Supervising Adult

When I was in high school, I competed in speech and debate. So, when the chance came up to coach high school speech and debate for the homeschool team, I was all over it.

The first year we went to the state competition, I had one competitor, and the tournament was held locally. The next year, it was in Las Vegas; the state competition alternates years - Reno, Vegas, Reno, Vegas - so that everybody has to do the same amount of travel, and the burden of hosting and finding judges, lodging discounts, etc. isn't always on the same teams.

When you grow up in Nevada, going to Las Vegas isn't as exotic and exciting sounding as it is if you grow up elsewhere. Plus, I don't drink, or gamble, or go to strip clubs, so a lot of the "traditional" Vegas stuff isn't even on my radar. It's not like I had to make an effort to be on my best behavior, or to shield the kids, by avoiding that stuff - avoiding it is my normal behavior.

Which, in hindsight, meant that I might not have been as vigilant as I might have been.

I coached with a close friend, one I've known since we were both teens. Later, we brought in a university student to help coach. Homeschool classes - we taught speech and theater at a co-op - and clubs can be more casual than they are in public or private schools. The students on our debate team called us by our first names. One of our students chose the "call to order" term we used (which was the word "potato"). We didn't make them approve their performance scripts or speeches with us before competition. We didn't give grades, just kept track of the points they earned with the national organization.

During that second state tournament, all of our kids were eliminated from competition by Saturday evening. We gave them a choice - stay and watch the rest of the competition, go back to the hotel and hang out at the pool, or go do something Vegas-y. The majority of the kids chose a trip to the Las Vegas Strip. The rest voted for the hotel pool. My co-coach LaRena would stay at the hotel. The 20 year old coach, Rachel, and I would take the other kids to the Strip.

It didn't seem like an inappropriate or risky choice. To me, the Strip is the Bellagio fountains, the M&M store, the habitat for Sigfried and Roy's tigers, the roller coaster at New York, New York. All of the things that we usually do are totally kid appropriate. I tend to forget how much there is that's not "family friendly." That was my first mistake. My second was in not thinking about how different a Saturday night might be, as opposed to, say, a Tuesday afternoon.

My third was in not taking the date into consideration. It was St. Patrick's Day. I have sincerely never equated St. Patrick's Day with alcohol. I don't drink, remember? At all. We spend our St. Patrick's Day eating corned beef and watching "Darby O'Gill and the Little People."

So, off I went, on a Saturday night, with my minivan full of kids, to the Las Vegas Strip, on St.Patrick's Day.

Yes, I am that naive.

We drove through town; I don't see well enough in the dark to drive on the freeway after dark. I put my Veggie Tales "Veggies Sing the 80s" CD on; Rachel still hasn't forgiven me. The plan was to park at the Miracle Mile shopping center, then head to the fountains and the M&M store. We were just hitting Las Vegas Boulevard when an outraged voice from the back seat said, "Is that someone's butt on that billboard?" The girl speaking is an only child, homeschooled all her life, from a very conservative, Evangelical Christian family - in short, a very sheltered girl.

I looked out the window. Yes, indeed, 40 feet tall or more, there was a close up of a woman's butt, wearing a thong that provided zero coverage. "Yes, that's someone's butt. It's probably best to avoid looking at the billboards." Oh, dear, I thought, I've forgotten to factor in billboards. That includes the rolling billboards advertising brothels that cruise up and down the Strip. (For businesses that are an hour or more outside of town, they advertise rather aggressively.) I tried to remember if the clear plexiglass trailers with strippers in them were still allowed to cruise the Strip. Those were banned as being traffic hazards, weren't they?

Oh, dear. But we can avoid billboards, right?

I couldn't quite figure out why it was so crowded. It was March! Who travels in March? We finally made it to the parking garage, and I started to get a real sense of how very crowded it was. There were almost as many people milling about as there were cars. They all seemed to be intoxicated, despite it being only about 7:00 PM. So many of them were carrying plastic cups that were two or three feet tall. And the hats and the feather boas - "Is it a bachelor or bachelorette party?" I wondered out loud.

"It's St. Patrick's Day. Didn't you notice that everything's green?" Oh; no. I hadn't. But it'll be fine, right?  I mean, we just ignore the drunks.

