Vegas Voices: Brian Rouff’s Vegasy Ghost Story, “The House Always Wins”

When you live in a famous city, you get used to reading about your hometown. But very few Vegas-based books have a truly local setting. In “The House Always Wins,” author Brian Rouff takes us to a part of town that doesn’t make it to the Travel Channel, with characters that will ring a bell or two for any long-time resident.

East St. Louis Avenue at Atlantic, looking west towards the Stratosphere

If you know anything about Las Vegas, you’ve heard of our most famous street: Las Vegas Boulevard, a.k.a. The Strip, a.k.a. The Boulevard. It’s sparkly and fancy and attracts the attention of over 40 million visitors a year.

Unless you’re truly a local resident, however, you probably have not heard of East St. Louis Boulevard.

Brian Rouff’s newest novel, “The House Always Wins,” opens with a whirlwind romance that begins in Michigan and winds up in Las Vegas. Our heroine, Anna, quickly succumbs to the charms of Aaron, a touring Vegas musician, and in short order, Anna and Aaron are married with a baby on the way. Finding a house quickly becomes a priority.

Homes along East St. Louis Avenue

Rouff describes the bulk of houses in Las Vegas with complete accuracy: “Outside, some variation of an earth tone, a red-tile roof, and a mottled textured coating they call ‘stucco.’ All accented with a patch of ‘desert landscaping,’ meaning rocks, cactus and other bushes that require less than a thimble of water to survive.”

Then Anna wanders into what’s now known as the Beverly Green Historic District, and is captivated by a two-story brick house that stands out from the cookie cutters she's seen. I thought it sounded a lot like the house the Sahara's orchestra leader Jack Eglash once lived in (which was actually further east in the Mayfair District), and in fact Rouff and his family bought and remodeled Eglash’s former home in the 2000s. Today, that distinctive home is gone.

Beverly Green, Mayfair and all of the aging/vintage neighborhood in this area hold a mix of homes that range from fully restored to vacant lots that once held homes, with everything in between. 

This abandoned building on St. Louis was once a home that was converted to a dental office

Anna and Aaron take on the fixer-upper and Anna finds that it comes with a ghost named Meyer Levin, who has a lot in common with Moe Dalitz.

Looking west up East St. Louis from about 16th Street

Dalitz isn’t the only local who makes an appearance, so to speak. One of my favorite nods to local lore is the character of Ed Scott, a muck-racking reporter who’s ready to help Anna fight a casino owner (imagine Bob Stupak crossed with Steve Wynn) to save her property from becoming a parking lot. Just like local reporter Ned Day, a man who covered the mob, Scott expires while swimming on vacation in Hawaii. (In real life, Day died of a heart attack while swimming--some would add "allegedly"--while the character of Scott drowns.)

Neither the ghost of Meyer Levin nor Anna are willing to let the house get turned into a parking lot, but if you want to find out exactly what happens, you’ll have to pick up the book.

Looking west up East St. Louis from John C. Fremont Junior High, my old junior high

The locations described throughout the book are very familiar to me, since I grew up in the area, just a few streets from East St. Louis Avenue. It’s a real pleasure to read a story set in my old ‘hood, and anyone who knows Las Vegas will enjoy the attention to detail throughout the story.

Beautifully maintained/restored home along East St. Louis

Rouff is also the author of two other Vegas-based novels, “Dice Angel” and “Money Shot” (both of which are also quite good). I’ve seen a few comparisons drawn between Rouff and Carl Hiaasen, although personally I was reminded of Janet Evanovich’s style. In addition to being a great writer, I have to tell you he’s also one heck of a nice guy, being kind enough to come speak to my former writing group back in the day.

If you’re looking for a Vegas book that goes beyond the Strip, pick up “The House Always Wins” and see a side of the city you don’t know about.

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I took the photos for this post along East St. Louis Avenue traveling from St. Louis and Atlantic west to just east of Las Vegas Boulevard, where the actual street address of the house in the book, 339 E. St. Louis, would be, according to Google... if there were any homes there:

Look for a future series of photos from me taken mostly in this area and the Mayfair District, where I grew up.

What it was Like to Grow up in Old Las Vegas

Once upon a time, I lived in a city full of mobsters, entertainers, cowboys, colorful gamblers, and an abundance of open desert. It's a time that's passed into a kind of mythological status, so it's only natural that one of the most common questions I get is: “What was it like to grow up in Las Vegas?”

We used to get started gambling early around here
(I'm kidding, of course)

This question is almost always posed with wide eyes and, I think, the hope that I have something  juicy to share, like a mobster dad or a mother who was an exotic dancer.

In my case, my dad was a bartender and my mom was an accountant.

My parents moved here around 1960. When I was born, Dad was working at the Flamingo. Over four decades he worked as a bartender or food and beverage manager at a whole bunch of legendary Vegas places that no longer exist, like the Aladdin and the recently imploded Riviera.

Here Dad is hanging out after work (notice no tie) at what looks like a pool bar. Once he was done with his shift, he usually went off to visit one (or more) of his bartender (or dealer or waitress or entertainer) buddies, which appears to be the case in this photo. This was probably taken around the time he worked at the Flamingo in the early 1960s.

