The Life in My Years

You can always recognize the road warrior by looking at his arms. The right one, the one that rests on the center console is pale. The left one, the one that rests on the frame of the open window is weather beaten and bronze.

October 15th, 2022
The morning sun leaps angrily off the concertina wire at the High Desert State Prison just outside of Susanville, California. I slow down and glance off to my left, taking a long look at the high walls. It’s not unlike the times when I’m home in the San Francisco Bay Area, and find myself passing San Quentin. Slow down and look. I’m usually on my way to a warm, peaceful Marin County beach, or detouring away from a jammed Bay Bridge and heading to the Golden Gate to get into San Francisco.

During every drive by I stare, fascinated, wondering about what life is like behind that concrete. Not unlike slowing down to gawk at the aftermath of a car collision, it’s one of those “there but for the grace of God” moments.

During every passing, I can’t help but wonder what went wrong. Those men were once kids. Kids like me. They played tag, hide and seek, and baseball, went to school, had sleepovers, ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and bothered mom and dad for a puppy. They went through the phases of marveling over the sciences that excite kids; dinosaurs, sharks and space.

But something went sideways. Abusive parents? Addictive parents? Absent parents? Didn’t give a shit parents who should never have been parents? A few regrettable and ultimately fateful moments with a “friend” who’d already gone sideways? A society in which some have disadvantage baked into life’s cake? It’s easy to forget that some people never share the kind of childhood I had.

There’s a Christian notion that babies slide out of the chute already damaged. “I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.” Well, that’s pretty fucking half glass full. Just another reason to reject religion.

Past the Susanville Pen, shake my head, exhale and drive on. Drive on – it’s what we do.

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Next stop is Reno, Nevada, 90 miles southeast, nonstop on Highway 395.

I’ll get to Reno well before check-in at the hotel so on a Saturday, college football game day I can kill some time in a casino sports book – or kill some of my bank account at the Blackjack tables.

Just out of Susanville, it’s the 395 I’ve become accustomed to; high desert, rangeland and not a lot of cars in either direction. I’m spending the drive memorizing the little Blackjack crib card that instructs the hopeful player; when to hold’em, when to hit ’em, and when to fold’ em.

Always split aces and eights. That’s the easiest one. Well, except for standing on twenty-one.
Don’t hit twelve or higher if the dealer shows two. Intuitively this gambit doesn’t make any sense. There’s that giant chasm between twelve and twenty-one that the dealer could so easily land in.
Never, ever, split a pair of tens. Ha! That’s the mistake that every novice to the tables makes. I’m certain I did it – but only once – I hope. If the rookie is fortunate, he’ll get a compassionate dealer who’ll pause the action and ask, “Are you sure you want to do that? “ Maybe another player will nudge the newbie, “Stand on that.”

I’m looking forward to Reno. I’m going to indulge myself with a nice meal at the Peppermill or the Atlantis. It’ll be a nice respite from the microwave shit that’s seen me through up to this point. The Peppermill and the Atlantis are the only two hotel/casinos that are worth a damn anymore in downtown Reno.

A few miles to the east, Grand Sierra is decent, but out of the way. Cora and I stayed at the GSR one time. Our stay coincided with the final day of the Burning Man Festival out in the desert. The attendees were using the GSR parking lot as a sort of rest area. The place looked like a cross between a refugee camp and a scene out of Mad Max.

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There was a time when Reno had a busy, vibrant strip, back when Reno laid some legit claim to its motto of being The Biggest Little City in the World.

That motto still glows on an arch over Virginia Street. The arch went up in 1926. It welcomed tourists from California, before the Highway 80 bypass, when the interstate ran right down the strip. That was when Reno’s strip was all the shit. Now the strip is all just – the kinda shitty. What’s left of it anyway.

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Just a few hours drive from the San Francisco Bay Area, Reno was the nearest gambling mecca for Californians who took eastbound Highway 80 and made the steep climb up the Sierra to the summit near Truckee where they could stop at a diner to get fleeced for an overpriced, pedestrian breakfast and then poached for a fill up on the way out of town.

From Truckee it’s a winding dive down the backside of the mountains to the Nevada stateline, oftentimes with a big rig looming in your rearview. In ten white knuckling minutes you’ve snaked from green mountain forest to rocky red/brown desert.

