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I am a native American: I am an American, and I was born here. What folks term “Native American” is really “aboriginal American”. I do, however, carry in my veins some aboriginal American, or to revert to a less ponderous term, Indian, blood. This comes from my paternal grandmother’s side of the family. According to research conducted by my second cousin, my grandmother’s father was, at least in part, a Coharie Indian, while my grandmother’s mother was a Lumbee Indian. What percentage Indian that makes me is something I cannot calculate, though I suspect my claim to Indian status is more robust than that of Elizabeth Warren.

My paternal grandparents frequently went with us on our family vacations, and because of my grandmother, we often ended up in the mountains of North Carolina, especially the town of Cherokee. She was fond of the area and seemed to take great joy in being there. I recall her delight in having her photo made with a Cherokee dressed in a chief’s regalia. (The photo was a black and white Polaroid, type 41 film, which had to be coated with a “print coater” that reeked of acetic acid. She put the photo in a book before the coating had dried, and my father later spent a great deal of time trying to steam the paper off the photo.)

One thing we did not do in Cherokee was see the outdoor drama “Unto These Hills”, the third-longest-running outdoor drama in the country (behind “The Lost Colony” in Manteo and “The Ramona Pageant” in southern California). I think I know why. The current mid-level price for one ticket is $45. Two tickets, with the associated fee for the use of a card, will set you back $96. I am pretty sure purchasing tickets for the five of us in the family, plus two more for grandparents, was much more than my father was either willing or able to pay.

This week, on a whim, Kathy and I decided to see the drama. The idea hit us on Tuesday. I checked the weather forecast for Cherokee, and Wednesday looked like the best day, weather-wise, to see an outdoor drama. I booked the tickets, reserved a room in a hotel near the theater, and packed a bag. By 3:00 Wednesday, we were on our way to Cherokee.

The website for the play does note that the weather is changeable and that the show goes on, rain or shine. We dutifully packed ponchos, which we left in the pickup. After all, the weather looked very nice. The drama started at 8:00 and was set to last two hours.

At some time near one hour into the production, the rain started. We cursed the fact that we left our ponchos in the truck. Kathy went up to the concession stand to buy two slightly over-priced, thin plastic ponchos. And there we sat, until intermission, at 9:00. The rain, which started as a light drizzle, had turned into a downpour.

After the designated intermission time period, a cast member came out on the stage to inform us that the intermission would continue a bit longer, in the hope that the rain would let up. It never did, and after a while, Kathy and I decided to call it quits. We had seen half of the show, and we both knew how the sad tale of the Trail of Tears ended. I would have liked to have seen the whole show (remember, $96.00), but I decided to buy the play in book form ($40.00) and read all about it.

One thing we promised ourselves we would do on this visit to Cherokee was to darken the door of Harrah’s Cherokee Casino, located on the reservation. So, Thursday morning, after a pancake breakfast at Peter’s Pancakes and Waffles, we found ourselves in the casino—the time: around 9:00 AM. The casino was not packed at that hour, but it was far from empty.

I do not gamble all that often, but when I do, it is roulette, and I bet on whether the ball will fall on a red slot or a black slot. That game is the one game in a casino that comes close to giving you an even chance of winning. (If casino games give you a completely even chance of winning, the casino would eventually go out of business.) There are 38 slots on a roulette wheel, 18 red, 18 black, and two green. If you bet red, you have a 47.4% chance of winning. The same holds true for betting black. Only a mathematical illiterate would bet on green (5.2% chance of winning).

Before plopping my chips down on a roulette table, I like to walk around and look at the various wheels. Does this one have a very slight wobble? Has that one hit on a green slot recently? When I find a table I like, I stick around to bet. But Thursday morning, there weren’t that many roulette wheels in operation. We decided instead to play the one-arm bandits. We both had the same limit: $20. Once each of us had blown $20, we would leave.

We picked machines beside each other and stuffed in our first $5 bills. After we both lost $5, we fed the machines again. Then something happened: both of us started winning. In a little while, I had a positive balance of about $40. Kathy did a little better than that. We decided not to play our entire $20 each, cashed out, and headed home.

I am pretty sure my grandmother would not be all that pleased to see how Indians are making the bulk of their income these days. For the record, I did not see a single Cherokee decked out in a chief’s headdress, carrying a Polaroid camera. But on the bright side, we were able to win back a portion of the cost of the tickets to “Unto These Hills”. There is some justice in that.