Foundation Day

Today is Foundation Day, when Western Australians celebrate the founding of their state. Their history is not unlike the U.S. - in 1826 a small British Army outpost settled on the beach at Albany (think Plymouth Rock), which is about as far south and west as you can get in Australia. A year later Captain James Stirling of the Royal Navy led several boats full of English settlers (think the Nina, Pinta & Santa Maria) in explorations of the Swan River. Stirling spotted the coast, started the Swan River Colony there and became its first Lieutenant-Governor. Around the same time, Captain Charles Fremantle anchored off an island which he also claimed for Britain. This busy port and city is named after him. There is a tenuous yet charming connection between Oz and USA here. The story goes that on August 12, 1829 Helen Dance, wife of a ship's captain, cut down a tree to mark the founding of Perth, the capital of the colony (and now the state). Did she know about our first President's relationship with a cherry tree?

Reading between the lines of Wikipedia, I reckon the English settlers had issues with the locals (Aborigines), so much so that 5 years later Captain Stirling decided they needed an annual celebration of some sort. I guess having a great big party once a year helped folks get along, kind of like giving your kids a project to work on to keep them from killing each other :o> .Stirling picked June 1st as it coincided with the day his boat first spotted the coast as well as a significant British naval victory (over France) 40 years earlier.

Of course everybody gets the day off. In fact they celebrate it on the first Monday in June and make a 3-day weekend of it. We celebrated by indulging our inner gamblers. Vince has become interested in Poker lately and like a good engineer, has read several books on the subject: how to spot a bluff, winning strategies to use, etc. and then practiced his new skills at poker evenings with friends. Figuring we were ready for the big time, we joined another couple and visited the spiffy-looking casino in the Burswood Entertainment complex. Vince and his mentor, an experienced poker player, went off the to Poker Room to seek their fortunes while we ladies opted for the slots. We left our ATM cards at home, lest we be tempted to overdo things...

I started at the poker slots where a dollar buys you the chance to push a couple of buttons and pray for a win. This noisy, neon-lit, electronic machine offered 3 different games requiring pairs of jacks or better, kings or better, or traditional with deuces wild. We hung in there for about an hour, getting sucked in by small wins and eventually losing about $50 each. While my buddy took a rest room break I moseyed over to the keno machine, which allowed 20-cent bets. Now I don't even know what keno is, but you really don't have to. You don't even have to pull the handle any more - just push the "play" button. In a gambling fever I quintupled my bets to a dollar each and within 3 minutes got a full house! Hearing the whoop! whoop! whoop! of the machine and the sound of $50 worth of tumbling dollar coins dropping loudly into the tray sent my pulse racing. Woo-hoo - I won! And I recovered my "investment." :o)

Energized by this win, we cruised the casino floor for more exciting games to play. I was attracted to the craps tables but unwilling to risk that much money. After passing up dozens of slots with names like "Indian Princess" and "Pirate Millionaire" we decided to try our luck at "Diced Chicken." The guys eventually lost their stake and sought us out. They found us just as we were tiring of the game, which involved barnyard animals and golden eggs in a bingo-esque fashion. With the "help" of a fellow gambler who seemed more interested in flirting with us than winning, we were fast losing the contents of our gold-coin-filled plastic cups. Although I had a net loss, I scored the biggest win of the evening, which means I got to pay for dinner. Over pasta and chicken, the guys explained their losses: "the cards weren't good tonight," and "there were a lot of good players at our table so we couldn't bluff much." We thought of this as a learning experience, albeit a trifle expensive. Will I try it again? Hmm...