The High Life-Gambling in Western Massachusetts

Below is the column for the February, 2019 issue of the Sturbridge Times Town & Country Living Magazine.

We don't make as much stuff in New England as we used to so some believe a casino is the ticket for jobs and urban revitalization.  We are not so sure.

Betting on Springfield

By Richard Morchoe

The Game, shown on Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre (1965), starred Cliff Robertson and his then wife, Dina Merrill.  He was someone who wandered into the wrong place. Robertson played Quincey Parke who came upon a high stakes game of baccarat at a casino frequented by society.

Parke was a fish out of water in a place of glamour.  Merrill plays Maralise who takes Robertson’s character under her wing.  Parke is on a winning streak, but to stay in the game, must dress the part and wear formal clothing.

Eventually, the high life is too much for him and Parke expires.    It takes a lot to keep up the pretense of being upper class.  Monaco is not for everyone.

During the late 60s when I was pretending to be a college student, a friend and I hitchhiked to Daytona for Spring Week.  Someone told us it was better and cheaper in Nassau and the flight was in our budget.

It was a great time and we were able to stay in a rooming house for $2.50 a night each.   Not the Ritz, it was easier to rough it at that age.

There was a lot going on.  Aristotle Onassis and Jacqueline Kennedy had arrived on his yacht.  Yacht was an understatement.  The vessel was a converted corvette.  No, that was not a Chevy sports car, but a class of small warships used by many navies, though not ours.  Nassau was a place frequented by the wealthy, as well as near derelict collegians on vacation.

Nassau also had a casino in what was known as Paradise Island.  True, it was unlike the grand spots on the Riviera, but it was not without class.  To be admitted, one had to wear at least a jacket and tie.  We put on blazers and our only cravats and went over.

That evening, if we weren’t the least best dressed, it was by accident.  The dealers and croupiers were all formally attired and the guests, though not as well accoutered as Monte Carlo, were making an effort to look good.

We played the slots and I made one pass at roulette.  Even at that age, the realization that all was in favor of the house led us to put a quick end to our participation.  There was enough debauchery going on elsewhere that coming home sunburnt and broke was easily achievable.

Around that time, our nation was still somewhat puritanical.  Here in New England, that is our settlers’ legacy. When New Hampshire instituted its first in the nation lottery in 1964, it was a big break with the past.  Supposedly, our governor, Endicott “Chub” Peabody, had warned the Granite State’s John King not to sign the sweepstakes bill.

Though known as a liberal, Chub was a direct descendant of the stern Puritans who settled the region.  There is only so much one can deviate from ancestry.

Eventually, the Bay State would give over and why not?  In urban areas we already had the lottery. It was just not a government run enterprise.  The logic was inescapable, besides the Commonwealth has never seen a money raising impost it didn’t like and this one would fleece a willing populace.

Still, casinos were nowhere in sight other than in that land of sin, Nevada.  That’s a place anything goes.  The Mustang Ranch, after all, had no wild horses.

That would change.  Tribes of the indigenous nations began fighting back against Caucasian oppressors by taking them to the cleaners at the gaming tables.  Their reservations being at least semi-sovereign, it was difficult to tell them what not to do on their own land.

Tribal nations opening gaming halls were mostly in western states.  Here in Nova Anglia, the descendants of the natives have been much assimilated and in our neighbor, Connecticut, there was no federally recognized tribe.  

The Pequots had been thoroughly defeated in an early colonial war.  Over the centuries they had only held on to their tiny reservation by a thread. Yet, in the 20th Skip Hayward, a one-eighth Pequot would revitalize them, secure federal recognition and, wait for it, get a casino.

That casino, known as Foxwoods, is quite a complex and might compare to those of Europe, except for who they let in.  That would be you and me, folks.  Yup, the great unwashed are welcomed with open arms.  In our family’s only foray into the Southern Connecticut pleasure palace, we encountered a complex to cater to every legal (at least) sybaritic taste imaginable when not gambling.

