At 88, Summerlin gambler is still sharp as a tack

It began during a discussion I had with my friend Morrie about an item that appeared in a recent column written by Doug Elfman in the Las Vegas Review-Journal. The subject was Las Vegas, more specifically an earlier period in Las Vegas — the Las Vegas that grew along a Strip that once boasted such neon names as the Dunes, Sands, Stardust, Hacienda, Sahara, Frontier and — well, you get the picture.

Elfman had interviewed one of the daughters of Benjamin Siegel, founder of the Flamingo and pioneer developer of the Strip, remembered by many as a man with a questionable background, to say the least.

"His daughter remembered the old days, when each hotel along the Strip had special characteristics of its own. I loved those hotels. But they've been tearing them down, one by one, and replacing them with these glass-and-steel jobs," said Morrie Krasnitz, who has lived on the edge of Summerlin since before there was a Summerlin.

Morrie came to Las Vegas in the early 1980s.

"I had retired from the Milwaukee Railroad in Chicago, but I couldn't stay retired, so I went to work as a night clerk for a motel that was a block away from Bally's," Morrie recalled. "The place was owned by Lied (Ernst Lied, of the Lied Foundation), and did I ever meet characters in that job!"

But we're getting ahead of ourselves. That's because at age 88, Morrie himself has earned the distinction of being a genuine character. After all, how else would you describe a guy who attained such notoriety as being designated "Farmer of the Year" by Prairie Farmer Magazine at age 16, after harvesting onions in Illinois — even though he was born in Brooklyn?

Add into that equation a young kid who lied about his age to join the U.S. Navy, "then I flunked out of submarine school" and became a second-class cook instead. Morrie's naval career included his appointment as a lifeguard while in boot camp, "but I couldn't swim, then or now."

He insists that he's the guy who kissed a pretty nurse in Times Square the day World War II ended, a photo that wound up in national publications. After the war, he became a boxing trainer, then went to mortuary school and became a licensed embalmer and funeral director for 40 years.

"Actually, I worked at it for only a year. I was afraid of dead people, which is why I became an embalmer — hopefully to calm my fears," he said.

But that was before he moved to Las Vegas. "I was married to my third wife when we visited Las Vegas. We came for a vacation. She and I liked it here. Then she didn't like me. We divorced. I married Marcia, and she died. Then I married Ruth, my fifth wife. We've been married six years. I gotta tell you, she's the love of my life."

Morrie acknowledged that living in Las Vegas is not the best place for somebody with a gambling problem.

"I'm addicted to gambling," he admitted. "I've been playing the horses and betting on football for years. Actually, I'll bet on anything that moves. I've played the sports books in hotel-casinos all over town."

Maybe that's why he feels so sad about the loss of so many of the hotels that were built in an earlier day?

"I not only bet in those casinos, but I also saw shows and patronized $2 and $3 buffets at the Sahara, the Dunes, Riviera, Sands. They were great places," he reminisced.

"You want to talk about characters? I met quite a few when I worked as a clerk in that motel behind Bally's. I think I loaned more money to guys than I made in those days. I also bet the horses at Churchill Downs and Little Caesars," Morrie recalled. These were among the storefront betting parlors that were once popularized by Strip traffickers.

One of Morrie's preoccupations these days is to check in each morning with KJUL radio host Scott Gentry.

"I come up with my joke of the day for Scott," after which Morrie and Ruth are generally off to lunch. "My spare time is very limited," he said.

— Herb Jaffe was an op-ed columnist and investigative reporter for most of his 39 years at the Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J. His most recent novel, "Double Play," is now available. Contact him at hjaffe@cox.net.