Dad was, to my mom's great irritation, that guy who always “knew a guy.” And that guy never showed up when he was supposed to, nor did he ever do what he said he would. Take, for instance, the "painter" who painted my parent's bedroom with an earthy shade of exterior house paint that looked terrible and made the room feel like a cave. Dad was pleased, but Mom not so much. (In later years, Dad hired another guy he knew to do paneling on one of the walls, which took twice as long and cost twice as much as originally quoted, and did not improve the cave-like feeling.)

My mom worked mostly as an accountant, but she also sold flight insurance at McCarran for a while, as evidenced by this picture. Mom's the one with the lei. She also happened to be gorgeous, as you can see.

Mom once told me a story about the day she was out shopping with her hair up in curlers when she ran into Della Reese. She spotted Della, whom she knew (remember, it was a small town), and tried to duck out of sight because she was embarrassed. “Here I am in curlers, and there she was, all beautifully done up,” was kind of how Mom described it to me. I think Mom may have said a brief hello, but she scooted out of the store without stopping to chat.

Later that night, when Della saw my Dad (I’m guessing at work), she told him, “Your wife is stuck up.” Mom told me she was horrified when Dad told her (I bet he laughed), and I’m not sure how that perception was corrected, if ever.

We went to a lot of shows and restaurants, most of which my parents never paid for—unless you counted the generous tips paid to the maitre ‘d, the cocktail waitress, the waiter, and so on. Mostly, these were people my dad knew, who returned the favor when he comped them at his bar when he was working. It was an unwritten rule that if you weren’t paying for the meal or the show, you’d better be tipping well.

It wasn’t all shows and glamour, of course. We had a pretty regular family routine, although life with two partiers (as we would call them today) had its ups and downs. But they bequeathed me a huge supply of great stories, which is a good thing for a writer.

When I was a teenager and finding things to do without my parents, Las Vegas was still largely rural on the outskirts. I went to gymkhanas and off-roaded with my friends. The Red Rock Loop was a two-way road, and it didn't take long to drive out of town. Seeing the Milky Way required only about a two-hour drive… if that.

In some ways, getting used to the city-fication of Las Vegas has been harder than adjusting to the changes on the Strip. Gone are the ranches and the wide open desert I remember. Most of the places from my childhood are gone or irrevocably changed.

Still, I find the city fascinating and the desert alluring.

My son has grown up in an entirely different Las Vegas, a place that's far more urban than when I was a kid. He's rather blasé about his famous hometown, and while he still has some distinctly Vegas Native tendencies (like never taking anything someone hands you on the Strip and a love of vast, wild places), his experience growing up in Vegas is almost as if he didn't grow up in the same city that I did at all.

Are you a Vegas Native? Leave your story, please!

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In August 2016, Vegas Girl celebrated its 10th anniversary. This post is a part of three-part series revisiting some of Vegas Girl's most notable stories.

All pictures from the giant family photo collection of Terrisa Meeks.

Vegas Girl Flashback Photo Friday - Christmas and Old Vegas

Christmas in Las Vegas isn't all about glitzy displays on the Strip.

In 2011, my family and I staycationed at Lake Las Vegas over Thanksgiving. The Saturday after the holiday, Christmas decorations were out everywhere, including all over this boat at the Lake Mead Boat Harbor, which is obviously depicting Santa stashing presents for delivery on December 25 (and taking a break from the cold).

Merry Christmas, and don't sit on the boat.

When I went looking for my radio piece on KNPR about Christmas lights in Las Vegas, I found something surprising--a kind of cosmic Christmas gift--a recording my mom, Barbara Hudson, made in 2002 for KNPR's "Making Nevada Home" about celebrities in Old Vegas and the Vegas of the 60s, including a story about when I met Phyllis Diller. 

Have you been out to look at any Christmas lights, or seen any celebrities lately? I read somewhere that Nick Cage sightings are a thing these days.

Vintage Vegas - What’s a Camera Girl?

In Old Las Vegas showrooms, going to a show was totally different than it is today and involved far more people.

A modern Las Vegas showroom - Barry Manilow performing

Recently I was telling a co-worker about getting in touch with an old friend of mine who once was a camera girl.

“A what?” my co-worker asked. “What’s a camera girl?”

I hadn’t thought about the fact that someone living in Las Vegas might not know what a camera girl is.

It was one of the many positions that formerly existed in Vegas showrooms before stadium style seating took over and transformed the way people see a show.

At the last show I went to, Vegas! the Show, everyone stopped at the camera station as we went in. Snap, Snap, Snap, and we were on our way. This is the standard photo moment at any number of events and attractions. After the show, we got to examine our pictures and decide whether or not we wanted to buy them (nope!). It’s all pretty impersonal.

Back in the day, when you went to a Las Vegas show, things were different.

First, there was no stadium seating. There were tables and booths, and the best seats were obtained by knowing the maître d’ and the showroom captain, and tipping well. People dressed up. There was a cocktail waitress, and at the early show there was a meal. Somewhere in there, the camera girl came around to ask you if you’d like to have your picture taken.

In an Old Vegas showroom, a camera girl had to be charming, attractive, a good photographer, and a great salesperson. My old friend, Cyndy, was all of those things. Here she is with Steve Perry of Journey. She appears to be extremely composed despite having her picture taken with a rock star, but she met a lot of famous folks in those days.

You can still find camera girls in some restaurants, but it’s not the same as it was when the job title of camera girl brought an immediate image to mind of a pretty young woman in a short skirt with a camera.

For some reason, although I spent a lot of time in showrooms, we never got our picture taken. I suspect it was because Dad didn’t have a way to get it comped—he always complained that the pictures were too expensive. 

