Las Vegas, Part I

Today, with not a cloud in the sky and the sun shining brightly, it is beautiful outside, so I sit here writing.  Such a day as this reminds me of my time in Las Vegas, where so many days were without clouds, the sun shone brightly, and it almost never rained.  We once had a two-year period with only a drizzle or two.  Of course, the temperature wasn’t as nice as here, but you can’t have everything.  At work, one time, we were visited by a colleague from Alaska.  It was early to mid-April, in the mid eighties, and she was not prepared for such heat.  For the entire visit she sweated and groused about the unrelenting desert heat.  No one who lives in Vegas sweats in April.  We wait for the temps to get upwards of 110 degrees before doing that.  But you will see a shiver or two on a cool, 80-degree day, 8% humidity, in April.  I guess it shows that many of our thoughts and feelings are relative.  I’m sure if I had visited Alaska in mid April, I would have been wearing winter clothes and swearing about horribly cold temperatures so late into Spring.  Meanwhile, the residents would have probably been wearing short-sleeve shirts enjoying the balmy weather.

The loneliest, most unimportant, job in Las Vegas is Weatherman.  With few exceptions, each day is the same as all others — sunny, not a cloud in the sky, low humidity — so anyone can report the weather.  Just pull someone off the street and tell them this is their big break, to look into the camera and tell everyone what the weather will be tomorrow.  It takes no expertise to forecast, no need to refer to complicated charts, no need to review statistics, no need to check with the National Weather Bureau.  All you need do is tell everyone that tomorrow will be sunny and warm, and you will have a better forecast record than all the professional meteorologists everywhere else in the country.  Forecasts were so boring, so repetitive, that T.V. weathermen (and women) resorted to tricks and props to keep the audience’s attention.  One weatherman, quite a character and maybe a bit of a local legend, would crack jokes, some off color, and point at the green screen with a giant fake finger-arrow, then throw it at someone when he was done.  Most of the time he didn’t bother doing the weather at all, and when he did do it, it was with tongue in cheek, inviting everyone in on the joke. My kind of weatherman.  I think those finger-arrows must be collector’s items now.

I ended up in Las Vegas mostly because I had nothing better to do.  I had graduated college with a degree in Wildlife, Resource Development to be exact, and it was only after graduating that I learned there are no jobs in Wildlife, that the birds and the bees are not hiring humans.  Cute little animals don’t get paid for working, so why should you.  So I wandered aimlessly, tending bar and hanging out, putting off growing up and becoming one of them.  Finally, I had had enough, packed my bags and moved back to Long Island, from whence I came, to do pretty much the exact same thing I was doing before.  Nothing.  Those were fun, but poor, times.  

Then one day I succumbed to motivation and applied for a job in NYC at a measurements firm, and two weeks later they called me for an interview.  The company developed tests that measured applicant’s aptitudes in various intellectual pursuits for potential employers.   After dealing with the traffic and the unrelenting honking of car horns, I parked in a parking garage.  The job required a lot of research, my kind of thing, a really cool job.  So, of course, I didn’t get it.  How many people get the really cool jobs?  No one I know.  The whole interview, including sitting in the waiting room and walking to and from my car, took about 1 1/2 hours, and the parking fee was 20 dollars.  20 dollars!  1 1/2 hours.  And this was back in the late 70’s.  

I always wondered about that firm.  Why, if they design tests to measure potential employees’ aptitudes, had they not given me one.  Odd.  I guess they sized me up at first glance and decided not to waste the paper.

That incident was the proverbial straw.  I had had it with the fast, rude pace of east coast life, particularly New York City’s fast, rude, and expensive way of living.  So I decided it was time for a big move — something fresh, something new, something exciting, something that would get me out off the east coast and re-flame the old bunsen burners.  As it turned out, my girlfriend, who had also recently graduated but with a degree in social work — a degree you could actually use — had just been offered a job with the city of Las Vegas, and she asked if I would move with her.  After acting nonchalant, pretending to mull over the pros and cons, and making sure she understood the enormous sacrifice I was making for her, I said yes.  She went ahead me, while I remained behind waiting for my new car to arrive at the dealership.  I followed about a month later.  Big mistake.  Here’s a word of advice: Don’t let your girlfriend go alone to a town like Las Vegas.  By the time you arrive, even if it is only a week later, she won’t be your girlfriend anymore.  She won't even be the woman you knew a week earlier.  That woman will have disappeared, replaced  by a wild-eyed, partying maniac who doesn’t want any guy tying her down.  No, she wants many guys tying her down.