We had not come to take a flyer on augmenting our meager fortune.  The Peguots have put up a wonderful museum that documents their existence going back to before they arrived and that was our destination.  After, we went to the buffet, traipsing through the gambling areas enroute.  No one was exquisitely attired, but it did look like the tribe was raking it in.

If one New England casino worked, why not more?  That idea had occurred to others.  The Mohegan Tribe, who allied with the Brits to beat up the Pequots in the 17th Century, wanted and got Mohegan Sun.  It looked like the Town of Palmer to the west of Sturbridge would get one, but the voters could not be swayed by the full court public relations press of the backers.

Springfield, though, would succumb.

There is Industrial Revolution history in Springfield.  The famous Armory produced guns for many wars. The gasoline engine was invented there and it was home to the still iconic Indian Motorcycle.  In the prior two centuries it was known as “The City of Progress.”  Less so now.

Would Springfield be nothing without gaming?  The city did work hard to get it.  Maybe there were other businesses that might have served as well.   It would seem a casino is an idea that arises when there is not a better one.

Last spring, with much hoopla, MGM Springfield, opened its doors and has been operating since.  There have been claims that it is meeting expectations while a morning radio commentator said the several gambling dens now available are sharing a market that has not increased.

Though not feeling overly drawn to the experience, my wife and I found ourselves in Springfield on a Sunday afternoon and easily got a parking space on State Street close to the doors.  Upon entering the din of machines was inescapable.  As one got nearer, there were blinking lights to accompany the sound as players poked and prodded buttons.  Everything on the machines that flashed on and off was of bright, garish colors.

Interestingly, for a weekend afternoon, it did not seem even half full.  Among the blackjack tables, not as suffused with the sensory overload elsewhere, there were a few dealers unoccupied and looking bored.

The gamblers at machines were intense.  They seemed to see nothing else other than the banging and ringing going on in front of them.  My wife noticed that none of them, as well as people walking around were smiling.  Unlike Disney World, it was not the “Happiest Place on Earth.”

Of course, there are dining options.  Cal Mare seemed Italian seafood themed, but also had pizza and meat.  It looked appealing and almost empty.  The Chandler Steakhouse was closed up tight.

One spot doing a roaring business was TAP Sports Bar.   The clientele were there to watch football.  Beer, pub food, and sports on TV packed the house.  If there was any deeper meaning than an abiding love for the Patriots, it was beyond us.

The poker room was active, but even there a big table was empty.  As you entered that room, there was a bureau with pamphlets on it.  One read “Anything You Need To Know About Gambling?  The other would tell you to “Know when to step away.”  The positioning was not obtrusive.  No one was looking for the literature anyway, and I was the only customer.

As not to the manor born, it is impossible for me to say why the upper classes would want to while away their time at the tables in Southern France.  Paradise Island was more understandable.  People were away for vacation and escape and would go home remembering that part as well as the beaches and nightlife.

MGM Springfield was no fun.  One supposes it might be, maybe once a year and taking in a show.  The players looked like they were working harder than at a job.  All this despite the management’s efforts to give it some allure. 

In the Twilight Zone Episode, “A Nice Place to Visit,” a man arrives in a casino and wins everything and can have all he wants.  He thinks himself in heaven.  Soon, however, he is bored and tells his guide he would rather go to hell.  The guide tells him he is in hell. 

Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and The Drug Company That Addicted America Review

Below is my review as submitted to the editor for the December issue of the Sturbridge Times Town & Country Living Magazine

Please note, since the review, much has come out about how much management knew about the addictive nature of what they were selling and it is not to managements credit.

Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and The Drug Company That Addicted America

By Beth Macy

By now, few have not heard about the opioid crisis.  Governor, Charlie Baker, has recently signed his second piece of legislation to deal with the problem.  It is not new here in Sturbridge Country as several years ago a local doctor closed his practice due to prescription irregularities.

