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March 12, 2004
You might be an old-timer if ...
"I remember when Rainbow Drive was just a dirt road," she said. In fact, most longtime Las Vegans like to make that remark. It must have been a momentous day in Las Vegas when they paved Rainbow Drive, now a major thoroughfare for Pahrumpians traveling from Highway 160 over to the Las Vegas Beltway. Longtime Pahrump residents don't seem to brag about their status, or reminisce quite as easily. Before I moved here in 2000, I met a bartender at the Kingston Lodge, in a picturesque canyon just north of the Nye County line, who said she decided to move out of Pahrump when they installed the first stop light. They built it and she moved. I've only lived here for a little over four years but I can remember a lot of changes in that time, so much so I'm certain I could bore some newcomer with the following: Pahrump's second traffic light, the building of the new Walgreen's Store; the grand opening of the Pahrump Community Library on West Street; the opening of the new Saitta-Trudeau car dealership (formerly Rick Peet); how a hangout for skateboarders with remnants of an old cotton gin became the Pahrump Nugget Casino three years ago; the widening of highways 160 and 372; and the construction of Rosemary Clarke Middle School and Hafen Elementary. I don't consider myself a local by any means; maybe I've just been unwrapped in the community. But others have lived here many years, and while they won't come right out and brag about it, they do give off tell-tale signs they're a local. Here's some clues: • You tell people you're "going to town" when you're heading into Las Vegas, even though Pahrump is now a sizeable town and Las Vegas is a big city. • You just give people the last four digits of your phone number, assuming they know the prefix is 727, even though there are now two other telephone prefixes in Pahrump, 537 and 751. • You still have a bumper sticker on your car that reads: "Pray for me I drive Highway 160" even though most of the dangerous two-lane highway was widened to four lanes in 1999. • You still have conspiracy theories about the "good old boys" and The Big Five developers. • Hardly a week - a day or an hour - goes by that you don't remark: "When are we ever going to get a hospital?" • The twice monthly Pahrump Town Board meeting is a high point on your social calendar. • You complain about "all them Californians" moving here that want to change Pahrump into something that's just like where they came from. • You're usually 15 minutes to a half-hour late for appointments because you're on "Pahrump time." • You used to know most of the Nye County sheriff's deputies by their first names. • You tend to patronize the older establishments in town, like Archie's Restaurant even though there are newer joints available. • You have a large collection of animals around the house, including at least three dogs, five cats, chickens and maybe a pig or a goat. • You tell people you remember when there was nothing in Pahrump, no supermarkets, you had to travel to Las Vegas just for a treat at McDonald's. • You can't help but marvel at the lights of Pahrump during a night drive from Vegas. • Sometimes you debate moving to Amargosa Valley, to get away from all the people. • You almost never drive into Las Vegas any more; too much traffic, smog and crime. • You're one of the few motorists who still wave at others you pass at intersections. • You remember when the Harvest Festival actually had something to do with farming. • You remember what Pahrump was like before we got all these big-city comforts; when being a neighbor meant so much more than simply living next door to someone else. • You look up the obituaries in the paper and remark how someone you know has died, a practice not uncommon in many small communities. Many years from now, perhaps, I'll be sitting on a bar stool talking to someone who just moved here from California about what Pahrump was like back in the old days. I hope I'll be able to tell him, "Yeah, I remember back in 2005 when they built that beautiful new hospital." (Write to Mark Waite at mwaite@pvtimes.com) |