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During Reno’s flush days you could stay in a luxurious resort hotel and see a dinner show starring a big name entertainer; Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis, Steve Lawrence, Dean Martin, and Tony Bennet – they all crooned in Reno.

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Shortly after we were married, I surprised Cora with a dinner show in Reno to see Sinatra. Dinner was rubber chicken mediocrity but nobody was there for the cuisine. Sinatra was the appetizer, main course, dessert, a shot of whiskey and a cigarette. There was no reserved seating. Where you sat depended solely on who you were, or who you knew, or how much cash you were willing to squeeze into the expectant palm of the maitre’d.

Those who were somebody were afforded a different line than those of us in the proletariat. The ones in that other line? Executives, film moguls, models? And yeah, it’s Sinatra – hadda be sum wise guys dere.

When I got to the head of the line I handed the maitre’d a sweat soaked seventy-five bucks that got us a table halfway between the stage and obscurity. Those who hadn’t figured out the protocol were seated in the dark far reaches of the room.

Sinatra’s best days were on the outs when we saw him. Vocal cords punished by decades of cigarettes and booze. Still, he owned the audience, commanded the room. I’d always thought Sinatra was a jerk, but jerk or not, one of my biggest concert thrills was hearing Sinatra sing, My Way (Years later I was at a luncheon with coworkers and we were all comparing concerts we’d seen. There was mention of The Eagles, The Rolling Stones, Santana, Willie Nelson and other big acts. When it was my turn, I said Frank Sinatra. The cross talk at the table paused for a moment when one of my coworkers said, “You saw Frank Sinatra?”)

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Reno wasn’t just the place to gamble and see a show. Reno was the place for a quickie marriage. Basic no frills, or, if you were inclined, you could tack on any tacky, themed frill that thrilled.

I attended a western themed wedding in Reno, and while it wasn’t at all stately, it was quick and in its own gaudy way, entertaining. And it’s what the bride wanted. Isn’t that the important thing? It certainly beat a full blown church ceremony where, between figuring out when to stand, sit, kneel, or genuflect, you have to listen to a preacher droning on and on about loving “one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God,” and all the while you’re wondering if the Giants are beating the damned Dodgers. Just do the I do’s and point the way to the buffet. And please God, grant us a television in the bar adjacent to the banquet room. What can I say – I’m just uncultivated.

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If at some point you decided that you’d tied yourself to an unfortunate anchor, Reno was the place where you could hastily cut the chain and set sail toward your new life.

Before gaming and glitz were the big draws, Reno had long been known as the Divorce Capital of the World.

In the days before no-fault divorce, many states had strict divorce laws and more than half of the states had laws that deemed the husband the sole property holder. Some states didn’t allow remarriage.

Reno’s relaxed divorce laws and residency requirements let you shed the troublesome bureaucracy and onerous regulations while ridding you of your one time love for all eternity that somewhere along the line became the biggest mistake of your life.

Hand it to Reno. It realized a cash cow when it saw one. When Reno’s divorce boom first began, the required residency to get a divorce was six months. Once the Chamber of Commerce realized the potential in the dissolution industry, the residency was lowered to three months, and then later, in order to maximize volume, the residency requirement dropped to a mere three weeks. A city with a booming restaurant industry knew the value in quickly turning tables – and the greater value in an increased volume of pissed off spouses. Tourist brochures literally touted the quickie divorce as one of Reno’s main attractions.

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A quickie Reno divorce was an egalitarian thing. The housewife who suspected that the old man was bedding his secretary during those “Don’t wait on me for for dinner I have to work late tonight” evenings, was as welcome to a Reno divorce court as were big names like Frank Sinatra, who went to Reno to divorce Barbara Barbato so he could marry Ava Gardner who he was already dallying with at the time. Actress Rita Hayworth established her Reno residency so that she could divorce Prince Aly Khan. Even Clark Gable showed up, but that was so he could watch Sinatra’s shows while “old blue eyes” was holed up in town to establish his residency.

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In the 1960s, as no-fault divorce became more universally recognized, Reno’s divorce gold mine began to play out. The introduction of Indian gaming in California meant that Bay Area and Sacramento residents didn’t have to navigate the hump of the Sierra Nevada in order to satisfy their gambling jones.

