by Naomi Trego

Created on: April 18, 2008

Before Pogo, I was a reasonably intelligent human being with a myriad of talents and interests.
I took college courses, tutored students in English, sewed for my grandchildren, and lovingly
kept my 1941 Chrysler in running condition, and dabbled in portraiture of both houses and people. My husband and I would take an occassional trip to the casinos in Nevada and travel the highways and byways of this great country. When he gave me his fancy new computer, saying that I would get more use of it than he ever would, my whole world was turned upside down. I became a computer nerd,so to speak. I could not stay away from it.

My favorite casino game has always been Keno. Pogo On Line not only had Keno, but many more intriguing games to try. I became a member and started playing Keno. Using the same technique that I used in the casinos. When I hit nine of the ten numbers that I had picked, my token count increased considerably. Pogo pays in tokens with cash on Jackpot wins. I was hopelessly hooked. I went on to other games and found my special niche in Word Jong. One plays by making seven-letter words from a puzzle of stacked letters, much like mahjong. Every seven letter word found, a letter from the stack turns green. The green letter have much greater value and the more that are used in a single word, the higher the player's score. Eventually, I managed to complete all forty of the levels of Word Jong, no small fete, as each level required the completion of fifty or more puzzles. With each level, the number of puzzles increased.

I played on Pogo hour after hour and was loathe to leave a game even to fix a meal or attend to other household duties.

One night I was playing poker and had won my third game, rewarded with a jackpot spin. Imagine my surprise when the Jackpot came up! I had won $1100.00 it said. I checked my home page and it proclaimed me a winner. I waited for word from Pogo. There was nothing. I contacted them and got no response. Finally I chalked it up as a fluke of some kind and went on playing. All of those hours and days, and months have accumulated into a total of seven years.

In February of this year my membership came up for renewal. I hesitated. "What am I doing?" I had to ask myself. "There are so many other things you can do." I was torn. "you are going to be climbing the walls for something to do.", my husband warned me. Old habits are had to break. I paid the subscription fee of $39.95 and continued playing.

To weeks later, my husband asked me to scan and enlarge a picture of a stagecoach and horses that he had found. He has hinted numerous times that he would like me to paint him such a picture many times in the past. I realized then that I had been missing a whole lot of what I am really about. I quit Pogo, forfeiting the entire year's subscription. I don't care. I am free once again to do my thing, whatever it may be, and look forward to a challenging and more productive life.

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