Vegas, baby!

Even though my family had finished with summer road trips with the death of my Grandfather just a few months prior, we would still go on trips during the holiday season. One such trip took us to Las Vegas after Christmas of 1978.

My uncle Ord was working as a store manager for Woolworth's and he had been transferred to a location in Las Vegas from Spokane. He moved there with his wife Merd and their daughter Jend. Jend was my first cousin born on my mother's side of the family. She was born when I was 11 years old, so I didn't really get the chance to grow up with her like I did the cousins on my Dad's side.

My aunt Cind had met the guy she was going to marry, Jid. She brought him to Grandma Bend's house for Christmas that year. Jid was a farmer who raised pigs and cattle. He really didn't like being away from the farm, but decided to come out and get to know the family. He had long hair, a mustache and a beard. If someone today were to see him, they would think he was homeless. He looked like what my Mom was probably afraid I would look like when I grew up.

After all the festivities on Christmas Day, we loaded up the family car and Cind's pick-up and started off on the road to Vegas. We had planned to stop and spend the night at a motel in Flagstaff, AZ. However, when we were driving through, all of the road signs were missing their reflective material, so we could not read what they said, and by the time we realized that we had driven past Flagstaff, it was too late to turn around and go back to find a motel. We decided to keep driving.

We arrived at Hoover Dam at around 2am. We stopped and got out and looked at the view. At this time in my life, we had started discussing what kind of car I would have when I started driving the next year. I wanted a purple car because purple was my favorite color. This led to all kinds of disagreements as to how purple was an ugly color. At Hoover Dam, there were yellow lights illuminating the parking lot. Cind's pick-up was blue, but the yellow lights made it look purple. I pointed this out to my parents and told them that purple was a good-looking color. They still didn't like it.

We kept driving to Las Vegas. When we arrived, Dad thought it would be a good idea to drive down the Strip and through the Downtown area, so that's what we did. I didn't realize it at the time, but I was getting what would be one of my last glimpses of the classic version of Vegas. Everything was just as I had seen it on TV and the movies. All the color and neon is still burned in my memory.

We drove on to Ord's house. Because it was almost 4am, Mom decided we should sleep in the car because she didn't want to disturb Ord and his family. Loyd and I knew we were going to get into a fight over who got to sleep on the backseat and who was going to have to sleep on the floor. We told Mom that Ord wasn't going to mind if we went up and rang his doorbell. We thought he would be happy to let us in. Mom still insisted that she didn't want to be a burden. Somehow, I wound up on the floor and couldn't sleep one bit.

Thank goodness it doesn't get freezing cold in Vegas in December. Dad got up at 7am and rang the doorbell. Ord was surprised to see us because he thought we would be spending the night in Flagstaff. We brought everything in the house. Ord and Merd told us they wouldn't have minded letting us in if we had just rung the doorbell. Loyd and I groaned.

A few hours later, we were out and about seeing everything in Vegas. At this point, the adults didn't do any gambling. This was all new to Jid. He was used to being on the farm and having his meals at specific times. When it was 2pm, he finally said, "When do you people eat around here?" All the adults were stunned. They were so excited about being in Vegas, they had plain forgotten to eat. We found a Pizza Hut with an all-you-can-eat buffet. The only problem was that it was close to the end of the buffet and all the pizza had onions on it. I complained and they finally made a pepperoni.

Somehow, Loyd had gotten in touch with a friend of his who used to live in Artesia. This friend now lived in Los Angeles and they asked Loyd to come out and spend a few days with them while we were in Vegas. His friend's family was wealthy, so I guess they offered to buy his plane ticket. We saw him off at the airport. That left me alone with the family. I was getting a vacation away from Loyd. I was ecstatic!

The adults had gone out gambling and had left me with Merd. After awhile, she asked me if I wanted to go catch up with them at Circus Circus. We went and we found them. I spent a lot of time in the arcade area there. Later, we went to Ceasar's Palace. At the entry, there was this woman handing out these slips of paper in which people could get free spins for prizes. She handed me one. I smiled. She saw the braces and asked how old I was. I said 14 and she took the ticket back. Mom and Dad had me stay in this one particular area while they ran around the casino. At the time, I don't think Ceasar's Place had an area for children like Circus Circus. I knew that as a child, I was not allowed within five feet of a slot machine, so I had to stay put.

While I was waiting, I saw this gentleman walk by with a couple of people. I could hear him saying, "I don't want to be rich. I just want to be happy." I thought this was an odd sentiment to be speaking out loud at a casino. It made me wonder what had happened to him just prior. Did he just lose a lot of money on a stupid bet? I guess I'll never know.

I never got to go to the casinos again. I did get to go out and see "Superman." I had been looking forward to this movie for more than a year and was not disappointed. It was at the Fox Theater. This was the largest movie theater I had ever been to. I got there half an hour early, and bought a ticket and a souvenir program. There were plenty of seats when I went into the auditorium. I started reading through the program. Before I knew it, the theater had completely filled up. There were people directly on both sides of me. I was so entrhalled by the movie that I stayed all the way through the closing credit. I was probably the last one left in the theatre. The usher came up to me while the credits were still rolling to inform me that I could not sit through another screening. I told him, no, I just wanted to sit through the credits. The wait paid off. When it was over, the final words came on the screen: "Next Year: Superman II." I wondered how many people sat through all those credits to experience that.

I left the theater and Mom and Dad were outside waiting for me. I guess they had seen everyone else leave and wondered when I was coming out.

The next day, I just hung out at the house with Merd and Jend. I was reading through the newspaper. One of the funny things was the ads for all the shows in Vegas and how many featured Elvis impersonators. That night, I was watching the TV show "Dick Clark's Live Wednesday." There was a comedian on there and he started talking about Vegas. And then he started talking about all the Elvis impersonators. He mentioned many of them by name, the same names I saw in the ads. This blew my mind that someone was talking about someplace I actually happened to be at the time and I totally got it.

Loyd came back from LA. My family left. Cind stayed and worked at Ceasar's Palace as a tour guide in order to make some money before she would marry Jid about 8 months later. It was hard for me to leave because I had such a good time without doing any actual gambling and also because Loyd wasn't around.

I wouldn't go back to Vegas for 10 more years. I did get to gamble then.