In an episode of his cable TV show, Anthony Bourdain spotlighted the problem, mostly in the old Massachusetts town of Greenfield.  The segment was well done in discussing what seems an epidemic.

However problematic Opioid addiction may be here in the Commonwealth, we are not the epicenter.

Beth Macy may not have found “ground zero,” but the Appalachian region she writes about should not be discounted in consideration for the dubious honor.

Macy has written Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and The Drug Company That Addicted America.  She chronicles the Opioid explosion that has ravaged not an inner city but the coal country that had already been blighted by economic hard times.

Actually, she might have discovered ground zero, not in the old mill towns of the Bay State or lumber camps of rural Maine or her Appalachian home region she has obvious affection for.  The subtitle, The Drug Company That Addicted America, pinpoints a successful pharmaceutical company as the origin of the plague. 

The Sackler family had built Purdue Pharma from a tiny company when they purchased it in 1952 into a powerhouse.  The company developed OxyContin and had gotten Food and Drug Administration approval in 1995.  

The Sacklers were private and more known for their philanthropy than the drug business.  That may be different since Dopesick’s publication.

It is not as if the author avers that the men were sitting around a boardroom planning to devastate rural America by hooking people on a powerful derivative of the opium poppy.  The company “touted the safety of its new opioid-delivery system everywhere its merchants went.  “If you take the medicine like it is prescribed, the risk of addiction when taking the opioid is one-half of 1 percent.” said Dr. J. David Haddox, a pain specialist who became the company’s point man for the drug.””

The Sacklers may have believed this and even that they were doing good.  Doing good was not what Purdue Pharma did best.  Selling was far and away the most important company value, or so it would seem, as they were champions at it.

Purdue Pharma is an easy and valid target, but hardly the whole story.  The region’s coal economy and factories were, like much of the industrialized US, somewhat played out.  Ms. Macy was in the right place at the right time, or maybe in the wrong place at the right time to chronicle the disaster.

Beth Macy reported for the Roanoke Times for about a decade and a half until 2014.  Since, she has been writing essays and op-eds for The New York Times as well as other venues and radio.  Harvard awarded her a Nieman Fellowship in 2010.

Before Dopesick, she had written a couple of other books.  Factory Man: How One Furniture Maker Battled Offshoring, Stayed Local --- and Helped Save an American Townwas published in 2014.  Her Truevine: Two Brothers, a Kidnapping, and a Mother’s Quest; A True Story of the Jim Crow Southcame out in 2016.  Both books garnered positive reviews.

For timeliness, however, Dopesick was, and, will be an important reporter's story.  It is happening now and will continue into the future and our ability to come to terms with the abundantly available chemicals may never happen.  From that point of view, her book’s ending can only be artificial.

Macy provides us with intimate portrayals of those dealing with or succumbing to the problem.  Some of them, such as Dr. Art Van Zee came to Appalachia because he wanted to practice in an underserved community and found one.  His match is his wife, Sue Ella Koback.  Shades of Loretta Lynn, Sue was a coal miner’s daughter from over the mountain in Kentucky.

Dr. Van Zee comes off as a hero.  She describes his struggle with the corporate interest as chronicled by another author as a “David-versus-Goliath battle.”  As the book goes on, he is always fighting that good fight.  How he avoids burn-out seems a mystery. 

Where the good doctor is somewhat mild mannered, Sue Ella seems, as the author put it, “a firecracker lawyer.”  When the abovementioned Dr. J. David Haddox told a parent meeting about a somewhat exculpatory open letter they were going to run in a local newspaper, Sue Ella blew up at him.  The letter did not run.

There are many more stories in Dopesick.  Some even hopeful, and others not. Granted, once OxyContin and drugs like it get control of a victim, the brain structure will be changed and the odds are not good.

One of the hopeful ones is Spencer Mumpower.  Spencer was not on OxyContin, but was a full-fledged heroin addict who sold a drug friend the dose that would kill him.  With some tough love from mom, she refused to bail him out, he started the turnaround.

