Atlantic city isn’t my scene, never was, and never will be but it was suggested soooo many times I felt negligent in not stopping by. It wasn’t as if I had the money to gamble and if I did I’d rather spend it on some other food source than the PB&J’s that were becoming the bane of my existence than a few shiny casino chips. I mean don’t get me wrong – if someone else wants to gamble go ahead, I couldn’t care less. I just think if I were to waste money I’d at least light it on fire or do something cool with it.

I drove in and saw the most garish, sparkly, gaudy buildings I have ever seen in my life. In letters probably bigger than the damn Hollywood sign read TRUMP everywhere. Holy crap… There’s having an over-inflated ego and then there’s that…. This must be the human equivalent of a Tom cat’s pissing contest. To make the whole thing all the better there were ghetto houses and derelicts smattered in between these glittery shiny casinos. There seemed to be no middle class at all…. Just the obscenely rich and the desperately poor. There were condemned homes, buildings that were more or less just ruins, fences everywhere… It was depressing thinking anyone even lived in this squalid manner in a ghetto that was so disparaging it looked like it was from a third world country. There is just no reason for it, but to make it even worse were the casinos right next to it all… a real smack to the face. We left feeling very melancholy. And since taking this trip we have learned Atlantic City wants to build a pedestrian bridge between the casinos so that their patrons will not have to look at the eye sore that is the poverty stricken ghetto outside. Such an American reaction, rather than redistribute the wealth in a socially beneficial way we’d rather just hide the poor people from sight and pretend there’s not a problem to begin with.

If you are enjoying Catching Marbles please consider adding a dollar or two to my limited gas money fund so I can continue going on adventures and sharing them with you! Thank you!