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.

The Example of an Olympian

Every two years, I watch televised sports. I've never watched a Super Bowl - I'm so glad that I can now see all the commercials online the next day - or a World Series. I don't follow Nascar drivers. I am, however, glued to the Olympics.

I'm not sure why that is, but it doesn't really matter. I watch the opening ceremonies, all 3 or 4 hours of them. I watch sports I know nothing about, and may never have heard of. I was delighted when I discovered curling. A sport played with brooms and a stone - how is it that everyone doesn't love this? My family mocks me, but curling is amazing.

Watching the Sochi Olympics, as usual I felt for every competitor who fell, exulted with every competitor who placed. Sure, I love it when Americans take home medals, but I don't need the winners to be American to be glad for them.

There's usually someone local at the Winter Olympics. I live 30 minutes from Lake Tahoe (home of the 1960 Winter Games), and many top athletes still live or train nearby. In 2014, the Lake Tahoe region had more medalists than 68 countries - yes, countries. It's exciting to know that there are locals on the podium.

Here in the Reno/Sparks area, everyone is particularly delighted this year by the gold medal win of David Wise, who grew up here in Reno, skied at local resorts, attended local public schools. He's one of us, and we all seem to claim him. The high school he attended held a schoolwide assembly in order to record and send a message of congratulations. His father was interviewed by the local paper. When I went with my Rotary Club to read to students at an elementary school, I discovered that they have an autographed poster hanging in their office; David Wise attended the school as a child.

Like most of the rest of the country, I found the choice of words by NBC News reporter Skyler Wilder as unusual, to say the least, when Wilder described Wise as living an "alternative lifestyle."

I was actually more and more amused as I read prose like this: "He's not like the rest of the field. Wise is mature." "At such a young age, Wise has the lifestyle of an adult."

That's because Wise is an adult. He's 23. He's five years past the legal age to be considered an adult. He's two years past the higher legal age to buy alcohol (which, ironically, is years past the age at which a person can join the military). It's not as if he's teetering on the cusp; the man has been a full fledged adult for years.

At 23, my daughter was a university graduate, and she took five years, not four, to earn her degree. At 23, my son in law was nearing graduation at the same university, and he'd taken two years off to serve as a full time missionary for our church. At 23, I had a husband, a mortgage and two preschoolers - and no, I was not a teenage bride. I was 20 when I got married and had my first child.

That's what seemed to really amaze NBC's Wilder: David Wise is a husband, father, and churchgoer, who says that he can picture himself being a pastor one day. The way Wilder describes it, you'd think that this was some kind of bizarre lifestyle heard about only in the pages of National Geographic Magazine. This is the ordinary, expected way that people behaved until a generation or two ago. In centuries past, when the average life expectancy was 35, Wise would already be one of the revered elders of his community. People matured fast enough to apprentice to a profession at 3 or 4, marry at 12 or 13, and lead communities by 18, because they had to. Prolonged immaturity was not a desirable or accepted outcome.

Now, though, society has decided that, in order to be an effective, happy, fulfilled adult, you have to have a prolonged adolescence that lasts for decades. What? How does that make any sense? Do we tell kids that in order to be an effective, mature college student, they should postpone learning to tie their shoes, write their name or do simple addition for as long as possible? "You don't want to rush it. Most people aren't ready. You have to figure out who you are first."

Adolescence in the biological sense lasts for about 6 years. Trying to drag it out for decades behaviorally, under the assumption that people can't handle growing up, is ridiculous.

Frequently - bordering on "always" - when I say things like, "I was married with kids at that age," someone replies, "Yes, but most people that age can't handle it," or, "That usually ends badly." When I say, "Let me introduce you to dozens of people, of varying ages, who were ready," I'll hear, "Yes, but more people aren't ready." I will never understand the mindset that says, "The majority is always right, and their ways are always desirable."

I think that the speakers are expecting, at that moment, that I'll say something like, "Oh, gosh, if the majority is doing something different than I am, I'm an anomaly (or wrong or misguided or misinformed or lucky)." What I actually think is, "Well, why aren't they ready? And what are they doing to ensure that they grow up?"

I mean, if you heard that someone wasn't walking, or reading, or driving, or holding a job, far (in fact, years) past the age that they should be mentally and physically capable, do you think, "Everyone else should slow down and do it the same way, instead of trying to achieve," or do you think, "They should get some pretty intensive counseling and intervention in order to catch up"? In theory, a healthy 5 year old who still crawled everywhere would just be exercising prudence, right, taking all those extra years to mature? Maybe he'll fall less often when he does start walking, right?

I'm not talking about perfectly mature people who know that they're ready, but choose, say, not to have children. My own deeply adored brother is childless in his 60s. I'm talking about the prevailing attitude of, "I'm just not mature enough to handle that yet. Maybe in another 10 or 15 years, I'll get there," and the society that says, "Oh, you're so smart to continue to be an adolescent into your 30s." How is it that we feel that people are adult enough to be college grads, nurses, police officers, fire fighters, social workers or members of the armed forces, trusted to make life and death decisions (often for large numbers of strangers), but we don't think they're mature enough to choose a spouse or parent a child? And worse, we're OK with that?