And the street performers; oh, my. There are always people in costume posing for photos for tip money. There might be superheroes, Disney characters, or "showgirls" - not the actual showgirls from splashy casino shows, but people in spangled bikinis and tall, feathered hats. That night, it seemed to be mostly showgirls in thongs. Great; now we had to avoid actual butts, not just butts on billboards. Which shouldn't be too hard, normally, but there were so many people. We were jostling, constantly bumping into someone.

As we made our way through the crowd, one of my students, Kyle, said, "Sharon, I'm sorry. I just littered."

"Littered?"

"Yeah. This guy handed me a card, and said, 'You want a coupon?', so I just took it. But I looked at it and went like this." Kyle mimed bringing the card up in front of his face, his eyes widening, then tossing the card aggressively to the ground. Now, I feel sincere ire for litterers. They're inconsiderate and impatient and I have no patience for them. But I knew exactly the cards he was talking about. If you've been to Vegas, you probably do, too. They're soft - or even hard - porn, advertising strip clubs or sex shops. They're only supposed to hand them to those 21 and older, but Kyle's tall - or, they didn't care. Many people do exactly what Kyle did, so the sidewalks on the Strip are papered in them. During daylight, it's less aggressive, but after dark, someone might shove one of them at you two or three times on a block. I was totally OK with Kyle littering.

"Yeah, lots of people will try to hand you things. Don't take anything from anybody."

My husband and LaRena's husband started walking one in the front of our group, and one in the back, to fend off anyone aggressive. Mark's a cop, and Dan's big, so they tried to look appropriately threatening. Still, I was the coach, the one responsible for the kids - I experienced stress.

At this point, I started repeating over and over, both out loud and in my head, "Just get to the fountains. We just need to get to the fountains." Then, I was sure, we could spend half an hour watching the free fountain show, unmolested.

Of course, I was wrong. As we hit the sidewalk in front of the fountains, a limousine pulled up, actually onto the sidewalk, so close to my kids that they could touch it. Just as I was feeling outraged because whoever it was might have hit my kids, who drives on the sidewalk, who lets them park there, the driver got out and started shouting through a megaphone. Directly into the faces of my teenage students, he yelled, "Free rides to the Hustler Club! Best show in town!"

No one, I thought, is ever going to let me supervise their kids again. They'll tell their parents, and I probably won't be allowed to teach at co-op. Most of my kids came from religious families, families who really live their religion, families who opted out of public education because they wanted to protect their kids. And what did I do? Bring them to the Las Vegas Strip, where they got an education in intoxication and strip clubs.

After the fountains, I abandoned plans for the M&M store. We went to McDonald's, where I bought everyone a soda or an ice cream. Then I hustled everyone back to the car, like a mother hen with her chicks. I could feel my blood pressure go down as we headed back across the valley.

I coached for four more years, so I guess that nobody complained.

Look at those kids. They're pretty great. They don't look scarred, do they?

Except for the Veggie Tales thing. I don't think Rachel will ever forgive me for that.

On The Street Where You Live

Recently, as we sat in traffic in a large city, my husband grumbled about being "surrounded by nothing but trash and crazy people."

"It's actually cleaner than I expected. And you're generalizing, aren't you? You haven't even met many residents. They might be lovely people." (I'm usually pretty Pollyanna about things.)

He looked at me as if I was also clearly crazy. "Sane people wouldn't put up with this!" He waved his hand at the traffic, the noise, the crowds (and also, I'm pretty sure, the inflated prices).

I laughed. "You know how many people say that about where we live, right?"

I have several loved ones who have waged a years long battle to convince me to move elsewhere, or at least to get with the program and consider my home state to be a punch line. I know that they sincerely want what's best for me, so I cut them slack, but it grates on my nerves.

For one thing, I sincerely like my area. We're high mountain desert, tucked up against a mountain range; everything from the wide open sand and sage of the Great Basin to the pine forests overlooking deep mountain lakes says "home" to me. It's pretty fantastic.

I like my house. It's comfortable and cost effective. I am intensely irritated by people who think that I'm living my life in the way that I am because I'm unaware that there are other options.

Recently, a friend moved to a new city, and asked for advice on her social media. "We're considering two houses. One is larger and less expensive, but the area isn't considered as desirable. The other is more money than we wanted to spend, but it's in a popular area. Which should we buy?" I think that I was the lone voice saying, "The less expensive house! Obviously!" Everyone else voted for the more expensive house, saying things like, "Think of the resale value!" and telling her that, obviously, the neighbors and the schools would be better in the popular area.

