FEATURE

I remember when South Eastern Avenue was nothing but asphalt, a "traffic" light and a couple of bold strip-mall settlements. I remember how, a little to the north, Lake Mead Drive used to whip through like there was no tomorrow, paying no mind to the little nowhere road that bumped into its flanks. And I remember there being more tumbleweeds than automobiles. Back then, you could count.

Back then, all of five years ago.

But new areas of Vegas age like dogs, and 2003 struck me as a bittersweet coming-out party for South Eastern Avenue, the carotid artery in my neck of the woods. Despite all the instant niceties that can make such places seem mature (Home Depot and Lowe's!), at the same time mine still acts like a toddler spoiled rotten, always wanting more before finishing what it already has.

My Eastern, running from the 215 to Anthem, is a microcosm of our Valley's best of times and worst of times. One minute it's a generous four-lane capillary that services a nest of residents and a sporadic flock of drivers who've happened to notice a new Baja Fresh off the Beltway; the next it's a four-lane aneurysm, with shiny new commuters, grumpy old grandpas, monstrous trucks and frustrated ambulances all at once attempting to squeeze through to the north or south.

And what has America's perennial growth capital done about this little underestimation? Erect brand-new traffic lights, scrape out additional lanes and set up a circus of orange cones, all of which clog each and every escape route as quickly as we discover them. We are lab rats in an ever-changing maze—except when real lab rats pick the wrong path, they're never late for work.

Yes, the cavalry is coming, with bulldozers and concrete barriers, to create eight lanes where Lake Mead—excuse me, Pecos Road/St. Rose Parkway—is now barely two. But it's hard to see light at the end of tunnel when there's yet another accident blocking the way.

While I'm privately cursing Eastern up and down, not to mention down and up, it's also been the year when I'm finally not ashamed to defend her in public, even in the presence of those Summerlin snobs who think their growth don't stink. Because the Eastern corridor has emerged as the spinal cord of a great new nervous system in the Valley, and it will take you to a smorgasbord of coffee shops and restaurants (we've more ristorantes than big or Little Italy), scads of stores and superstores (a brand-new Lowe's five minutes away!), civic centers and medical centers (our baby was born down the street!), parks and parking ...

Anyway, it keeps me close to home, offering nearby places and services that—no matter how much time or frustation it actually takes to get there—I can grow acquainted with, interact with and watch grow.

In a valley where many new communities are gangly preteens lacking resolve or enough orange cones to even plan an eight-lane parkway, my sense of place here is starting to come together—it's like watching a crane lower a "there" in front of "there." And, in the coming year, a little dream such as that will keep me going through the long hours I spend chasing the bigger hopes and dreams, like world peace, reducing the federal deficit or someday making a left off of Serene.

This year, I became the proud third owner of a small ranch-style house with white awnings and two grand mulberry trees firmly rooted in the front yard. My own little piece of Las Vegas history.

Nestled in one of the oldest neighborhoods in the city—a tract of homes called Westleigh, built in 1953 between Cashman Drive and Valley View, Charleston and Oakey boulevards—the little yellow house on Douglas Drive has been my home for just six months now.

The first—and longest inhabitant—was a woman by the name of Ruby Maynard.

I never had the pleasure of meeting Ruby; she moved to Oregon to raise chickens after my good friend Anne Kellogg purchased the house from her in 1997, so everything I know about her I learned from Anne.

Ruby outlived two husbands and raised two children here. She named her various fruit trees, including a peach tree (O'Henry) that until recently lived just outside the kitchen window. She laid the miniature yellow, green and white tiles that still cover the bathroom walls. She planted the towering mulberry trees that shade the house on summer days. She even chose the canary yellow paint on the house's exterior, giving it its sunny disposition. One of the more interesting tidbits I learned about Ruby, though, had nothing to do with the house. When Elvis wed Priscilla at the Aladdin in 1967, it was Ruby, a pastry chef at the hotel, who made their wedding cake—"six layers of white angel food cake, covered in pink hearts," according to Cake Talk: The Symbolism of Wedding Cakes by Bee Wilson.

While I haven't painted or planted or laid any tile yet (thanks to Anne, the house needed little work when I moved in), I have baked a cake or two since settling in here, and I've often thought of Ruby. She surely plied her trade in the very same kitchen, though, thankfully, not on the same appliances. My cakes no doubt weren't as impressive as hers, nor consumed by anyone as famous as the King, but I'd still like to think we share something other than the same address and a sweet tooth. Ruby sold her house to Anne because she knew she would love and care for it as she had. Likewise with Anne and I. Ruby saw the ranch through her infancy and adolescence, Anne saw her through middle age and I'll see her through her golden years.

I haven't done it yet, but I plan to track down that famous photograph of Elvis and Cilla cutting their wedding cake. Once I do, I will frame it and hang it in the kitchen, a reminder of cakes already baked, and inspiration for those yet to be frosted.

