Get Herald RSSFor two weeks this summer, I worked as an instructor at a program for high school debaters. The program was located in Denton, Texas, at the University of North Texas. Denton is a typical college town complete with bars, fast food restaurants and pizza dives. A few old friends were also on the program's staff, and we enjoyed each other's company.
If you're willing to overlook the fact that the temperature was over 90 degrees for six or seven hours each day, you could say that this lifelong New Yorker adjusted rather well to life in Denton. However, I hadn't come this far just to the American south to allow myself to be entirely sheltered from culture shock.
A few days into the workshop, several of my fellow staff members told me that they were planning to take a trip to a casino just over the border into Oklahoma. I had never set foot in a casino before, and I was immediately intrigued (more by the people-watching than the gambling).
The highway to the WinStar Casino in Thackerville, Okla. was flat and barren, with the exception of a few gas stations and an adult video store. Soon enough, a large neon sign and a mammoth building emerged on the horizon. When we pulled up, the parking lot was packed - I guessed that there were well over a thousand cars. I later learned that the crowd was unusually large for a Thursday night because Willie Nelson was performing.
As we approached the front door, I had no idea what to expect inside. Would I be the only Jew? Democrat? Ivy Leaguer? My friend Gary, a native Texan, sensed that I was feeling a little out of place.
"You should hold an Obama rally here," he said to me.
The scene inside the casino struck me as depressing. The main room was filled with white people, and at least half of them were holding lit cigarettes. Everyone seemed rather pleased to be breathing in each other's secondhand smoke and risking their hard-earned money on games of chance. The room buzzed with the sounds of chips clacking and slot machines ringing, but hardly any talking.
My friends are far more experienced gamblers than I am, and ventured off to the poker tables. I decided to try my hand at blackjack, figuring it wouldn't be too hard for me to count to 21. However, I was quickly intimidated. Another player who looked roughly my age slapped two crisp $100 bills on the table. I was not prepared to gamble anywhere near that amount.
My mind wandered as I began to think of the things I'd rather do with that money. I have certainly seen my fair share of ostentatious displays of wealth, but those displays usually came in the form of cars or houses - not stacks of poker chips. I played a series of hands, never wagering more than a few dollars. The first few hands offered a mild rush of excitement, but soon my luck, and my chips, ran out.
When we left the casino that night, my eyes and throat itched from all the smoke. I wanted nothing more than a cold shower, a clean set of clothes and some Visine. As the five of us walked towards the car, I looked back at the WinStar Casino, doubting I would ever again set foot in it (or any place like it) and feeling utterly alienated from the rest of its clientele.
We neared the car, and Gary tapped me on the shoulder.
"Look at that," he said to me, gesturing to his left.
On the rear bumper of the car parked directly next to ours was a Brown University bumper sticker. I froze in my tracks and blinked several times, hardly believing my eyes.
I never found the other Brunonian at the WinStar Casino that night (though if you're reading this, drop me a line). At first, it took me a while to get over the sheer improbability of the sighting - what are the odds that two Brunonians would park right next to each other on the same night at a casino in Oklahoma?
But after a while, I came to see the bumper sticker as strangely symbolic. From the moment I set foot in the casino, I had looked down upon the rest of the people there, certain I could never relate to or fit in with any of them. I had taken refuge in elitism and anthropological curiosity. But at least one of "them" was a fellow Brunonian.
This school is truly a special institution - it stands ready to jolt your assumptions when you least expect it. I can't wait to find out what my second year at Brown has in store, and I wish all of my fellow Brunonians a happy, healthy and enlightening school year.
Matt Aks '11 hopes that an Oklahoman casino will hook him up with an internship next summer.
is a member of the 
