By Arlene Wingert
When I was going to school there used to be a program on CKBI called Casino. They would give out clues, and people could send answers, hoping it was the right one.
Mom would listen to Casino every day She wrote down all the answers that were called each day. She had many books over the years.
In order to enter the contest, you had to send in box tops from Paulin’s products. Every time Mom got groceries, there were always Paulin’s cookies in the cart. She listened to the clues and entered every time she thought she had the answer. She would never tell anyone what she thought the answer was. She got her name drawn lots of times, but never had the right answer.
I wanted her to win just once!
One time I listened to the clues and I knew what the answer was. I couldn’t call to tell her as they had a party line phone. I drove out there and said to her, “I know the answer to Casino, I want you to send it in.”
She would never send in anyone else’s answer. She said, “Well dear, if you think you know the answer, you send it in.”
I said “I don’t have any Paulin’s products.”
I went home and to the store, and got what I needed to enter the contest I sent it in the next day. The day after that, Mom got her name called again with the wrong answer.
The next morning, my entry should have been there. I listened to Casino that day. The first letter out I heard the announcer say, “Congratulations, you have just won Casino.” He put on Wilf Carter singing, ‘There’s a bluebird on your windowsill.’
It wasn’t my entry, but it was the answer I had sent in. The answer that tie was the Beatles. One of the clues was “A lock indeed opened the door.”
Casino went on for many years and some of the clues I still remember, like “start at the middle and go both ways.”
That answer was Wakaw.
