An Extraordinary Orange City-ian

Rick Peppers stands alone in Orange City.

Mornings, likely as not he's at the Dutch Bakery for coffee and a donut, with a table full who retirees who daily make short work of the most vexing world's troubles. They tolerate the few Democrats among 'em, but most are Trumpers, as is he.

Rick Peppers has been retired for years. Soon enough he's scheduled to go under the knife in Sioux Falls to get a valve or two replaced. Two days, he says he'll be there; likely as not, he's right. But he'll be back--you can't hold a good man down.

Rick Peppers didn't grow up in Orange City, never spent a day here until he needed a place to come home to, some place not next door to, but in the neighborhood of family members who live in northwest Iowa. Don't be mistaken--Rick Peppers is an Iowan, born and reared in Exira, even though he wasn't always thrilled to call Exira home. Problem was, he says, when he was a kid he had the bad luck to follow a gifted big brother who could do no wrong.

So Rick rebelled, did some teenage silliness, went drinking one night before ramming the cop's car, then took off, left town, but came back and made peace with a loving father who was happy to see his rebel kid in one piece. Still, Rick Peppers got tired of the place, didn't bother with a diploma, and hitched up with the Navy to see the world.

Eventually, he got himself hitched to a good Iowa girl, moved to Omaha, but got weary of shoveling snow. He told his wife soon as he could find himself a job someplace warm, they were going off to a place where he'd never have to pick up a shovel again. With a job in some warm climate, he told her, for once they'd put Omaha and Exira in the rear view mirror.

You're saying there may well be other retired men like Rick Peppers in Orange City. He's not so different. People get tired of the places they were born. In the rural Midwest most kids eventually leave. Could be a rule of thumb. Rick Peppers isn't so different, just a little more contrary maybe.

There's more to the story. Rick and his wife moved to Nevada, where he took the first job he was offered--in the mines just outside of Las Vegas, Blue Diamond mine, to be specific, one of those out-of-the-way places where the corporation ran an entire village for workers, a neighborhood of workers Rick and his wife found, well, homey. On the job, he learned what a "mucker" was when he became one. Soon enough, he says he figured out what Tennessee Ernie Ford was talking about in a song he'd always loved, "Sixteen Tons."

In all likelihood, Rick is the only guy around that bakery coffee table who worked the mines, but that's not how it is he stands alone.

Blue Diamond Mine was just down the road from Vegas, as in "Las Vegas," a place some call "The City of Lost Wages," the entertainment capital of the world. When Blue Diamond management undercut the workers, when the boss handed him a broom and told him to start over, Rick Peppers left that little company town and took the quickest trip he could to Sin City.

Now Rick Peppers isn't the only Orange City-ite to hit Vegas, I'm sure, but he's likely the only one who spent a couple decades working security at Caesar's Palace--you heard that right: Caesars Palace. He's the only one who watched when the powers-that-be became the state regulators and not the mob toughs--a bad move, he'll tell you, by the way. He's the only one at the Dutch Bakery who was appointed bodyguard for Ann Margaret (ask him to show you his lovely autographed portrait). Rick Peppers stands alone in Orange City. He's the only guy in that coffee bunch who once upon a time got on the good side of Frank Sinatra;'the only man or woman whose job it was to keep gadzillions of Caesars's Palace dollars in locked boxes where those millions were supposed to be.

In Vegas, Rick Peppers lived with high rollers he knew by name, the mega-wealthy who could lose hundreds of thousands in a couple of hours, then come back to the Palace's Twenty-One Pit the next day or week and start over again. Rick Peppers found a home among dealers and shills and sharks and the Sergeants whose job it was to keep the Palace running clean, as clean as you can in Sin City.

"I was fortunate to live in the time that I did," he says, in his own personal memoir of the years he spent at Caesar's Palace. "If I had a chance to live my life over, I would not choose any other time or place than the one I lived through." The truth is, Rick Peppers is the only guy around that coffee table who will tell you he loved his many years at Caesar's Place, right there in Sin City.

"I thank God for the life that I've had, and I ask his forgiveness for all my transgressions." That's how he ends the story of his life, An Ordinary Man in an Extraordinary Place at an Extraordinary Time. Read it for yourself.

You can find it on Amazon, even a Kindle edition. Better yet, ask him. He's got a few. He'll sell you one. Most mornings he's at the bakery for coffee. Ask for the man from Sin City.