Once out before trial, he continued the process.  Eventually sentenced, he served his time and came out clean to continue the new life.  A small triumph, but a victory nonetheless.

There is little uplift in the story of Ronnie Jones.  Even so, he comes off as a sympathetic character and that is a problem.

The TV series, The Sopranos did the same thing for the eponymous Tony.  It made a vicious criminal who murdered with impunity into a lovable teddy bear.

The author did not seem to be trying to make the criminal Jones into a Nobel prize level humanitarian.  She does document his crimes in detail.  Having a long interview with the man in prison and getting to know him does allow him to be seen as a complex character and not the sum of his crimes and that is not horrible reporting.  Even so, his wrongdoing is so large that unlike the fictional Tony Soprano, it should dwarf anything of his life that we might want to like.

Is there any optimism in the struggle Beth Macy has written about?  She endorses Drug Courts stating that they “remain among the country’s models for preventing recidivism and relapse, with intensive daily monitoring of participants---and swift consequences.”  If one successfully completes the program, charges can be dropped.

That is heartening, but there is no victory lap.  Graduates of the Drug Court program are “roughly a half or to a third less likely to return to return to crime or drugs than regular probationers.”  This means half to two thirds will. 

Still, the drug court program does offer hope.  Beth tells us parents approach one judge out shopping to beg him to place their kids in the program.

Drug court coupled with MAT or medication assisted treatment seem to work better than much else according to Beth.  MAT is not allowed everywhere; 12 Step programs don’t favor it.  Some see value according to the author, ““We’ve had thirteen babies born to mothers on MAT, and not one of those babies had NAS (neonatal abstinence syndrome),” Tazewell County judge Jack Hurley told me”

Encouraging yes, but not a solution.

The story Beth follows the longest in the book is the saddest.  The drug problems may have started in the coal camps, but more upscale areas were not left untouched.  Tess Henry lived in affluent venues as a child.  The author follows the young woman with a loving mom and a seemingly smooth life.  

Tess was subject to anxiety from an early age, but that does not seem to have been the cause of her downfall.  She experimented in college, but it was a 30-day opioid prescription of codeine cough syrup and hydrocodone at an urgent-care center to treat bronchitis that seemed to do the trick.

Her drug filled odyssey is woven into the book as the author discusses other matters as well.  Beth would come back to the young lady who was spiraling down with occasional slight glimmers of hope until the last chapter where the inevitable is reported.  Tess had been hustling as a prostitute in Las Vegas and was found by a homeless man in a dumpster.

Tess’s return home ends the book, but hardly the story.  Part Three is titled “A Broken System.”  Notwithstanding the author’s favoring of Drug Court and MAT, the system is fractured and we are not yet near any solution.  

Of course, more attempts to solve it will be made and Beth Macy will be covering the story with the same skill and clarity, we should all hope.

Tanglewood-Near Heaven in Lenox

Cabin Fever in Massachusetts during the winter months can be bleak and drury.  A trip to summer in the mind's eye might ameliorate that somewhat.  Below is my Sturbridge Times Town & Country Living Magazine column from September, 2018about a wonderful place to spend a day.

Tour of Duty at Tanglewood

By Richard Morchoe

When this issue of the Sturbridge Times Town & Country Magazine is mailed out and on newsstands, your columnist will have completed his third summer as a volunteer for the season of music at Tanglewood.  

People volunteer for many reasons.  Some might say they want to “give back.”  Moi, I get much more out of my time in the Berkshires than I give.

It may seem odd that a man with no musical ability would want to travel down the Pike to the far western town of Lenox several times a summer to help people find their seats.  Just because one can’t make music doesn’t mean they cannot listen with immense pleasure while helping out.

I never had much interest in classical music until college.  A sound coming from a classmate’s dorm room more than caught my attention and I borrowed the album.

It was Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5, popularly known as “The Emperor Concerto” with Leopold Stokowski conducting and Glenn Gould as piano soloist.  Such a rich sound meant it was love at first listen.

