I don't want a sandwich

 I don't want a sandwich

“The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but that's how the smart money bets.”
― Damon Runyon



      This being one of Greg's favorites I include one from the Creason household when entertaining mugs from New York.  In the mid to late 1930's BC spent time in the big apple where he learned the ticket business and made some very unique pals. Damon Runyon had created the archtypical New York City character and many of the guys hangind around Hickey, Duke and the rest were street-wise fellas with their own vernacular and an abscence of proper manners. The were blunt speaking guys who felt at home around a race track, a boxing areana or the grandstands at a one of the three big league baseball parks in the big city. Duke Ray was the king of the characters and his utterances are fit to enter into Bartlett's quotations. Stephen and I accepted him as a super-hero when he took us out to shag baseballs at the park and replaced his boxer shorts with a jock-strap. The boxers had a ruler on the front with cornball sayings under the title "how do you measure up?" But this one is not about Duke but it involved a couple of disreputable cats named "Bill the Builder" and "Jake the Belcher." They were in town to turn bent truths into profit at a big football game. Knowing some chums of the Katz brothers were in town BC invited them over for a sit-down home cooked meal prepated by his bride Charline. My Mom, wanting to show the boys something different than NYC faire spent the entire day preparing a Mexican food feast. Having spent a lot of her early years in  Arizona she had learned to love tacos and unique enchiladas with fixins. Making these dishes for a half dozen diners entailed a lot of planning and work in front of the hot stove. As I have stated here before this Mexican dinner was a family favorite and when she came in from the kitchen with the platters of  tacos and enchiladas she was delighted to have completed the task. The drunk and ignorant Bill looked down, then looked over at BC and said "what's this? I don't want a sandwich...gimme a steak!" As the old saying goes "if looks could kill he would have been dead at the dinner table. In the following years the oafs from back East actually tried the dishes and named it "the Spanish Meal" for some reason. We did not ever need a reason but Greg, Stephen and I used to say to eachother "I don't want a sandwich,, give me a steak!"



"John Roscoe" or "the old equalizer": Refers to a gun.
"Noggin": Refers to the head.
"Snoot": Refers to the nose.
"Doll": Can refer to a woman, sweetheart, or darling.
"Pancake": Another term for a woman.
"Tomato": Also used as a term for a woman.
"Rooty-toot-toot": Refers to a machine gun.
"Fading": In non-casino gambling, it means putting money against someone else's bet.
"Marker": In the context of gambling, a marker is a promise to pay, not just a piece of paper. 

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