Do you remember camera girls in the showrooms?

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Photo of Barry Mannilow courtesy of PCDude2143 at flickr

Vintage Vegas: Fats Domino & My Parents

“Only you would have autographed Fats Domino albums in your garage and not know it.” ~Comment from a friend.

I’ve had a lot of emails and messages from friends lately, most of them along the lines of, “Where have you been?”

Let me sum up the past few months for you: First, there was a flood. Then there was mold, and a crazy landlord, and lawyers, and a move that happened over Christmas and New Year’s. (We’re calling it “Mold-nado.”)

New Year's Eve at my house: Ringing in 2014 with lots of boxes.

In case you’ve ever wondered how long it would take two adults and a resentful teenager to move a four-bedroom home and a workshop (with very little help), the answer is: eight days. Eight long, painful days, at the end of which we all agreed that stairs are evil and we hate them.

We’ve been settling into an awesome new home (it has a pool!), managed by a lovely, sane management company, but we’re still working our way through boxes. A few weekends ago, we uncovered my parents’ old vinyl records.

In the 1960s and 70s, my dad frequently worked the showroom bars on the Las Vegas Strip, and he knew a lot of musicians. He was friends with several of them, including Fats Domino and Harry James. 

Apparently Dad also knew Peggy Lee, who autographed this 1962 Blues Cross Country album for him (notice Quincy Jones conducted):

When I got to the Fats Domino records, I found albums signed for my mom and me.

I think Dad met Fats at the Flamingo, where my dad was a bartender during the early 1960s. However they met, Fats and my parents became friends.

My favorite story about Fats came from my mom. According to Mom, one day Fats (his real name is Antoine, incidentally) pulled up in front of the house in a limo. His feather ties had become wrinkled and mashed somewhere during his travels, and he didn’t like whatever solution the hotel had proposed. He asked Mom to help him, and she came up with putting them under the sofa cushions to gently press the feathers back into shape, returning his ties to show-ready condition.

When I was about 10, I got to sit backstage and watch Fats perform. I thought it was odd that Mom and I were sitting behind the action, amid the lights and the curtains, but it was fun. I grew up around showrooms, but I was usually sitting in the audience. I didn’t really understand what a privilege it was to be backstage.

The last time I saw Mr. Domino, I was in my early 20s. Dad and I went to see him in his suite, which I think was at Bally’s. I remember there was a great view of the Strip from the sitting room's window. He and Dad chatted for maybe 30 minutes—about what, I don’t remember. Fats seemed to find me sassy (probably a fair assessment), but he was happy to sit and catch up with Dad.

This is why it takes me so long to go through some of these boxes: the stories they hold slow me down.

I’ve still got several boxes to go. Who knows what other treasures I might find?

What's your most surprising "find" (in the garage, the attic, etc.)?

Johnny Carson and Old Vegas

I love reading about the Las Vegas I remember, a time before megacasinos.

When I saw Henry Bushkin’s book "Johnny Carson," something about the author’s name jogged my memory. Maybe it’s because my parents and I watched “The Tonight Show,” and I remember Carson’s “Bombastic Bushkin” jokes. Maybe it’s because my mom, Barbara Hudson, worked for KVVU TV5 Las Vegas when Johnny Carson bought the television station in 1978, something Bushkin writes about in the book.

Here’s my mom and Johnny Carson at some employee function for the TV station. My mom’s sister, my 94-year-old aunt, still talks about this picture. At the time this Polaroid was taken, which I’m guessing was about 1980, Johnny Carson was incredibly famous and getting a picture taken with him was a Big Deal (remember, this was before camera phones). That picture was such a Big Deal, in fact, that Mom got copies made and sent one back home.  

Mom was the controller for TV5, and I have to wonder if she didn’t spend some time talking to Henry Bushkin. (Mom passed away in 2008, so unfortunately I can’t ask her.) Bushkin, as he relates in his book, was Carson’s attorney/manager/confidant/advisor. To paraphrase his own description, he was just like those guys on “Entourage,” only there was just one of him.

Las Vegas in the 1970s gets an entire chapter in “Johnny Carson,” and it was my favorite chapter (of course, because it’s the time and place of my childhood). Bushkin describes how blasé the locals were about celebrities—and how refreshing that was for the famous:

“The locals left the stars alone, and somehow most of the guests in the casino grasped that they shouldn’t ask for autographs.”

(Which as a complete aside, reminds me of the time I got James Garner’s autograph during his “Rockford Series” days, but that’s another story.)

“Once we were in line at the register at Food King, and the customer in front of us caught a glimpse of Johnny. ‘Oh my God!’ she said. ‘What are you doing here?’

“Johnny shrugged. ‘I needed peanut butter.’”

The Vegas I grew up in was a small place, filled with people who either worked with celebrities, or were well-known themselves. Fritz Becker, conductor for the Mills Brothers, lived across the street from us (we watched his house when he was traveling, which was often). Poker legend Doyle Brunson lived about five blocks away (in his pre-legend days), in a house Jackie Gaughan built, in the then-ritzy neighborhood at the top of Oakey Hill. Many of our neighbors were engineers, stage hands, or musicians. My dad, a bartender, often worked showroom bars and knew scores of both the famous and infamous. (Speaking of infamous, Dad was especially fond of Moe Daliz, as were many long-time Vegas residents).