Las Vegas would soon lap Reno as a destination. The big name headliners migrated to Las Vegas. As Vegas grew in stature it became a magnet for celebrity chefs. Why take your chances on a bin of sketchy hollandaise under a heat lamp in a dowdy Reno hotel when you could go to Vegas and gamble on Gordon Ramsay’s hollandaise? If you’re going to get salmonella you might as well get celebrity salmonella.

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Now, the once proud hotels on the Virginia Street strip are tired and threadbare. On any given night, the crowd on the strip is sparse. A few red eyed, after midnight gamblers wearing bright guady aloha shirts that literally scream in the night, boozy from too many “complimentary” vodka tonics, cigarettes dangling from turned down mouths; they drift from casino to casino, ignoring the gauntlet of down and outers who sit on the sidewalks, propped up against a wall and listing to one side. Between pulls from a tallboy in a paper sack the unhoused meekly hustle passersby for spare change. During a hot afternoon, they might be holed up in shady groves along the cool, pleasant Riverwalk that runs along the course of the Truckee River.

If you’re looking for a Reno upgrade you can drive about a mile up Virginia Street, to the Peppermill, past a lonely looking strip club, some pawn shops, and a couple of used car lots that will gladly take your car off your hands if you’re short on some gambling money. At the Peppermill you can get a decent steak dinner and a taste of hedonism. The same can be said for The Atlantis, a little further up the street.

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And still, despite the decay, I’m strangely attracted to Reno, even to the dispirited hotel casinos that remain on the once vibrant strip. Maybe it’s the memories of the days when Reno managed to combine its old west, silver mining, roughshod past with just the right touch of glitz that never went over the top. Maybe it’s the recollection of family road trips and the Reno stop on the way east, when we had breakfast at the old Cal-Neva. Dad would get the the $4.99 steak and eggs and I’d get a stack of pancakes the size manhole covers with a baseball sized dollop of melting butter on top. Maybe it’s the more recent memories of taking our young kids to Circus-Circus, a sort of Chuck E. Cheese for gamblers. My wife and I would take turns entertaining the kids while the other went to the casino. That’s when Las Vegas was looming in the rearview, and Reno was starting to leak oil and the water pump was about to go tits up. Reno is an unpretentious, rough edged place, perfect for the couple without the financial horsepower for Vegas, who still want a getaway from the ten hour day, work week bullshit.

Reno is the anti-Vegas.

I haven’t been to Las Vegas since its failed attempt to fashion itself as a family destination; before the, “what happens in Vegas,” days. That was maybe a quarter century ago and I’ve had little interest in going back.

My wife and I occasionally go to The Atlantis in Reno to relax; gamble, eat, sit by the pool, eat some more, gamble some more, and then eat again. My daughter who goes to Vegas on occasion once warned me that Vegas repudiates the whole idea of relaxation. So what’s the point of Vegas?

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Highway 395 is nicknamed “the loneliest road in America,” but you couldn’t prove that by me as I approach the Nevada state line and Reno. It’s a Saturday morning and I’ve fallen into a caterpillar of cars, whose occupants are in a hurry to donate to the coffers of the Silver State.

An inch or two into Nevada you hit Bordertown. It’s not a town so much as a thing; a compact casino/RV park/coffee shop complex that’s shoe-horned between the town of Cold Springs, Nevada, and the Nevada state line.

Depending on whether you’re entering or leaving Nevada, Bordertown is either your first chance to scratch the Nevada gaming itch or the desperate last-gasp effort to try and recoup what you left behind in Reno. Or, on the optimistic side, an opportunity to top off your winnings.

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I’m stopping. I need a bathroom break and I’m looking for a Nevada road map, and a Snickers from the gift shop. The road map is because my confidence in Google has severe limitations. The Snickers? Do I really have to explain?

I’m also compelled by Bordertown curiosity.

The moment I open the door to the casino I’m smacked by the blaring cacophony of electronic gaming machines, and repelled by the gust of cigarette smoke that seems to want to escape to the fresh air outdoors.

The place is a gambling version of Walmart. An efficient, sort of clean, cash cow that’s at the same time cheesy.

