an Autozone literally next door to the station and he was insisting just go in there and buy a replacement bulb, so I relented and did and replaced it.

That was Saturday morning. Sunday night I went back to play and busted my roll again, and on tilt I decided to drive to an ATM to get another $500 out, ATM was a mile away. It was 1am and a cop was behind me all the way. I was definitely over the .08 limit but given my tolerance I drove fine, got my cash and the cop got bored apparently and drove away. Point is if I had not got the bulb replacement I would have definitely gotten pulled over and likely arrested. I always remembered that.

So long old friend.