Bushkin writes quite a bit about Jack Eglash, the influential entertainment director and band director at the Sahara, who lived just a few blocks away from our house. I went to school with his daughter. I had no idea what an important Las Vegan Eglash was—I just knew his daughter had a pogo stick, which I considered a seriously exotic item.

I enjoyed Bushkin’s book, not only because of his descriptions of Vegas, but because Carson was a fascinating person and a ground-breaker. He set the standard for the late-night talk show genre. Bushkin’s account of the 18 years he worked for Carson is an engaging portrait of a television icon during the height of his fame.

#

Do you remember Johnny Carson -- or Old Vegas?

Good-bye, Sahara Las Vegas

If you live in Las Vegas, you've undoubtedly read that another Old Vegas hotel casino is getting mothballed. May 16, 2011, will be the Sahara's last day. "It's a rare and dying breed," observed my 12-year-old. He's a true Vegas native.

Feelings about the Sahara's closing are mixed. Some lament the demise of yet another classic Vegas joint, and others are glad to see it go. Take this comment from one of my pals on Facebook, for instance: "Why wait...Lets implode that rat-infested non-profit earning eyesore now and create some construction jobs....Just my thought..." No plans have been announced for implosion, by the way.

I never spent much time at the Sahara. My major memory of the Sahara is from the days of Wet 'N Wild, in those happy times when I would float around all day in their many heavily chlorinated water attractions, and I would look up at the Sahara's clock and temp display and think, "Can it really be 115°? It feels so nice and cool here." Then, of course, they demolished Wet 'N Wild. No more lazy river, no more pondering the time and temp at the top of the Sahara.

My other major Sahara memory? The Adult Entertainment Expo, back when everyone thought it was an actual part of CES because both conventions happen at the same time of year (and still do--but in those days, the Adult Expo was at the Sahara, easy walking distance from the Convention Center). This was long, long ago, back in the days of my prior career.... at the police department. After using our falsified passes to CES (which had nothing to do with my employer of the day, incidentally), we'd tromp on over to the Sahara to gawk at the porn stars. Ah, the memories.

I recently read an trenchant observation about the fate of budget-priced, Old Vegas hotel casinos. Before the Great Recession, they offered an affordable alternative to the fancy New Vegas resorts. Now, even the big, fresh, glossy places have cut their rates and offer deals. Will there be a place for the Old Vegas hotel casinos remaining—in particular, the Riviera—or will they all go the way of the showgirl?  

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Photo courtesy of John Griffiths

Vegas Places: Holy Moly, I Know That House!

When you’ve lived in Las Vegas all your life, you get accustomed to seeing the city on TV, in magazines, or online. But it’s one thing to see the Strip on television or in print, and another to see a home that you remember almost as well as the one in which you grew up--or a house that's just a few blocks from where you once lived.

If you watch "Pawn Stars," you’re familiar with Rick Dale of Rick’s Restorations. Back in the days when the northwest side of town was still horse country, I lived just a few blocks from his home/business. I drove by his place every day. In those days, he would leave a few vintage Coke machines outside to advertise his services.

At that time, our neighborhood was far on the outskirts of town. When I gave people directions, I would tell them, “Keep driving until you think you’re lost. Then keep going.” Today, of course, the area has a mess of homes, a mega-church, and a freeway. And Rick’s place is still out there.

The first time my husband and I saw Rick on a Pawn Stars episode, it took us just a few seconds to recognize the house. It was kind of strange, but fun, like knowing a secret no one else does—although I’m sure everyone in that neighborhood knows who he is now.

But I got my biggest, "Holy moly, I know that house!" in the pages of Las Vegas Weekly.

The magazine's February 24 issue featured an article about a house ("Mid-Century Manor" by Sarah Feldberg) with loads of pictures--which at first I didn't recognize. Then I read the article's first sentence, which said that the house had been owned by both Jackie Gaughan and Doyle Brunson... and I took another look at those pictures. Holy moly, indeed.

Back in the 1970s, when I knew the Brunsons (I was friends with their daughters during our middle school and high school years), the house looked a lot different. But I recognized the spiral staircase, the distinctive front door, and the lava wall. I spent a lot of time in that house. Looking at the magazine's pictures felt like a twisted time warp, or maybe a short journey to a parallel universe.

My own old childhood home isn't likely to show up in any media, unless it's on an episode of "Cops." I drove by the place about a month ago; time has not been kind to it. The houses in that old downtown neighborhood are a patchwork of the restored, the neglected, and the downright scary. The cars parked on the front lawn of my old place definitely put it in the last category.

Here's what the house I grew up in looked like, back in its prime. The first picture below was taken sometime in the 1960s (crazily enough, those awnings are still on the house). The second picture was taken in the backyard in the early 70s, at about the time I knew the Brunson family. That's me and our dachshunds in front of my family's beloved fig tree. The dogs and tree are gone, but the girl is still kicking.

Picture of vintage Las Vegas postcard courtesy of Mark Holloway

In Line at the Las Vegas Mob Experience

Last week the Tropicana unveiled the Las Vegas Mob Experience, the Strip's newest "interactive experience." Imagine a museum crossed with interactive theater, and that's roughly what the Mob Experience is like.

