As a lot of you know, I love to know the stories behind the items we collect . I don't mind if a chip is drilled or worn, that's part of its history. Sometimes I'm lucky enough to find out some of the real history of an item, sometimes I can only imagine.

We have some cocktail napkins, we've had 'em for awhile, and they look 'minty fresh' like they were just printed last week (and sometimes I wonder...?). We got four cocktail napkins in the mail today...they're written on, they're yellowed with age, and they're glued to a scrapbook page (front & back) and I love 'em!

The first one is from the Frontier Club, Reno. In green ink, it's dated Nov. 11, 1943 "Irene & I.".

November 11, 1943 was a Thursday. I'm imagining that "Irene & I" are a couple of gal pals (or maybe sisters) who are in Nevada together. Maybe they're establishing their 6-week residency, or maybe they're taking a long weekend together. Whatever it is, they're keeping mementos of their trip...tucking a napkin in a purse, to later preserve it in a scrapbook. (Ohhhh...wouldn't I LOVE to have the rest of the scrapbook! )

The next napkin is dated November 12, 1943, from the Pioneer Club. Apparently the girls traveled across the desert from Reno to Vegas. Good thing it was November...would have been a really hot trip in the summer, in 1943! The Pioneer Club was only a year or so old on that Friday night, when the girls stopped in to have a drink and maybe play a slot machine.

If they're in the proper sequence, The Apache Cocktail Room was the first stop on the girls' itinerary for Sunday, November 14. There's an extra note on this napkin "Lt. Harold McCabbie, Lt. Wm. Lane, Irene & myself. The boys were fliers from Tonopah Air Base". So...while the rest of the country was in church, listening to sermons and singing hymns, our girls were in a lounge having a drink with a couple of boys in uniform! Well...they do call it "Sin City"!

The last napkin is from the Cinnabar, which was just around the corner from the Apache Bar, on Second Street. If the napkins were in sequence in the scrapbook, our girls must have left the boys behind at the Apache and continued on by themselves. It's just "Irene & I." on the napkin.

I wonder if the girls had their pictures taken at any of the casinos. You know, like the photo postcards from the Nevada Club. I could almost imagine that a series of cards that Mark Erickson has is "Irene & I.".

(Mark, that's your cue! )