Dustin Ross Murphy

One memory I'll always have with Dustin (which we still talked about when we saw each other) is when we were really close when we were younger and I used to sleep over a lot, while you and Kent were upstairs we would sneak into Kent's office to look at his nude calendars he had made for his business.

Many memories from growing up together from snowboard trips and dirt biking together.... I can't believe this happened to you. Miss you man. RIP Dustin

Fun Filled Trips to AC with Dustin

 

            One of my most extravagant and unforgettable memories of Dustin were our trips to Atlantic City together. Most of the time, it was a spur of the moment type thing. Dustin would call me up on either a Thursday night or a Friday morning and suggest we drive down Friday afternoon. My response would be the same as it was the previous time. I would say, “you know what Dustin, I’m due. I’ve lost the last couple times I was there; so I am definitely due to win this time. 100%. Let’s go!” So that was that, we hit the road with one of our buddies, Steve Santore, excited as all hell.

           

            The best part of the entire trip was probably the car ride down to AC. Never will you see such happy-go-lucky, excited, confident, cocky, 20-something-year-olds en route to an overnight trip to Atlantic City. We would all talk about how well we would do on the black jack tables that night and what we would do with the money after we won. We were feeling lucky every time we drove down. It was great. As far as I was concerned, we were all due, because the outcome would be the same every time we made that trip. We would play, and we would lose our money. But we always had fun, and we always had a memory to bring back home with us.

 

            So we would finally get down and it was great because we never planned ahead, we never booked a hotel room; we improvised every step we took. As soon as we stepped onto the casino floor, 2 out 3 of us would be down money. So Dustin and I would meet up, miserable and everything and find Steve who was actually doing great at the black jack table. So we would sit next to Steve but Steve would tell us to get lost because we were bad luck. So we asked Steve for some money and he threw us a couple of hundred dollars and would tell us to scram. And indeed we did. About an hour or so later, Dustin would be doing great at a poker table and we would see Steve walking in and expecting him to up thousands at this point. Unfortunately, he lost all his money and began to blame it on us for ruining his luck. So Dustin would now throw him some money and an hour later, Dustin would lose it all and come to me for some money. And on this cycle would go until we lost all our money. But here’s the moral of the story. No matter what happened, no matter how miserable we would be after losing all of our money, Dustin was the one person you wanted to be with at that very moment. The positive and optimistic attitude the kid had was like no other, and I envied him for that. He always had a smile on face, always had a joke to tell, and always came out with his contagious laugh. Anything bad that could of happened, he would turn it around force you to look at it from a positive angle. So we always had fun in Atlantic City. Even if we did lose every single time we went there. We still went out to the clubs and had a blast together. Then since we had no money left come nights end, we would book a room at the Golden Key Motel. And you can only imagine what the Golden Key Motel was like in Atlantic City. It’s not quite the Bellagio or the Borgata, but we still managed to get by.

 

            Still to this day, I couldn’t imagine a better person to hang out with, go out with, and take trips down to Atlantic City with. Dustin really reinforced my positive attitude towards life. There are going to be bumps in the road, but you need to assure yourself that you will get by them, no matter how big the bump is. Dustin never let the little things get in his way and put him down. Being the man that he was, he made sure all those that were close to him, were positive as well. He still is the only person I know that can make you laugh even during hardest of times. He instilled that in me. Dustin got me to believe that the little things in life are indeed little, and the best way to overcome them is to smile, laugh and move on.