Page 157 - a-columbia-county-boys-recollections-and-memories-of-columbia-county-florida-(2012)-lenvil-h-dicks

A Columbia County Boy's Recollections and Memories of Columbia County Florida (2012) Lenvil H. Dicks

MY CLOSEST FRIEND

For approximately the past 15 years or from sometime in the mid 1990’s I have spent more time with
my good and close friend, Reverend Troy Jack Gideon, (universally known as “Happy Jack”) than I
have spent with any other close friend.

Happy Jack is a Pentecostal evangelist, and for many, many years before I ever knew him he preached
all over Texas, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Kentucky and Tennessee, and
occasionally in Georgia, and I have thoroughly enjoyed hanging out with him. A lot of preachers do not
fall into the category of people that the average fellow would enjoy just “hanging out” with, but Happy
Jack is so down to earth and so easy to get along with, that I never tire of his company. Whatever I want
to do is ok with him, and wherever I want to go is ok with him, and I guess the reason I get along so
good with him is that he just lets me be in control of everything, although it conveniently happens that a
lol of the things I like to do are also the things he likes to do.

One of those things happens to be playing slot machines in the casino. We occasionally encounter a
person who will think it is horrible that a preacher would go into a casino and play slot machines, and
Jack’s standard answer for them is that he will pay them SI 00.00 if they will point out to him in the
Bible where that is considered to be a sin or considered to be wrong. Of course neither of us ever run the
risk of putting money in slot machines that really should be going somewhere else, and we do not short
change our other financial obligations in order to play slot machines. We just put in whatever we can
afford to lose, and when we have spent that amount, we quit.

Somewhere not too long after the turn of the century, Jack’s wife passed away with heart trouble, and
being a typical poor Southern Baptist Preacher, Jack found himself in a position of having to pay her
funeral expenses on some sort of time plan, as he did not have enough ready cash to handle all of the
funeral and burial expenses.

He and I had been going to the Grand Casino in Biloxi, Mississippi, about once every two months, and
we got into the habit of playing a certain type slot machine that is known as a ten time pay machine. The
Grand Casino had 9 of these machines, all identical to each other, placed against the back wall of the
casino, and if you lined up all three symbols that had a 10 on it (which was very, very rare) you had hit
the jackpot. All nine of these slot machines shared a common progressive payment, which means if you
happen to line up three 10’s on any one of the nine machines, that you would get progressive payment
for all nine machines. We played these machines to the extent that we were very familiar with them, and
we very rarely left them without having won at least something. I do not recall an instance where we
both lost money playing the ten time pay machine.

We arrived at the Grand Casino in Biloxi late one afternoon, a little before dark, and checked in at the
hotel and decided to go into the casino and play the slots. On the way into the door jack remarked to me,
“I am going back yonder where the ten time pay machines are and something tells me to play the
machine that is next to the last machine on the far end. I just have a gut feeling that the machine is going
to give me something good, and that is where you will find me”.

He left and went on toward the back of the casino and I stayed up in the front area and found a machine
that I was playing until he showed up again, and in about 10 minutes here comes Happy Jack, with a
security guard on both sides of him, they were escorting him out of the front door. I thought to myself,
“Oh my Lord! What has he done now!” I walked up to him and said “Jack, what’s going on here? and he
unbuttoned his shirt front and I never saw so many stacks of 100 dollar bills as he was carrying around

149

www.LakeCityHistory.com LCH-UUID: B423BA50-F22B-4D87-A44C-403308C92982