The Mob Experience wisely opened in preview form with limited hours last week. They were still smoothing out a lot of glitches when I was there on Thursday--several displays weren't working. Disappointingly, I saw not a single hologram. Other than the actors/guides who led us through the first bit of the Experience, the interactivity was non-existent. I hope that the fully working LVME offers more to visitors because I didn't see anything that would induce me to return, especially not at almost $40.00 per ticket.

Truthfully, I had more fun waiting in line than walking through the Experience.

My son and I were standing in the very long line when an older gentleman got in line behind us. He smiled and said to my son, "I used to work for the Mob."

"So did his grandfather," I said.

And here's the truth of it: if you lived in Las Vegas back in the days when the Mob ran things, it was kind of hard not to work for the Mob, in one form or another.

We were soon trading Old Vegas memories with "The Grim Reaper," as his badge read (my son was "Creepy" -- presumably, when things are working properly, these badges do more than give you a funky name). Reaper's wife, Cathy, had been a cocktail waitress at the Flamingo, but from what we figured out, it was probably before my dad worked there.

Reaper, Cathy, Creepy, and I passed the time in line trading stories about the days when the people who actually knew mobsters didn't talk about them. I managed to remember most of the places my dad had worked, found out that I was the same age as Cathy's children, and traded the stories every long-time Las Vegan has, the "I remember when" stories--"I remember when Rainbow was a dirt road" is one of my favorites.

"What was your favorite restaurant that's gone now?" Reaper asked me.

"Chateau Vegas," I said. I loved their food, but I especially loved their harpist.

"That was a Mob hangout," said Reaper. Coulda been, but when I was a kid all I cared about was their veal scaloppini and that harpist.

It wasn't until I became an adult that I had any real idea about the people my dad knew. Looking back, I realize now that being the food and beverage manager at the Aladdin in the 1970s says a whole lot about the people he knew. When I was kid, it was more important to me that his job meant we got to eat at the Aladdin's Sabre Room, the gourmet restaurant that sat at the bottom of a long flight of stairs. No harpist, but great veal. That was also before I learned about where veal comes from.

Was Las Vegas better when the Mob ran things? That's such a standard piece of Vegas wisdom that it's mentioned briefly in an LVME display. I think the small towns and innocence of youth always seem better in hindsight, no matter where you grew up, with or without mobsters.

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Photo courtesy of chewstroke

Vintage Vegas

Last week, the remains of the Moulin Rouge were demolished. Las Vegas’ first integrated casino was open for only six months in 1955, but until July 22, 2010, talk had persisted about resurrecting or preserving the historic site. The sad, lingering death of the Moulin Rouge is representative of the way Las Vegas has traditionally treated its history. Like a former lady of the evening turned legit, Vegas likes to ignore its past.

Paradoxically, those of us who have been here for a while enjoy a round of “I remember when,” as in: I remember when Rainbow was a dirt road; I remember when the sand storms were so bad you couldn’t drive; I remember when you could drive on Fremont Street; I remember when Red Rock was a long drive out of town; I remember when Lake Mead over-flowed Hoover Dam’s spillways. (And I’m only using my own “I remembers.” My pals have a bunch more.) I damn near cried when I watched a YouTube video of the Strip in 1991. There was the Hacienda, the Glass Pool Inn, the Dunes, the Sands, Wet ‘n Wild—all long gone now. But I reminded myself that time marches on for everyone, especially for those of us in the City of Neon. In another twenty years, can you image what Vegas will look like?
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For more on the Moulin Rouge, read the LV Sun's story, which also contains pics and video.

Photo of Moulin Rouge (on “Life”) courtesy of Mark Holloway, a.k.a Nevada Tumbleweed

Hoover Dam & A Las Vegas Childhood

"We could be standing on dead bodies" might not normally be a bit of conversation you remember from your childhood. But if you grew up in Las Vegas when I did, it was a staple line for field trips to Hoover Dam. Popular myth said that some dam workers were entombed in the cement of the immense structure, and it made a great story for elementary kids to tell each other. It's not true, by the way. Men did die while building Boulder Dam (it became Hoover later), but they didn't leave the bodies in the concrete.

I was writing about Hoover Dam recently for NileGuide, and I couldn't help but remember what the tours were like before the new visitor center and a post-9/11 world. No fancy escalator, parking garage or ticket counter--you parked on top of the spillways and got your tickets from the glass booth on top of the dam, the now-empty one that faces the road. You stood in a line that snaked back along the sidewalk, and while people waited they leaned over the side of the wall and looked down the dam's 726 foot face. Beyond that, the Colorado River gurgled into Black Canyon. Admittance was something like $5. You went into the structure from one of the elevators in the middle of the dam, the ones screaming Art Deco, and as you dropped down at some astronomical rate, the tour guide explained just how fast you were moving. Poof, you were at the bottom. We got to walk past the generators, outside onto the bottom of the dam to look up, and we were guided through rough-hewn caves weeping Colorado River water. On one trip, we went into a room where we could stand on top of platforms under which river water flowed through pipes, the force of it strong enough that you could feel it under your feet.

The tours aren't the only thing that has changed at Hoover Dam. I remember when Lake Mead overflowed into the spillways and created twin waterfalls on the intake side of the dam, one on the Nevada side, one one the Arizona side. The mist could be seen as you approached, and standing on the side of the spillway for long left you drenched. Now, rocky beach leads up to the spillways.

