Larry Martin:  

Life I went to high school in Kirkwood, Missouri through my junior year. My family moved to Northern California in 1966 and I graduated from Logan High in Union City, California. I then spent four years at the University of California at Berkeley getting a B.A. with plans to go to Boalt Law School. In the summers I worked at Lake Tahoe at various casino jobs. The winter after I graduated I decided to spend six months at Squaw Valley appeasing my new love of skiing that I picked up in Tahoe. The following spring I moved back to South Shore and found my way into the job of waiter at Harrah’s South Shore Room. As the old elephant circumciser said, “It was hard work, but the tips were huge.” Making what I thought was “big money” at the time, I made the mistake of deciding not to go back to Boalt. I spent seven years in Tahoe. During that time I also became a ski instructor at what was then Sierra Ski Ranch; working there part time so that I could ski for free. One day in one of my beginner classes I met my future wife, Marian. It was her first day on skis. When we married, she moved to Tahoe from the Monterey area and became a blackjack dealer. Unbeknownst to the IRS we were amassing a fair amount of capital so we decided to o...Expand for more