Page 33 - 2005 DT 12 Issues

I n T h i s I s s u e !

Featured Article
Growing Up In Las Vegas.....................1
Special
Blameless Blue......................................7

Departments
M a y 2 0 0 5 News & Notes.......................................2
Programs & Hikes.................................4
Desk Schedule.....................................6
Bulletin Board.......................................8

Growing Up in Las Vegas II . . . the about 12 then. He said yes, but only
to play in. It didn’t have headlights
later years. A Centennial Reflection. because the alternator wasn’t work-
ing. I painted it in all primary colors.
by Jack Ryan Every time I’d get a quarter I’d go to
Van Tobel’s and buy a different enamel
rowing up in Las Vegas was Colorado River, and my father walked color. I had an American flag on the
fun even 100 years ago, as the us over from the Nevada side to Ari- roof. And I did drive it, even at 12. And
GDesert Trumpet reported in its zona and back. No one said anything at night!” Marge had her brother hang
February 2005 issue. In observance of to us. “Do that in 2005 at the new over one fender and his buddy over the
Las Vegas’ 100th birthday, that article bridge construction below the dam other, both holding flashlights, for the
told stories of childhood from circa (now called Hoover Dam) and you’d night’s adventure.
1905 to the mid-1920s. But what about have the airmen at Nellis scrambling Hank lived in Henderson (or Basic
the “younger” generation that grew on Red Alert. as it was known in the War years), not
up during the Roaring ‘20s and World as “swanky” as “uptown,” where the
War II? Did they have as much fun? sisters lived. Loretta’s Boulder Dam
You bet we did! chorused three recollection brought these memories.
old-timers from that era who agreed to “The dam construction was probably
reminisce at the Nevada State Museum the biggest event in a Las Vegas kid’s
of History. They wanted anonymity, life back then. We might have been 6
though, so we’ll just call them Loretta, or 7 when they began the work, and we
her younger sister Marge, and Hank, watched the dam grow and built our
their classmate at Las Vegas High own dams as the big one grew.” That
School in the early 1940s. entailed flooding the yard of one of the
The interview began with a ques- kids with a garden hose, and then with
tion based on the earlier generation’s their own Tootsie Toy trucks and trac-
emphasis on the importance of the tors they emulated their hero workers
automobile’s advent and its effect on in Boulder. “Step by step we followed
family life. Did that importance con- Las Vegas High School - Courtesy what they did and by the mid-30s, we
tinue in subsequent years? 1942 Boulder Echo Yearbook had bigger dams and sluices and spill-
“Oh, yes,” said Loretta. “Father Talk of automobiles jogged Marge’s ways than you can imagine.” Hank
would pile us into the car almost ev- memory. “Oh, that Durant! I loved it grins and shakes his head, “and a big
ery Sunday for an outing. We went as so! During the war my father sort of mess in the yard.”
many Sundays as we could to see how abandoned it. It was a 1929 model and But Hank has darker memories,
much work had been done on Boulder my father kept it because we could get too. “There was the Depression then.
Dam. It was an informal place. There gas coupons (gasoline was rationed Hoovervilles were built in Woodlawn
were rope bridges stretched over the then). I asked if I could have it. I was
Growing Up, continued on page 6