2007: Year of the Small Town
Hours after the sun set during our holiday drive from Las Vegas through Utah to Idaho, we cued up Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. It was a pleasant enough drive, why not embellish the moment with a classic Beatles album?
But what had been a pleasant drive on a clear evening under a dazzling night sky turned harrowing just as the haunting guitar notes opened Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds. Powerful wind gusts blew snow across Interstate 15 and into our path. The oncoming white rush made it feel as if we were flying over a cloud cover, which would seem fairly romantic except we were not actually airborne. We were cutting into a genuine Intermountain West snowstorm, and from just north of Cedar City to Fillmore – through the heart of Utah – we skulked through sometimes blinding snow, slush and ice. The front windshield was frozen over in spots, and the indestructible Mazda 6 covered in road salt and the grey, Slurpee-like substance of snow and mud. We were forced to stop for 90 minutes just outside of Beaver, which is about 40 miles north of Cedar City, and wait for the angels driving the snowplows to clear our path. While the guys behind us tumbled out of their pickups to fling snowballs at each other, I took the opportunity to reflect on 2007.
It was a year of terrific change, as I moved from the Las Vegas Sun, where I spent eight memorable years, to the Greenspun Media Group, where my position as Writer-At-Large has already afforded me the opportunity to pursue some fulfilling stories and interview fascinating Las Vegas newsmakers. Since arriving in May, I have purchased and been trained to operate and carry a semiautomatic firearm (I even took my girlfriend and her family out to shoot up a few pumpkins just before Halloween), ridden every thrill ride in Las Vegas (and Primm) in a single day, spent several mornings, afternoons and evenings chatting up strangers at the Budweiser Race Bar and Grill at McCarran International Airport, and interviewed such formidable personalities as Luxor President Felix Rappaport and Vegas icon Wayne Newton. Just after the story about The Wayner appeared in the December issue of Las Vegas Life, I made a trip to Danville, Illinois, to report about long-lost UNLV Runnin’ Rebel Keon Clark.
Pursuing the story about Clark, a former Rebel star and NBA player who is still awaiting sentencing for weapons, drug and DUI charges in his hometown, was a reminder about the charm and character of small towns. I met many native Danvillians during my stay at the Days Inn there, and I found there is a strong and sturdy quality to small-town residents that is largely foreign to Las Vegans. That colonial pride was evident when one of my new acquaintances in Danville, Vermillion County Sheriff Pat Hartshorn, told me that one of the town’s major industries was a plant that manufactures the little sheaths that encase hot dogs. I laughed, reflexively, and the sheriff lectured, “Danville’s a labor town. These things have to be made SOMEWHERE.”
I understand.
The concept of time and distance is different in Danville than Las Vegas; I was told by a bartender at Snappers, the bar at Turtle Run country club, that my drive out to the club from Days Inn was “a heck of a hike.” It took 10 minutes. I was struck by how much work I could accomplish, how many in-person visits, I could make in a single day in Danville. One day I actually visited Turtle Run twice, which fairly stunned the staff out there.
Danville seemed so familiar to me because it reminded me so much of my original hometown, Pocatello, Idaho, a similarly tough little railroad town that always seems to be waiting for the next big facility to open and create good-paying jobs. During the past year I also visited Chico, California, where my family relocated when I was 13. During a walk downtown I stopped into a jewelry store operated by a man named Pete Mundy. I recognized that name – he was our neighbor in Chico almost 30 years ago. He almost toppled over when I re-introduced myself to him, and when I told him I lived in Vegas, his eyes lit up as if I told him I’d just bought property on Mars.
I closed out 2007 with those memories, feeling recharged not by the glitz of Vegas – a city I’ve grown to love – but by the warmth of these small towns. I know I’ll see Pocatello and Chico again. But Danville? Probably not. But I do have a long-sleeved T-shirt I bought at Snappers, and I’ve been wearing it a lot lately.
**
PL8 in my head: Via a dispatch from Sacramento, BLKBRBE, on a black Mercedes Benz sedan.
Fabulous Las Vegas appears at this Web site. John Katsilometes, who also hosts Our Metropolis, a weekly issues and affairs show, each Tuesday at 6 p.m. on KUNV 91.5-FM, can be reached at 990-7720, 812-9812 or at [email protected].