One thing that never changes is the majesty of Hoover Dam. It's an architectural marvel, a piece of living history, and surprisingly beautiful.
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Picture courtesy of Richard Wasserman at http://tiny.cc/fALkI

The Old Las Vegas Convention Center

I've been going through a lot of Flickr pages recently, looking for pictures of Las Vegas. I came across a collection of old postcards by Nevada Tumbleweed, and this one really took me back. This is the Convention Center I grew up with, although with a few more buildings around it. As I understand it, yes, that is a horse racing track in back of it, where the Las Vegas Country Club now stands. I remember the International being built next to it, and eating dinner at the top of the Landmark when it still stood across the street. The steakhouse restaurant at the top of the Landmark rotated. I loved it. The Chateau Vegas, a red-velvet upholstered restaurant with a harpist, was on the south side of Desert Inn, long before it was all converted to an underpass next to the current Convention Center. The Alpine Village was across the street, although I never got a chance to eat there because my dad didn't like German food.

Some of my best memories are at the Helldorado rodeos at this space-ship-like Convention Center. My parents loved the rodeo, and we never missed a Helldorado. The place was always packed to the rooftops with rowdy fans, and we always sat close enough that when the broncos kicked up dirt, sometimes it landed on us.

But my favorite memory of the old Convention Center is watching the fireworks from the steps in front of a bar where my dad worked. It was a little place two floors up, on the other side of Paradise Road. The owner was an Irishman straight from the old country (I think his name was McGary), and I could come in the place as a long as I didn't sit at the bar or get too close to a slot machine. Whatever the occasion was that night, Mom and I went in late to visit Dad and watch the show. I remember the three of us sitting on the steps facing the Convention Center, watching the fireworks burst into colors over the top of the dome.
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Photo courtesy of Mark Holloway at http://tiny.cc/V7HxF

The Las Vegas Mob Museum: An Offer You Can’t Refuse

Since I grew up in Las Vegas, I learned about the Mob at an early age. After my parents went to see The Godfather, they had an intense discussion back at home about the real people they thought Mario Puzo had based the characters on. My parents came to Las Vegas in the 1950s, and since my dad was a bartender, he knew a large assortment of shady characters.

I remember the day he proudly told me one of his cop friends had informed him that he was listed as a “known associate of organized crime figures.” He was beaming like he had just won a prize. Dad knew movie stars, famous singers, and a lot of cops, but he liked his mobster buddies the best. He was one of the first people I heard say that the town was better when the Mob ran things, long before that sentiment became a Las Vegas cliché. If Dad were still alive, you can bet that he would have loved the idea of The Mob Museum. He’d probably have been planning to be the first person in line when they open. (Currently scheduled for 2011.)

Recent newspaper articles have pointed out that here in Las Vegas, we’re rather proud of our Mob heritage. Our mayor played himself in the movie Casino. We have a street named after Bugsy Siegel. Although our mobsters arrived here from back East, you aren’t likely to see a Mob museum in Chicago or New York because they’re not so crazy about embracing their organized crime histories. Not so in Las Vegas, a place pleased to be known as the city founded by the Mob. (Technically that’s not true, but we’ve also got a reputation for playing with the facts just a little bit.)

I plan on visiting the Mob Museum when it opens. I think the redaction in the museum’s name is funny, probably owing to the years I spent working for Metro. I was never able to find any information on Dad being a “known associate,” but I did find his record for bookmaking in Los Angeles. He told me L.A. was a “wide open” town, not run by one specific family, unlike Kansas City, Detroit, or Tucson. His best friend in L.A. was a lieutenant with the LAPD, but according to Dad, they had an agreement that he would keep his business out of Uncle Willy’s precinct.

When Dad went to work as the bar manager at the Aladdin in the 1970s, I was too young to know that it was a clue about his connections. Not until after he passed away did I discover the Aladdin’s ties to the Mob. I just knew that I liked hanging out with the girls in harem costumes that he frequently assigned to baby-sit me while he went about his business. One of Dad’s friend owned a villa behind the Aladdin. The villas, as they were known, were a string of bungalows east of the hotel, and we got to visit his buddy’s villa and use the pool. And Dad mysteriously wound up driving a brand new Lincoln Mark V, right up until the day when the FBI showed up at our house to talk to him about his villa-owning pal, who also owned the Lincoln. After his friend wound up in a federal prison somewhere, the Lincoln disappeared.

In the late 1970s, Dad worked at a local bar allegedly run by a Chicago mobster. I remember my parents talking about one of the owner’s brothers having to disappear for a while, but I never got the details on whether it was because of law enforcement or a run-in with other mobsters. In the mid-1980s, after Dad no longer worked there, I was working at Metro when a couple of my friends and I stopped in that bar one night. One of my friends was an undercover cop. I made sure to say hello to the bar’s owner. “I’m Walt’s daughter,” I said, and he immediately recognized me. He stopped to chat for a minute and comp our drinks, and after he walked away, my cop friend looked at me incredulously. “You know him?” he asked. I explained that he was one of my Dad’s friends, and we left it at that.

My dad wasn’t circumspect about his “friends,” but my mom kept all her secrets to herself. Maybe that FBI visit did it. I was working on a story a couple of years ago, and I was trying to remember some of the famous mobsters Dad had known. Since Dad had passed away, I asked Mom. “Why don’t you just leave that part out,” she said.

“Mom, those people are dead,” I said.

“I know. I still don’t think you need to mention it,” she insisted. Mom was still alive when the idea for the Mob Museum surfaced, but I don’t remember her giving me an opinion about it. I’m pretty sure that if she were still around, she’d want to be in the front of the line on opening day just as much as Dad.

