When I was a young child in Key West, my mother would take me with her to BINGO games. There would be — for lack of a better term — traveling BINGO companies which would periodically come to town, like carnivals, and set up their gaming paraphernalia under big, open-sided tents. The tents, with long benches and playing tables under them and machines which spit out the ping pong balls with the BINGO letters and numbers on them, at their far ends, would be set up in vacant lots. A BINGO company which came to town would set up on a vacant lot in the eight hundred block of Thomas street.
One of the most memorable times I had as a 'youngster'; I was six or seven years old, it was when my mother first took me with her to the BINGO game on Thomas street. She gave me a card to play and as the caller would call out the numbers, I would place beans over the corresponding numbers on my card. At a point, as the numbers were being called out, I realized that the last number called had been one which had covered the last of the four corners of my card, a winning situation. I nudged my mother to show her and she called out "BINGO!, FOUR CORNERS", a winner. Nine dollars was the prize, a good amount of money for us in those days.
Ten years later, in the mid 1950's, for what is now a trivial amount, my father bought the vacant lot that the traveling BINGO company so long ago would set up on. In 1976, he transferred the title of ownership of it to me
Over the years my father had wanted to put rental units on the land. I never wanted to do anything with it except build a house on it to live in, or spend some of my retirement years in. Having recently retired from a government career of 28 years which has taken me around the world, I am planning to do that. I was recently informed that on the entire island of Key West, there are only 18 such vacant lots, and their value has shot up astronomically.
Over the years I have received many offers from people wanting to purchase the land. These offers have reached me in Washington. DC where I now reside and prior to that in Bucharest, Romania and Georgetown, Guyana at the U.S. Embassies where I worked.
Recently, while going through documents relating to this parcel of land, I was struck by the contrast of the cold legalese which describes it, and the warmth of the statement
Essentially, the deed of ownership delineates the land and sets four corners to it. I thought that the events leading to the present were quite a set of strange circumstances. But then, stranger events have happened in Key West.
After reading the deed my mind harkened back to that balmy Key West night forty-some odd years ago when I first set foot on the land and heard those fortuitious and prophetic words: "BINGO! FOUR CORNERS!"
So coool to see it live!!
Nice work!!
@robrigo, @raz let me know if you need help with the translation, I'm Romanian and in Bucharest too.
Thanks! I'd love to have you take a second look at some of the Romanian chapters. What's the best way to contact you?
@anduweb on steemit.chat. Be happy to.