(They finally chose a third house that split the difference.)

People are frequently perplexed by our choice of a fixer upper in an aging neighborhood - not old enough to be "historic," just old enough to be "older." I say, "Hey, I'd rather live here and take my kids on vacation and send them to summer camp." I've been told that I'm doing things "all wrong." "It's more important to spend the money on something you'll use every day, not on something that only lasts for a week or two."

Balderdash. I can show you studies that verify that spending money on experiences instead of belongings results in a happier life, but I don't need them to justify my choices. I am happy in my life.

A friend was once trying to describe what she loved about living in a large city. "In my neighborhood, when I go to get coffee, or shop, or have lunch, the people working there know me, and I get personalized service." I responded, "That sounds like living in a small town." The last time I lived in a truly small town (it made the front page of the tri-county newspaper when we got our second stoplight), when I was buying groceries the cashier said, "That shed's looking pretty good!" My husband was building a shed in our yard, one visible from the road, but I have no idea how the clerk knew that I lived at the house with the shed under construction.

My friend was sure that I was deliberately misunderstanding her. I don't think so; in my city, when I go to the bank, the grocery store, the convenience store, and several restaurants, they know me, often by name. Sometimes, I will have known them for literally decades. I don't think that the size of my city has any bearing on that.

 Of course, there are other conversations and other tactics.

"It's such a shame for your kids,"  to be living here, I was told.

"How do you figure?"

"They're never going to be exposed to different people from different backgrounds. Where you are, it's pretty homogenous; everyone's the same."

I have no idea where that mischaracterization came from. I went to church with a significant number of Tongans with names like Feofa'aki. My daughter's boyfriend was Navajo, and her best friend was from El Salvador. We'd planned birthday party menus to include Hindu, Muslim and Jewish guests. I know lawyers, accountants, ranchers, artists, singers, right here in my community.

I tried to encapsulate all of that in one sentence, without sounding like I was trotting people out as show ponies ("How can you say that? Look at my Token Minority friend!"), and speaking to the experiences of my kids. "My daughter is the only white girl in her Girl Scout troop."

"Well, yes, but I'm talking about professional, educated people."

Um, what? This is a lovely, sincere, well educated person, who always means well, but I was appalled. "Oh, I just know that you did not just imply that their parents are all dishwashers and maids, or that there would be anything wrong with it if they were!"

"No! No. I'm just saying that people in my community have been recruited from all over the world for their particular areas of expertise."

"Do you know what my Scouts' parents do? Because I don't, and I see them every week." This is true; I have actually known people for years before I find out what they do for a living.

I meet a lot of people at church or doing community theater, and we tend to "talk shop," not go through the cocktail party small talk of, "So, what do you do?" I rarely ask this of people. Sometimes, I'm taken by surprise when I find out.

The girls in the Scout troops I led always had parents who took their cookie order forms to work, and sometimes I'd find out what they did for a living based on where they made their sales. On year, the top seller had a (very pretty) mother who was a bartender, and made her sales at the bar. ("And if they don't pick up the cookies, I know I can just sell them to somebody else who's there.") One year, the top seller had a grandmother who worked at a local brothel, and made her sales there. No, I didn't ask in what capacity, although I know that they have non-prostitute staff. I once did theater with a young lady who was the cashier at a brothel.

No, I did not bring up the brothel workers at that point in the conversation. No, I do not think that they prove my loved one's point. No, I did not point out that the area in which this person lived in is known for a particular industry, and therefore more "homogenous" than many other communities, in that you can probably accurately guess what industry in which any person you meet is likely to be employed. I did not point out that when I'm sitting in church in between the owner of a construction business and the owner of a potato farm, listening to a schoolteacher give the lesson, I'm simultaneously experiencing diversity and not categorizing people based on occupation or education.

What I did was rather forcefully change the subject. This is a relationship that I truly value, but if I'm expected to be a job snob and feel that I'm shortchanging my kids by refusing to be badgered into moving to a sprawling metropolis, well, I may start to value it less.

Someone else described me to myself this way - "You're so... so... provincial!"

