Retreat from Center Street

Recently I purchased a house in South Valley Ranch and will soon be moving in. But I’ll tell more about that in a future posting. Right now I want to comment on another particular geographical location: Center Street—where I have been living the past two years.

I’m not really sure how to begin….

Center Street has a 7-11 on both ends so whether you’re coming or going you can always stop for a slurpee. But that’s just scratching the surface…There are a ton of good things about Center Street and reasons why I will miss it. Center Street is arguably the very heart of old Henderson, the very “centerpiece” of a neighborhood that gleams with life and personality.

No other street in America has more electric wheelchairs driving up and down it than Center Street, a phenomenon that has been enjoyable to watch. I never knew before exactly how many crafty senior citizens there were and how many different styles of makeshift electric wheelchair-like concoctions there were…but I do now. I’ve seen it all at Center Street. The leader of the wheelchair club is pretty old and always wears patriotic outfits.

Our neighbor Sherri across the street is especially nice and occasionally brings over presents. The other two neighbors were both evicted before we ever really got to bond with them much.

Some other memories of 851 Center Street include the time a ghost knocked over the laundry detergent in the middle of the night and we had to clean it all up, wearing just our underwear in the cold…and while cleaning, some “wolf-dog” showed up mysteriously…but it didn’t attack us.

Also the time we rescued a Chihuahua suffering from severe heat exhaustion that had passed out on the sidewalk by our house. And the night Dave flooded out the TV room because he watered the flowers outside too long, and subsequently having to go to Albertson’s at midnight to rent a “Rug Dr.” even though eventually we ripped out the carpet anyway.

Now that I think about it, pretty much most of my memories of Center Street are about dogs and cleaning stuff up…

But also I remember the numerous social occasions and delicious BBQs we had, the “Wooly Mammoth Party” and movie parties. I’ll miss climbing on the rooftop to spy on the Hilton and Stratosphere with the telescope, and writing letters to the mailwoman to “Please stop bringing Juanita Geddings’ mail to us…She doesn’t live here”—Juanita Geddings probably moved out of that house sometime before because she couldn’t handle the volume of mail she was receiving there everyday…
The crime rate on Center Street is all relative…Might be considered sky rocket high for some nice affluent suburban community, but for an older street ridden with low-income and government housing, and commercial stores that excepted cash only, it wasn’t too bad. Personally, I always felt safe because the police were never more than a few hundred yards away. Except one time the guy living next to Sherri got stabbed by a whacko walking down the street. The police took care of it, though.

Only on Center Street could we have found all of the used milk cartons we needed for our big Christmas display. Cars drove slowly by the house at Christmas time because they were inspired by our milk carton Christmas lights. Perhaps there was a little guilt when we found out that Dave’s elementary school co-worker was moving out of the neighborhood because she witnessed two men going through her trash piles, pulling out all of her milk cartons a couple of weeks before….Was probably two different guys, though…

Basically, there never is really a dull moment on Center Street. And in all reality the home I have been living in is very nice. Dave’s house is by far the crown of the entire street (good job, Dave for building such a good house). Everyone who ever came over to visit us always complimented how nice Dave’s home was, and I’m glad I have been able to live there these past two years.

Of course I look forward to my new home, but Center Street will always be a special place…very special.

Labor Day Weekend

First, I look forward to seeing temperatures drop very soon. I’m not sure how the early settlers in the Las Vegas Valley survived its heat because I have almost died 2 or 3 times just walking out to my car to get a sandwich at Subway.

I decided to enroll into a class at UNLV this semester, a graduate course in public administration, which, up to this point, has been very good. But my textbooks were not cheap. The 2 (paperback) textbooks I purchased charged my bank account the same amount Little Caesars would charge me had I ordered 42 pizzas. Not hard to figure out the better deal.

The return of football is finally here. I love football season, especially college football. It’s always fun to watch games with family or friends on Saturdays. Last Saturday was especially good because the Rebels won their home opener at Sam Boyd Stadium…kind of rare. And even though the victory was over Utah St. University, who was recently tabbed “The worst football program in the country” by one publication, a win is still a win…and if you are a UNLV fan, any win is memorable.

For the Labor Day holiday my roommate Dave and I took a short road trip to Mesquite, NV to escape the city and do a whole lot of relaxing. We checked into the hotel Sunday evening with plans to spend all of the next day lounging at the pool and drinking piñata coladas. Sunday night I was very tired and just wanted to sleep. The hotel beds were a little stiff but I did fall asleep, and all of that night I dreamed about the pool, doing back flips and dives and splashing around. The best way I can describe my dream was that I was a lot faster and better swimmer than Michael Phelps…and I was a lot tougher looking too…with more gold medals.

When we woke up the next morning the room cleaning lady was knocking outside our door. We were glad because we would probably need some extra towels. But after a few moments of confusion we realized she wasn’t bringing us towels, she just wanted us to leave and was kicking us out of the room. We called the front desk and were informed our 2-day complimentary pass expired at the end of August, and since Labor Day morning was September 1st the 2-day pass was now a 1-day pass…something that would have been helpful to know (the day before).

Our free hotel stay was over just like that…So we checked out of the room, loaded our stuff back into the car, and went to the Paradise Buffet to console ourselves. Now, I am a fan of almost any buffet, but I’m not real sure the title of “Paradise” Buffet is a fair representation in this case…More accurately it could have been called the “Poor Man’s” Buffet or even “It’s Decent” Buffet…maybe “Eat at Your Own Risk” Buffet. Actually, it wasn’t that bad…but just not that good either.

After the buffet we had to figure out a plan B, so we drove over to the movie theater to watch Iron Man, but the theater was closed until 4pm. We didn’t know where to go after that so we drove back to Vegas.

It was a good Labor Day trip, and I really do love this time of year.