My butt didn't fit in the chair, the table was so small that my knees hit it, and lines of children—sing-songy, boogery grade-school kids—kept coming and going, coming and going, coming and stopping and staring and going.

My literacy student, Sam, was 8. He had lice problems, dirty clothes, big grin, hated to read.

He was new to Vegas—but after a few months of this, of sitting in the second-grade pod, a stack of Clifford or Ramona books eyeballing us—he came to represent everything I loved about Vegas, 2003.

On our first day together, I asked him if he liked school here better than the one in his old city. "Well, I lived in Texas, and there are no schools in Texas," he told me. "But there is a lot of snow."

I'm not a child psychologist. Or a parent. Or a licensed social worker. So at first, I stayed the course. We cracked open a book, he chugged through a few lines, I helped him sound out a word or two. Then he'd stop and tell another whopper. "My brother was a pilot in World War I," he'd say. Or, "Last night, I jumped off the roof of my apartment into the neighbor's swimming pool." Sometimes he'd get up and physically act out the story. For a tale about wrestling a monster in the woods, he got on the floor and demonstrated monster wrestling. From the looks of things, monster wrestling is probably not something the aged and inflexible ought to consider doing. On the other hand, he did seem to be having fun.

I tried to be more strict. Well, not really. But I feel like I have to say that. In truth, I loved his stories.

One day, when we were not reading when we were supposed to be reading, I said, "Sam, you're a great storyteller. Seriously. Maybe some day you'll write books."

I'd like to say that Sam paused, that he had an epiphany, that he suddenly dove into his reading with fresh zeal. Just like I'd like to say that this year Vegas—or that I, for that matter—made some grandiose turn toward All the Right Things.

But Sam said, "Nah, I'm going to go in the Army. If my mom lets me. But she doesn't want me to go until I'm older." Whew.

There's something here, in Sam's story, in his stories, in my story, in Vegas' story, about the collision—or collusion—of fabrication and reality, of rules and breaking them, of turning absurdly unbearable circumstances into absurdly bearable circumstances. I can't pin it down.

At the end of our tutoring term, Sam gave me a potted flower. I told him I'd keep it in my living room. He said it would grow to be 80 feet tall, better put it outside. I put it in my living room. It died.

Guess he was right.

I was standing in the middle of Bourbon Street on a late July afternoon in a bit of a haze—thanks to seven Coronas, three test-tube shots and my one and only Hurricane (an evil rum-based concoction for which New Orleans is famous)—when it hit me: Las Vegas blows this place away! And then the gears in the old cranium ground to a halt. Where did THAT come from? Because I'm an in-the-moment kind of guy. And at that moment, I was having such a great time with a group of friends old and new that I could've been in Alaska or Tikrit or, hell, even Reno, and it wouldn't have mattered.

So why that thought? Was it just random? Or could it be that I was transforming into one of them? You know them, those trolls who believe their hometown is the second coming of paradise and who get defensive when somebody dares utter an opinion to the contrary (and I speak specifically of those of you from Northern California and Colorado). Nah, that could never be me.

I soon figured it out: For the first time that I can recall, I actually felt proud that Las Vegas was my home. Those of you who have been here awhile know what a huge leap that is. For me, it took nine years to clear that bar—nine years of cringing every time I was asked, "So where are you from?" followed by, "Vegas? Really?"

That I had to go some 2,000 miles to reach that milestone is, well, kind of sad. But had I not been soaking up that wonderful New Orleans aroma of spilled alcohol, urine and vomit, the epiphany probably never would've happened. See, I've always taken Vegas for granted. Yeah, it's the Entertainment Capital of the World and the Gaming Capital of the World and the Lap Dance Capital of the World, yada, yada, yada. But it always seemed more hokey, more artificial, more unrefined than a real city.

Go to New Orleans, though, and you realize how sophisticated Las Vegas is. You also realize what a privilege it is to live in a place that not only has so much to offer but that offers it with a side of first-class style. That's not to say New Orleans is void of positive qualities. In fact, its culinary scene is top-notch, and from an architectural and historical perspective, Vegas can't compete. And that beads-for-bare-boobs thing, well, that's a stroke of genius. Unfortunately, the city's main attraction—Bourbon Street—is a dump. Literally. (There's trash from the previous night's debauchery piled up just off the street.) And the stench, well, let's just say the place could use a good scouring.

Spend just 10 minutes on Bourbon Street and it becomes crystal clear why visitors flock to the bars for daily three-for-one drink specials. It also becomes crystal clear why Las Vegas attracts four times as many people annually as New Orleans and features 100,000 more hotel rooms and received, in 2003, more national and international publicity and attention than any other tourism destination on the planet—and why some 6,000 people a month move here: This place simply kicks ass.

And I, finally, am proud to call it home.