Graduation was approaching and we students were all getting ready to go to our separate lives.  Wanting to keep the album, I wrestled with my conscience and lost, Sadly, it was returned.

Though it was back in the ancient days of vinyl, the cost was not prohibitive and not long after, a version with Leonard Bernstein conducting and Rudolf Serkin as pianist began my album collection.

It would be many years before I would experience Tanglewood, and when it happened, it was immediate infatuation.  When you go there, the grounds are so beautiful that you would love it even if you did not come for the music.  That is, if you take the time to explore.

As time went on, the feeling of wanting to be more a part of it took hold.  Obviously, anything to do with the music was beyond me.  While exploring the Tanglewood website in winter, I came across a line that had the word, Volunteer.  Following the links led me to a page that told one how to apply. 

I filled out the application and waited.  Invited in, I found myself with another hopeful undergoing a pleasant interview with Erin Asbury, Manager of Volunteer services.  Notification of acceptance came and with it the requirement for training.  They were not going to unleash us on an unsuspecting public without some knowledge of the basics.

Next was the welcome back event and issuance of badges in a packet of information.  Mine came with the first-year red lanyard.  I was now official.

The protocol is to arrive an hour before the concert and have a meeting, usually with Tammy Lynch Director of Front of House Management.  Tammy will apprise us if there is anything out of the ordinary we need to know.  Then it is off to our posts as ushers.  Our job is to guide those who need help to their seats, and also be aware if anyone is having a problem

My first working concert was on a July, 2016 evening in the Koussevitzky shed. when the Boston Pops brass and percussion sections performed with world class drum corps including the Boston Crusaders. You may ask yourself why drum corps?  It turns out many orchestra brass musicians start out there.

The last piece they all played that night was the 1812 Overture, which you know if you’ve watched the pops on July 4th.  To give people an idea what they were in for, ear plugs were handed out. I don’t know if Tchaikovsky meant it to be played with this much brass, but it was loud.

In my three years of volunteering, there has been a performance that has stood out each summer.  In 2016, it was Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue.  As a first-year usher, they pair one with an experienced veteran.  After, the man watching me related that someone had complained to him that the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) had played it too fast.  Hey, as a dilettante, what do I know?  We both thought it excellent.  If that was too fast, I hope the BSO never slows down.

In 2017, there would be a wonderful surprise in Ozawa Hall, a lovely space named after the former BSO Music Director. On a Wednesday in July as the evening light declined, Apollo’s Fire, a small Baroque orchestra under the direction of Jeannette Sorrell took the stage. They were there to play Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, but began with a piece called La Bergamasca by the Italian Baroque composer, Marco Uccellini.  I had never heard it before, but I shall never forget it. 

The energy Ms. Sorrell and her ensemble brought to the stage was memorable.  Violinist Olivier Brault was superb as were the other soloists and performers.  If you don’t believe me, it was recorded on Youtube.  Entering “Apollo’s Fire Bergamasca” in the Youtube search window should get you there.

This Summer is the Centennial of a famous man who had a huge connection to Tanglewood.  Much was planned to celebrate the life in music of Leonard Bernstein.  Saturday, July 28, on screens at the Shed, they showed the movie West Side Story and the BSO played Bernstein’s music as the film ran.  Everyone in the audience was thrilled, including this usher.

The last Sunday in August, the BSO plays Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9.  People who never listen to classical music have heard the Ode to Joy.  Though one might never tire of it, The Ninth on recording does not compare to hearing it live at Tanglewood.  Every summer, I look forward to seeing The Tanglewood Festival Chorus rise as one to sing Beethoven’s adaption of Schiller’s words. It will never grow old.

As the last notes fade away, so is summer on the wane.  Life goes on and there are other tasks and pleasures, but be assured your columnist is anticipating the posting of the schedule for the 2019 season.  That is my favorite harbinger of summer.  Symphony Hall is wonderful, but there is nothing like beautiful music on a lovely day in the Berkshires.