It was Bill Anglin’s fault that he lost all his money to his young third cousin Gene Reynolds that morning in the early 1940s. Bill, a high school boy who happened to have a small fortune, twenty-something dollars, in his pocket that morning (for reasons lost to history), saw Gene walking toward the bus stop flipping a shiny fifty-cent piece into the air and catching it.
“I’ll flip you for that coin,” said Bill.
Fifty cents was a lot of money. Gene’s daddy Bonnell had once had the opportunity to buy a house from cousin Butch Reynolds for fifty cents a week. It was a duplex and Bonnell could have rented out the second half of the house for enough to make the payment, but he thought fifty cents a week was too much to be obligated for and turned it down.
Gene flipped and caught the Lady Liberty fifty-cent piece repeatedly on his way to the school bus stop. This was money earned by the hard work of lounging beside a stack of watermelons for sale in the front yard of their rented house beside Highway 23. Bonnell allowed his boys to keep the cash from whatever sales they made. Wint was a diligent front-yard produce salesman and was always flush with spending cash. Gene manned the stand less often and was usually broke; however, he had done it yesterday and now he was showing off with a half dollar that Bill Anglin wanted to take.
Gene was brash, self-confident, spontaneous—all the trademarks of a preacher or a gambler. That day, he gambled.
“Heads,” he said.
The other school kids went on by as Gene made the flip, caught the coin and slapped it onto his forearm. It was heads.
Bill gave him fifty cents and said, “You wanna go double or nothing?”
Gene shrugged, called heads again and won.
Bill handed over a dollar and Gene turned toward the bus stop.
“Wait a minute, Gene, you can’t chicken out now.”
“The bus is coming.”
“Let’s go double or nothing again.”
Gene won again. Bill handed over two more dollars.
Bill took out a coin of his own and said, “Let me do the flipping. Double or nothing.”
Bill took out a coin of his own and said, “Let me do the flipping. Double or nothing.”
That was fine with Gene. He felt like God was on his side and he couldn’t lose. He called heads again and won again.
“I’m calling heads this time, double or nothing,” said Bill.
It was tails. Gene smiled like a dead pig in the sunshine. “Wanna go again?”
“Sure, double or nothing. I’m due for a win.”
Bill called tails. It came up heads.
Cursing up a storm, he handed over the rest of his money and Gene went running back to the house.
“Mama! Mama!”
Maude, thinking there was something wrong, hurried into the front room.
Gene was jubilant. “Look what I won! Twenty four dollars!”
“Where’d you get that money, Gene?”
“I won it from Bill Anglin. I had a fifty-cent piece and he wanted to flip for it, but I won, and then we went double-or-nothing and I won every time. Look how much!”
He showed her the wad of dollars and handful of coins.
Maude was fierce. “You got that money gambling and gambling is a sin! I want you to march right back out there and give Bill all his money back and then I want you to tell Jesus that you’re sorry.”
“Ma-ma….”
“You heard me. Now do what I said or you can explain it to your daddy when he gets home.”
Gene returned the money and repented of his sin and didn’t gamble again until the night in 1951 that he used company money to try to win a teddy bear at the fair for his two year old son (me.) On that occasion, luck was against him: he failed to win me the teddy bear, he lost Standard Coffee Company's money, and went home and got a pistol….. but that’s another story.
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