(You know how sometimes you make a friend, and you laugh together about how you never would have hung out when you were in high school? Yeah - I'm aware that people who love me, but met me when we were kids, would probably not be interested in making friends with me if they met me today. That's OK. We love each other anyway.)

I enjoy visiting large cities in order to experience museums, theaters, historic sites and the like, but then I want to leave and go home.

Something I discovered as an adult, and it was a pleasant surprise, is that I could conceivably live anywhere. I pick up real estate guides every time I travel. We recently spent time in cities older than my nation, staying in apartments, and commenting, "I could live here." I may live somewhere else in the future; but it won't be because I don't like it here, where I am now.

Why am I thinking about this? I was sorting through and organizing photos recently, and I came across this:

Oh, yeah. This image is comfortable, happy - it says "home." It lowers my blood pressure. I could live down that road. Looking at it, I know what it smells like, sounds like, feels like. I want to know what's over the horizon. I want to wander and explore.

That's in contrast to how I feel looking at this image:

I also know what this sounds, smells and feels like; I took both photos. I know that there are places to discover, to eat, to shop. I could conceivable live there. But, given a choice - not so much.

Given a choice, I'll probably always take the dirt road.

"Discover Your Nevada"

A friend works for our state's tourism commission. They're holding a contest, currently, asking people to send in stories of "adventures" in order to choose ones to be featured in a magazine.

He let his writer and/or photographer friends know about the contest, and reminded us several times of the deadline. Still, I let it slide, because I was both indecisive and busy.

I mean, I could write about petroglyphs, the Pony Express fort, the old West mining towns, camping, homeschool field trips, photo spots, beaches, things that we do with visiting relatives - so many choices! How would I decide? What did people want to hear? A local's view of where I live, or exotic places? The popular spots or the unknown?

In the end, I went with, "What can I write on virtual autopilot?" On the very last day submissions were accepted, I was having bone surgery on my foot, and spending the rest of the day doing nothing but pain management and sleep. I didn't have a lot of time or mental energy to spare.

So, instead of being witty or amazing, I went with easy. I wrote about museums. My family loves museums. We love big ones, small ones, expensive ones, free ones - museums are fantastic.

If you're so inclined, here's the link for voting. If you want to vote for a piece besides mine, that's great, too. You can vote once every 24 hours.

http://discoveryournevada.com

Note: The contest is over. I didn't win. That's OK. :)

Hot Sauce

I love my home state, really, I do. There's reasons that I live here. I'm almost tempted to launch into a list of wonderful things that my state offers, but that's a discussion for another day.

Because, sometimes, my home state is tacky. Truly, undeniably, high ick factor tacky.

I've complained before about people's perception of our state and its... eccentricities. Sometimes, we are our own worst enemy, perceptionwise.

I've complained, for instance, that one of our local brothels - yes, local brothels, let the snickering begin - advertised itself on its billboards as a "deli." Please.

One of the brothels in the southern part of the state advertises itself on its billboards, up for miles before you encounter the place, as a "travel center." Truly.

Most of the brothels in Nevada have small signs out front that say things like, "Free Truck Parking!" The brothels themselves are usually housed in trailers, or collections of trailers, painted some bright colors. My husband glared daggers at me when I pointed out, on a recent trip, the columns (attached to nothing) surrounding the pink trailers. "Don't they just class the place up?" There were shorter columns around the dirt parking area; tres chic.

The "travel center" either ran into too many irate patrons who hauled their cranky kids in looking for restrooms, slushees and prepackaged pastries, or they discovered that they made more money advertising their primary purpose, because they put up this onsite billboard:

OK, truth in advertising; I can get behind that.

The small print just does me in, though: "HOT SAUCE  PHOTOS  SOUVENIRS."

Hot sauce?

Whether that's a euphemism or a condiment, in this context, I don't really want to know anything more about it.

That leaves me contemplating photos.

When I was growing up, the stereotype of sharing your vacation photos was having friends over to dinner, then making them watch an interminable slide show. Now, of course, it's all about social media; everyone you know, and potentially anyone else, can and will see your vacation photos. "This is me and a prostitute I met near Vegas." Maybe Bob in accounting will be impressed when he sees it, but it's hard for me to envision that. The club of People Who Pay For Sexual Services is not an exclusive or prestigious one; in fact, the first people who come to my mind are serial killers and people with few social skills.