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Photo information: My parents at Hoover Dam, circa 1959

Snow in the Desert

Have you had enough snow yet? You may have heard this before, but no one has seen snow like this in Las Vegas in over thirty years. Henderson got socked on Wednesday with eight inches of snow. Here on the west side of the valley, we got two or three inches both Monday and Wednesday. My Mondays are normally full of things to do, but this Monday I didn’t get anything done. Instead, I spent six hours watching the snow.

We get snow flurries every year at our house because we live in the foothills of the Spring Mountains. Sometimes, I close my eyes and remember what it looked like before all the houses, when the area where my home sits was nothing but open desert. Ten years ago, when my son, Cameron, was a baby, we lived in an apartment at the edge of the rapidly disappearing desert. We had Cameron’s first Christmas in that little apartment. I hated that place. The walls were so thin that we heard everything—and I mean everything—our neighbors did, and our nephew was living on our sofa. I remember when the snow came that year. We were home alone when the snow covered the yuccas and the Joshua trees, painting the desert in white all the way to Red Rock. That year, the miracle of the snow was almost lost on me. I was sleep deprived, overweight, suffering from a very bad haircut, and not adjusting well to life with a new baby.

Here in the desert, snow is a once-in-awhile phenomenon instead of a months-long endurance test. Snow in the desert is a beautiful thing, an anomaly that helps you believe in the Unseen. Snow in the desert is unusual and memorable.

I remember when we had a white Christmas in Las Vegas, in the early 1970s. (Pictues below.) Johnny Carson joked on the Tonight Show about McCarren Airport being closed due to snow. Snow in Las Vegas! Who had ever heard of such a thing? My dad and I had a rousing snowball fight in the backyard that ended when he fell and hurt his shoulder (FYI, cowboy boots don't supply much traction on ice). I was fascinated by the snow, and even at night I would sit in the backyard and gaze up at the sky, watching the falling flakes.

I was in high school before we had a snowy day again. I discovered that high school boys like to put rocks in their snowballs. I had a bloody nose most of that day. That evening, when I was at a friend’s house, we decided to have a snowball fight. “Just don’t hit me in the face, please,” I told her. She promptly thwacked me right in the face with a snowball, and then apologized profusely as I stood there bleeding on her front yard.

This Monday, when the snow arrived, both my son and husband were home. It’s unusual for all of us to be home during the day. I woke up my son by opening his blinds and announcing, “It’s snowing!” He was out of bed immediately, dressed, downstairs, and outside. We watched as the snow started to stick, and by noon we had a thin blanket of white over everything. Our neighborhood streets were quiet and empty; it felt like we were the only people home that day. Cameron played in the snow until he was soaked; he came inside long enough to warm up and put on dry clothes, then he was back outside. Once there was an inch or so on the ground, he made a snow man. Well, it was more like a snow gnome, but it was a terrific effort. The snow turned the park behind our house into an uninterrupted field of white; I made sure to take pictures before the “sledding” began. The wet, thin snow barely covered the grass, but Cameron was determined. This time he had to go get in a warm shower after soaking a second set of clothes.

When I wasn’t watching my delighted child, I was watching the snow. I sat inside, next to a window, and looked up into the white sky. The flakes swirling down reminded me of the first time I watched snow falling. I remembered sitting on the cinder block wall in my backyard, staring up into the sky, fascinated by the snow. At a time when life often feels strange and unfamiliar, I am reassured to still feel wonder at the sight of snow falling in the desert.

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Photo information: Top--My picture taken Thursday from the west end of the valley, looking toward the Strip & the snow-covered mountains; click to enlarge. Below--Family pictures of the 1970s snow. My notes say 1973.

Learning to Love the New Las Vegas

Last year, a strange combination of events helped me learn to accept the New Las Vegas: the glittery, MTV-loving, over-populated, traffic jammed, over-priced, worse-than-hyperbole Las Vegas. The Vegas I had been working so hard at disliking ever since… well, ever since Steve Wynn planted a volcano in front of a casino.

It all started at last year’s Vegas Valley Book Festival. I dragged my husband downtown for a day of listening to authors, but what I really wanted to hear was the last panel of the day on “Old Vegas, New Vegas.” New Vegas clearly trumped Old Vegas during this discussion, and that’s when my inner Old Las Vegan reared her ugly, progress-hating head. My post about the panel made me sound like I was ready to strap myself to the next casino slated for implosion—which, actually, wasn’t too far off how I felt that day.

Re-reading that blog post was the first step toward accepting the New Las Vegas, and two books finished off the job. Both are firmly rooted in the Old or New Vegas that they describe, and in reading both books, I had to admit that the transformation of Las Vegas was both predictable and necessary. Maybe not likeable, but unavoidable. This is a city with no logical reason to exist, so we have to re-invent ourselves every decade or so.

The late Susan Berman, author of Easy Street, the True Story of a Gangster’s Daughter and Lady Las Vegas, was an expert on Old Vegas. (Local journalist and author Cathy Scott wrote about Berman’s murder in Murder of a Mafia Princess.) I stumbled across Lady Las Vegas at the library, and while I enjoyed the nostalgia Berman’s words evoked, I had to admit that none of Old Vegas’ “founders,” if you will, would have hesitated to re-create the city’s image if it resulted in more profit. My own dad wasn’t a mobster, but rather a “known associate” of gangsters and a former bookie out of LA, and he was all about the Benjamins.

