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Work at the race track was seasonal, and evenings only so there wouldn’t be any conflict with the water business. The track was also close to where I was living and it seemed as though it would provide the rent money. The job entailed taking bets at the two dollar window and paying off any winning tickets. The pari-mutuel clerk was allowed to bet on any races before the bell—the obligation was to cover any shortages from your cash drawer each pay day.
Fortunately I was still able to pick up a few shifts tending bar at the convention hall. When someone bets fifty bucks on a horse it doesn’t mean they know what they’re doing. Being at the racetrack and not seeing a horse while only dealing with bettors and cash and chance and faith and what was really going on with odds and payoffs and the fluctuation of odds being the most democratic way of money wagered on by people who never really got close to the horses or the jockeys for that matter. I never got a complete paycheck the entire summer. I wasn’t the only one. There were a few pari-mutuel clerks who actually owed money to the track after a week’s work and railbirds that never seemed to win but always had enough for another bet.
With a cool place to live and the water business growing I was inspired to turn TAKE A BITE OF THE APPLE into a ten minute animated short so I wrote the script and handed out dozens of copies of the song performed by the Troubadour who arranged the music for the song while I drove a taxi in the Autumn in Baltimore on weekends until rear ended on Christmas Eve while attempting a right turn in a light rain. A police officer was sitting at the cross-street and saw the whole thing. The taxi was pushed through the intersection. The cop turned on his bubbles, pulled to the center of the intersection, got out of his patrol car, approached me and said, “Merry Christmas. I saw the whole thing. I’m calling an ambulance.” I was off to the races.