I had been across country (3,000 miles) several times before, but had taken the bus each time.  Taking the bus across country is an experience you won’t ever forget.  They drive night and day, yet it takes 5 - 7 days to get you there, because of all the stops they make along the way.  For a mass transportation vehicle, there is a lot of sitting and waiting while going nowhere on a bus. This is because they stop in every little town along the way to drop off packages, not passengers.  

You can get off the bus at these stops to stretch your legs and grab a bite to eat, but you do so at great personal risk.  They tell you to be back in 10 minutes, but that's a lie.  You would have better luck trusting the dice in a craps game than relying on that 10 minute promise.  They leave when they are ready to leave no matter what they promised you, and if you aren't on the bus, well, that's your problem.  They leave with your luggage, just not with you.  Your luggage will get to your destination; it's your arrival that's in jeopardy.  Sometimes I think this a game drivers play with one another: they pool their money, and the driver who leaves stranded the most riders in a month takes all.  They lay in wait for a passenger to go out of sight, then scoop everyone else back on an leave in a burst of bus speed.  Once, I had to chase my bus down the road in the middle of the Ohio countryside, and if not for the passengers in the back of the bus screaming at the driver to stop, I may still be living there.  Ha! Ha! Ha!  Bus drivers have such a sense of humor.

Another time, during and insufferable heat wave, it took 2 1/2 days to cross Texas because of all the stops dropping off packages at towns whose populations couldn’t have exceeded 100.  A fair amount of Greyhound’s and Trailway’s revenues came from delivering packages. These “towns” reminded me of those hovels in the middle of nowhere where the Pony Express and stagecoaches stopped to change horses and eat some grub.  Having learned my lesson in Ohio, I’d sit on the bus waiting for the Indians to attack and then for John Wayne to lead the calvary to the rescue.  During the second day in Texas, this guy, who had recently been released from a veteran’s hospital and had hopped on in NYC, lost his mind.  He couldn’t take the heat, the humidity, and all the stops, and started calling Mexicans and Mexican-Americans derogatory names. He had to be removed by the state troopers for his own protection.  It was sad to see, but he received not a shred of sympathy from us passengers, because getting him off required yet another stop.  Oh, did I mention he started yelling at people who weren’t there?  Take a guess as to why he was in a veteran’s hospital.  

Yet another time we had a 6-hour layover in Chicago.  The Port Authority, the depot buses arrive and depart from, is on the south side of Chicago, and the layover was from midnight till 6 the next morning.  Of course, all the food places in the Port Authority are closed in the middle of the night.  There are food places open on the city streets, but sometimes it is better to go hungry than to go searching for food in unfamiliar environs at 2 AM, especially when the environ is the south side of Chicago.  If I remember correctly, they were playing Bad, Bad, Leroy Brown, by Jim Croce, on the loud speakers.  Ha! Ha! Ha! What a sense of humor those Port Authority guys have.  

But the thing I remember most about riding the bus across the country is what happens to your digestive tract over the course of the 5 - 7 day trip.  As the bus rolls down the road, it goes thump, thump, thump -- up and down, up and down, up and down -- and as goes the bus, so goes you, thump, thump, thump — up and down — up and down — up and down.  Pretty soon everything stops, and I mean stops as in backs up.  A plumbing problem.  Your stomach no longer digests, and your intestines no longer do whatever it is they are designed to do, both choosing instead to go on strike demanding better working conditions.  And like any factory on strike, output ceases, inventory backs up, and things start deteriorating fast.  This is when you start getting that uncomfortable, full feeling, then the  bloating starts.  By the time you arrive 3,000 miles later, all you want is the phone number for Rotor Rooter to unclog the drain.  

Coming soon Las Vegas, Part II, the conclusion.  Unless its too long.  Then it will be part II of III.