Still, maybe ol' Bob really will be impressed. This is the sci fi themed brothel - yes, there is such a thing, you can't make this stuff up; maybe he's always wanted his photo taken with a "real, live Andorian," but he just doesn't have the cash to attend a Star Trek convention. It's hard for me to imagine a situation in which someone will be excited about their prostitute photo op, but I'll concede that maybe, in some circles, such a situation exists. (The thought just depresses me.)

For years, souvenir shops in my lovely state have been awash in prostitution themed souvenirs. I wish I was making this stuff up. You can buy maps of "The Pleasure Spots of Nevada," with all the legal brothels identified. You can get keychains that say things like, "Crib #4, Mustang Ranch." (The term "crib" hearkens back to the days when that term was slang for a prostitute's room. I can't believe that I know this stuff.)

The idea of buying them at an actual brothel is just a little too ridiculous for me. "Went to Nevada! Paid a hooker! Got a snow globe!"

Maybe you walked past Bob in accounting with your new brothel mug in your hand, hoping he'd be green with envy.

Personally, I can't imagine being impressed because you paid someone to be with you. It calls up images of elementary school kids giggling behind the building - "I gave her a dollar, and she let me touch her boob!"

If a woman walked up to you on the street and said, "I want nothing more than to have all manner of sexual contact with you!" I might think that you're attractive or charming. I still won't be impressed, but it's better than, "She had to - I paid for it."

Living here, though, I've been exposed to how the women feel. I remember a local prostitute calling up a radio station to enter their "Most Boring Job" contest. She's not showing your photo around work, bragging about how great her weekend was.

Sorry, Bob.

Legal Vices and Their Champions

I was recently asked to write sample newspaper columns, 700 words each or thereabouts, as a way of auditioning, if you will, for an opening at a local paper. They didn't hire me, which is OK - it turns out that they wanted someone well connected to the local political scene, and that's not me.

I've printed two of the sample columns below. The editor wanted my take on local issues. In light of the media coverage lately of Harry Reid's take on prostitution, and John Ensign's take on Harry's position (which, in my opinion, boiled down to "I won't take a stand, because then someone would disagree with me, and I'm trying to rebuild my credibility before I run for office again, hoping everyone will have forgotten the whole infidelity/bribery/misuse of funds and influence thing so I can return to office,") I thought I'd put my two cents out there.

Let's keep in mind, 700 words didn't give me enough space to address the whining about what the supposedly crushing loss of brothel revenue would mean. First and foremost, whenever anyone says that without the brothels and their fees, the rural economies would be crippled, the schools will close, there will be fewer police officers, firefighters, apple pie, baseball and everything good, I feel like saying, "You're so right. There are no rural counties anywhere else in the other 49 states and the District of Columbia that manage to function without brothel income." Give me a break. And for the rest of my feelings, see my take on legalized marijuana. The arguments are interchangeable.

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I have lived in Nevada for my entire life – I was born at St. Mary's Regional Medical Center. I can sing "Home Means Nevada" and mean it. I am not here by default; I am here because I choose to be. Still, I cannot shake the feeling that occasionally overwhelms me that Nevadans do a good job of embarrassing themselves and the rest of us. I'm not talking about John Ensign, although I admit that his latest fiasco had me fuming, "Oh, thanks so much for making the rest of us look wonderful!" I mean some of our laws and policies that make me cringe.

I swear, the ink wasn't dry on the law allowing brothels to advertise before the tops of every taxicab in town were covered with glowing ads, ads I had to explain to my youngest child. I do not want to discuss the offered services with small children.

It's bad enough to live somewhere where I've seen, for my entire life, things like Yellow Pages ads for brothels that screamed, "It's legal here!" and "Private airstrip and limousines!" but now I have to endure ridiculous and even misleading advertising campaigns. Mind you, I don't want to see sex acts described 40 feet high, but I was astonished by the choices of words on the brothel billboards. One of the first ones I saw advertised a brothel on the way to a popular boating spot as a "deli." Truly! Can you imagine a family on the way to the reservoir pulling over hoping to buy potato salad and ham sandwiches?

"Resort and spa!" says one description. I've stayed at resorts, but I've always done so with my kids, and I doubt that many of their activities and services are available at a brothel. I doubt that I could get a facial there.

