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Then he did his spiel of the litany of qualifications. "First try a quarter -- second fifty cents. Third try 75 and fourth and thereafter a dollar." The prizes were first a plastic bauble, then a kewpie doll, then a medium size stuffed lion, a giant stuffed Panda and finally a gold watch. At any time that the feat was achieved, you got all your money back plus the prize of price or all the prizes, if it was on the five dollar try and thereon.
Cost a quarter and Dicky gave it a try. For for 50 cents he tried it again, again and again and he was now spending a dollar for each try. Each time he would ease the bottle up almost upright, then it would teeter backward of it own momentum, wobble and fall over backward. He passed the gold watch plateau and the ten dollar mark and then twenty and thirty. He passed the forty dollar mark for 43 tries when he started asking us for money.
"One more try", he said, "and I know I can do it".
I had some money, maybe a few bucks, but I was not going to spend it on carnival con games and gimmicks. Of course he was a generous guy, but this was principle. This was a huge sucking money vortex. He tapped out at about 45 bucks. The next night was Saturday, and Dicky wanted to go to the carnival again. He must have talked us into it because we went. Dicky went straight for the bottle game.
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