My journey inside the New Vegas began with a book review in the New York Times. Last year two books set in Vegas hit the charts: Charles Brock’s Beautiful Children and Joe McGinnis Jr.’s The Delivery Man . The NYT’s review of McGinnis’ book made me groan out loud because one of the main characters is a prostitute. I pondered this aspect of his book in a blog post: "Can anyone write about Las Vegas without a prostitute as a main character? I mean, realistically speaking, with 2 million people living here, just how many call girls can we possibly have?" To my astonishment, Mr. McGinnis sent me a thought-provoking e-mail. This is my story of Las Vegas; give it a chance, he said, and so I went out and bought the book. A better chronicle of New Vegas I have not yet found. McGinnis’ characters sound like so many people I’ve known, and his jaded teenaged prostitutes might have shimmied out of our phone book’s voluminous escort section; totally, scarily believable. Reading McGinnis’ fictional characters, it was easy to draw a straight line from my own loosely-supervised and decadent Las Vegas youth to the characters he described.

That was when I had to admit it: the Old Vegas was dead, except in the memories of the few of us who remember her. I’m not all that crazy about the New Vegas, but I’m doing my best. Now I wonder what the New New Las Vegas will be like—a waterless ghost town? A haven for some as-yet-undiscovered vice? A pioneer in building mass transportation to pull in gamblers? Who knows how our neon-encrusted city will adjust to the future, but one thing is for sure. It will be interesting.

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Photo courtesy of Justin Taylor at http://www.sxc.hu/photo/737069

A Las Vegas Favorite: Gilcrease Orchards

Last Friday, the MAfO (Meeks Academy for One) visited Gilcrease Orchards, a local favorite I had not visited before. Like so many beloved, moldy-oldy Vegas locations, Gilcrease was once on the outskirts of Las Vegas, but now sits surrounded by tract homes.

For a small admission fee, you can pick your own fruits and veggies. Customers drive around the perimeter of the farm, parking next to their fruit or veggie of choice. The vegetable gardens are situated on the east end of the farm, and orchards are planted to the west. This time of year is squash season, which put me at a disadvantage because I don’t know beans about squash. (Pun intended.) My son and I took home an unripe squash (don’t ask me what kind), a bell pepper, an eggplant, and a zucchini. Although we struck out on picking any fruit from the trees, we still bought a gallon of yummy apple cider made at Gilcrease. Call or check Gilcrease’s website to find out what’s in season. Next up, of course, will be pumpkins!

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Photo Information: My pictures last week at the farm. Does it look hot? 'Cause it was hot.

More Las Vegas Stereotypes and Other News

Now that Election 2008 has left town, it’s time to sort through my pile of clippings for other Las Vegas news:

…Joe McGinniss, Jr. just released a book set in Las Vegas, The Delivery Man, featuring a teenaged lady of the night and a painter with artistic issues. Can anyone write about Las Vegas without a prostitute as a main character? I mean, realistically speaking, with 2 million people living here, just how many call girls can we possibly have?

…Now that Bank of America is buying Countrywide, do you think Countrywide will stop sending me offers for loans that would clearly result in me owing more on my home than it will be worth at the end of the year? Perhaps Countrywide’s marketing people haven’t heard all that nasty news about falling house prices in Las Vegas?

….The Las Vegas Sun reported that former Family Court Judge Terrence Marren plans to launch a campaign for a return to the Family Court in November. Marren moved to Mesquite ten years ago, but now hopes to return to the bench in Las Vegas. Reporter Brian Eckhouse says that in the 1990s “the Nevada Judicial Commission hand-slapped Marren for failing to resolve a few divorce cases fast enough,” but Eckhouse did not mention Marren’s involvement in other controversial cases. In 1998, RJ Reporter Carri Geer wrote about Marren and the case he presided over that awarded a 16-year-old girl to her boyfriend’s parents. I only vaguely remember that case, but I distinctly remember the Chantel Leavitt/James Kerr custody case since I knew the Leavitt family well at that time. I thought there were plenty of questionable actions on all sides, although a complaint filed against Marren over the case was dismissed. In my opinion, the real losers in the case were the grandparents of the 4-year-old girl in question (not to mention the confused child herself who didn't understand being taken from her mother). Leavitt’s mother and step-father mortgaged their home to raise money for the legal battle, although the deep pockets of Kerr and his family meant Leavitt’s family was outgunned from the start. The little girl was Leavitt’s only child and her parents’ only grandchild. You can read the 1997 article, also written by Geer, for yourself: “LV child custody battle garners national attention.”

…The RJ reported on January 12 about the government’s new Real ID program. Those people born after December 1, 1964, don’t have to have the new, ultra-secure ID cards until after 2014. Why? Because people over 50 are so much less likely to be terrorists, illegal immigrants, or con artists. Let me see if I understand: ethnic profiling = bad; old people = fine upstanding legal citizens. Okie dokie.

…Photographer Allen Sandquist has been hard at work documenting Las Vegas' rapidly disappearing buildings. Kristen Peterson from the Sun wrote about him on January 9, and you can see his pictures at mondo-vegas.com, classiclasvegas.com, and roadsidpeek.com. Without people like Sandquist, our meager history would be utterly gone.

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Photo courtesy of Sinead McEwen at http://www.sxc.hu/photo/659096