Even when they attempt to be a bit more accurate, I resent having to explain terms like "cage dance" to my kids. Would it be possible to simply say, "Adult entertainment; must be 21"?

I used to look around Las Vegas and say, "At least Reno doesn't do that," but the distinction is getting smaller. Strip club ads used to be one of those things, but no more.

Visiting my daughter at college in Las Vegas and being treated to huge billboards with buttocks hanging out of thongs was one of those cringe inducing experiences. How can any reasonable human possibly be OK with that? Don't give me a lecture about the beauty of the human form and how sexuality is not shameful. I'm not going to discuss my personal life with you, but let me assure you that my opinion is not about shame. It's about appropriateness. Would you clip your nails at the dinner table, or discuss your finances with a department store clerk or have your postman make discipline decisions for your kids? Of course not. It's not appropriate. Plus, the fact that the body is beautiful, sacred and made by God is the very reason that your buttocks, or mine, should not be on display for everyone to see. Do we all remember the Biblical warning not to cast pearls before swine, and what that means?

Remember when The Men's Club opened downtown, and to appease those who opposed it, they promised that the words "girl" or "girls" would never be used in their ads? How long did that last? (Does anyone even remember that there was opposition?)

I'd rather live without these services nearby, but since that's unlikely, can we please have some decorum?

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There's a reason for the old adage, "Know your audience." It's applicable in politics, advertising, dinner table conversation – just about any situation you can imagine. Frequently I find that people are neglecting to consider their audience when speaking to me about recreational marijuana legalization. They invariably say, "It's no different than alcohol," leaving me having to remind them, "You do remember that I don't drink?"

By "don't drink," I mean never have. At age 12, I joined (without my parents, but with their consent) a religion that forbids alcohol. I went through my teen years without feeling a need to question that wisdom or push those boundaries. I cannot imagine a circumstance occurring in my adult years that would make me change my mind.

The number of people who say to me, "Not even wine?" staggers me - like I'll say, "Oh, of course I have WINE! I'm not a zealot!" I once truly offended a relative. We were eating dinner at her house, and she was splashing wine into the gravy. I asked if she could possibly set some aside without wine. She glared at me – she considers advising the cook to be a capital offense anyway – and snapped, "All the alcohol burns off in cooking. You can't even taste it." She was not prepared for my response, but she should have seen it coming: "If you can't even taste it, why put it in?" Whether you find alcohol to be unacceptable morally, like me, or are a recovering addict, like many of my friends, no alcohol means no alcohol.

For the record, even though I eat meat, I provide vegetarian entrees when I host vegetarians. When my son invited a Muslim classmate to his birthday party during Ramadan, I waited until after sunset to serve the (cheese) pizza. It's just common courtesy.

I did not grow up on a sheltered commune somewhere. I was born in Reno; I graduated from Reed High in Sparks. I've spent my life the same places everyone around me has. I just never indulged.

I'm not the only one. I can introduce you to dozens of people, older, younger and the same age as myself, with similar stories. A thirty-something friend just posted on his Facebook page, " So I was standing in a circle of 7-8 guys today and discovered that I was the only one in the group who had never done crystal meth, cocaine, heroin, hash, mushrooms, Ecstasy, marijuana, OxyContin, alcohol or cigarettes."

So, clearly, I am not your target audience for discussions of how marijuana is equal to alcohol – or nicotine or anything else legal.

Occasionally, I actually have to trot out statistics on alcohol related disease, crime, auto accidents and the like before people will concede that I may have a valid point. Let's not even discuss stupid, cringeworthy, wish-it-never happened moments and the societal costs of drinking.

The same goes for smoking. Do I honestly have to point out the disease quotient of smoking, the toll it takes on health and wellbeing? Please tell me I don't, that it's all understood. Telling me it will be "regulated" isn't a big plus. Alcohol and tobacco are regulated.

I have to resort to sarcasm when someone says, "tax revenue." Oh, there's MONEY to be made? Why didn't you say so? You know what else makes lots of money? Child porn! Heroin! We gotta jump on those opportunities! There's a world of unexplored possibilities!

Now, here's my dilemma. Even the history impaired should be aware of the violence and corruption of the Prohibition era. Humans don't handle being told "no" very well. Oh, what to do?