In Bordertown, gambling fever is pandemic. There’s nothing else here. No fine dining, no spa, and no gym. Not even a bad lounge act. If your gambling sport is table games then keep driving. At Bordertown there are only gaming machines and a sports book. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t busy. Slots are easily the most popular game of chance. And why not? A lobotomized monkey could play the slots.

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But today’s slots are not your grandfather’s slots. They are cold, electronic, and efficient. No effort involved here. Not even the moderate exercise of yanking on a handle. Just insert a bill, push a button and watch, with glazed eyed anticipation, the “spinning” of electronic, faux reels.

I stand and watch a row of players. They mash the play button, and watch the reels. A play only takes mere seconds, and then they mash the play button again. They’re like automatons; mashing, watching, mashing, watching, mashing watching, feed the machine another bill and then continue mashing and watching. It’s all without any visible enjoyment. Industrialized gambling. The machine might offer a brief video to distract you as it ingests your money.

Any sensory enjoyment of playing the slots has been whisked away with the advent of electronic machines. There’s no longer the slight pause in the action when you slipped a coin in the slot, and listened for the jingling drop of the coin, and then pulled the big chrome handle, hearing it creak as you pulled, followed by the clicking, clacking of authentic mechanical reels that spun before your eyes.

And while a jackpot still results in “that clinking, clanking, clunking” sound (as the song from Cabaret goes), it’s all fake. No coins. There’s nothing tactile. You don’t get to sweep fifty bucks worth of quarters into the little paper buckets the casinos used to provide in the days when a jackpot yielded, you know, real money. You don’t get to feel the weight of your winnings.

Your winnings? They’re a number on the electronic screen that dares you to push the Cash Out button and collect. And if you do cash out then what do you get? A printed ticket to be redeemed at another electronic machine.

The casino’s accountants know that since those winnings aren’t in your grasp, they’re not yet yours, and they know that there’s a much better than even chance that if your aren’t seeing and feeling real money, then you’ll just keep mashing and watching as that number on the screen gets inexorably smaller, until you find yourself fishing into your wallet for another twenty.

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Don’t get me wrong, I’ve never been above feeding the slots. I’ll set aside a twenty dollar bill and bide my time while I’m waiting for a seat at a Blackjack table. Twenty sometimes turns to thirty (okay, maybe forty) but after that I tap out. Or, wait, is that a ten in my wallet? Okay, play the ten. Damn those machines.

I’ve always been amazed at the people I know who win thousands, yes, thousands, playing the slots. One of my aunts from Salt Lake City. A former coworker. Do they play tens of thousands to win those thousands?

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It’s another fifteen miles or so to Reno and I’m cruising past the industry that’s replaced the divorce trade. Fulfillment centers. Each center is a broad, multi-acre, squat, flat top building dotted along one or two sides with a row of loading bay doors.

Vast acres of sterile, gray, concrete and steel fulfillment centers sit on the edge of the Great Basin Desert, a region that stretches from the Sierra Nevada to the Wasatch Range of Utah. Big rigs towing sets of doubles, and in some case triples (they’re legal here) flow in and out of the fullfillment centers and then depart the Reno metro area towards all points of the compass.

Just east of Reno is Sparks and east of Sparks are more farms of fulfillment centers and then farther east is little Fernley, Nevada. Beyond that, the Great Basin Desert becomes an arid land of desolate beauty. Out here, town are small, few and far between. As a child my parents took me on the drive across the Great Basin to visit the aunts and uncles in Salt Lake City. I didn’t appreciate the panorama then. I do now. And I also appreciate the fact that the beauty is shrinking.

The fullfilment centers continue to sprout and spread eastward like malignant ground cover. And the Great Basin shrivels a bit more.

Occasionally one can spot, on the rough rocky strips between fulfillment centers, the incongruity of a band of wild horses. These beautiful beasts are ancestors of horses abandoned by ranchers, Native Americans and pioneers. There are lineages that go back to the Spaniards who explored present-day Nevada in the late 18th century. The ages have steeled these horses against the harsh, cold, high desert winters and the blazing summers.

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Reno.

Here, Highway 395 turns from a rugged scenic highway into a metropolitan freeway. On ramps, off ramps, honking horns, aggressive drivers, and billboards hawking casinos, adult novelty emporiums and local ambulance chasers.

I’ve arrived at the Biggest Little City and I once again feel my strange affinity.