Yes, yes, I know all about studies that say that the human brain isn't done developing until about age 25. I happen to think that that fact proves my point. Is it easier to set attitudes, behaviors and expectations in place while the brain is still growing, or after it's done? I mean, we educate our young precisely so that when adulthood arrives, they'll be ready for it. Why do we assume that postponing maturity and responsibility will increase either characteristic?

I also fight not to roll my eyes when people say, "Well, I've been with my boyfriend/girlfriend for 10 years or so now. We weren't ready for a permanent commitment then, but now, after being exclusive or nearly exclusive, living together, raising kids together, buying a house and waiting to see if the relationship imploded or someone better came along, I'm now prepared to actually commit to getting married some time in the future." Do you not trust your own judgement? Will waiting, or anything else, change the age that you were when you decided to enter into this relationship?

"Well, it's different for you. You were raised that way," people say to me. OK, yes and no. If by "raised" you mean "taught by parents," then no, I wasn't raised that way. My dad was 50 before he got married for the first (last, and only) time. My mother told us all, over and over, that her first marriage ended in divorce because she got married too young, and couldn't see the dangers signs in marrying an alcoholic. If you mean "belong to a religion that strongly encourages marriage and families," then yes, I was raised that way. I joined the church, on my own, at 12.

Here's the thing - if it is widely recognized that it is possible for a family, town, group or culture to raise kids who mature faster than their peers, and do so while living ordinary lives in ordinary neighborhoods, by and large attending local public schools, why do we not widely accept this as a good thing, ask ourselves what they're doing right, and adopt those practices? Why don't we collectively say, "Hey, they're onto something"?

Sometimes, we do. I noticed this Bloomberg News story when it was first published - "Mission Training Grooms Mormons to Pursue Presidency, CEO Suite." The author noticed that LDS young men and women, ages 19 to 21, who went through missionary training and served church missions of 18 months to 2 years, "have gone on to become among the most distinguished and recognizable faces in American business and civic life." Mormons make up about 2% of the population, but "Latter Day Saints hold, or have held, a seemingly disproportionate number of top jobs at major corporations."

Why is that? The article talks about the rigid rules and fairly demanding schedule of work and study that missionaries experience. A Harvard business school professor quoted says, "I don't think there's any more demanding profession than being a Mormon missionary." The result, often, is a fairly young individual with skills, maturity and confidence. One former missionary, now dean of a prestigious School of Business, says that, before his mission, "I frankly didn't know if I could do anything. I came back with the confidence that I could accomplish most hard things."

Isn't this pretty much a no-brainer? If you expect and nurture maturity and responsibility, you will get maturity and responsibility. Instead, society is telling young people, "You can't do it. Don't even try, because you'll fail. It will be humiliating and futile." Is it any wonder that we get the exact opposite of maturity and responsibility?

It is worth noting that David Wise, and many other young successful husbands, wives, parents and employees, are not LDS. It's not exclusive to one school of religious thought. It's a process that's applicable no matter what your belief system. The entire Bloomberg article is geared toward taking the Missionary Training model and applying it to other circumstances.

It's also worth noting that even my own children sometimes disagree with me on this subject. "Come on, Mom! You know what I was like at 19 and 20! Do you really think that I was ready to get married and have kids?" one has asked me frequently. No, Child, I do not think that you, personally, were ready to choose a lifelong partner or start a family. That does not change my belief that high school grads should have a whole world of opportunities open to them, not be limited by their own immaturity. Having options available does not mean that each person needs to do the same things at the same time. It means the freedom to choose what you, personally, want, expecting that you can be successful at it now, not at some indeterminate time in the future.

What kind of message are we sending when we say, implicitly or through suggestion, "If you want to achieve anything, you need to do it before you get married or before you have children. After that, you won't be able to achieve your best or have any significant fun"? It's especially maddening when the people who say this claim to value marriage.

That's the reason people usually give for avoiding grownup choices or responsibilities - the idea that success is unobtainable, that it's impossible. If you get married young, or have children young, the conventional thinking goes, you won't get an education or have career success. The idea that being responsible and capable will somehow cripple you is odd, to me. It makes more sense when I hear things like this, from David Wise: "I think my lifestyle - the fact that I have a little girl to take care of, and a wife - really takes the pressure off of my skiing, because first and foremost, I have to be a good husband and father. When you're out there skiing for something bigger than yourself, it really takes the pressure off for me."

(In an interview with our local paper, his father also credits the work ethic David learned while attending public schools instead of an elite ski academy that may have instilled the idea that being athletically gifted gave you a "pass" in other areas of your life.)

I have, over the years, grown very tired of hearing how rare and gifted (or odd and out of touch) I am, for anything from being married young (and having a successful marriage and family) to not drinking to never having slept around. I've spent most of my life saying, "I'm an ordinary person. I'm not that amazing. If I can do it, other people can do it." I have now decided that this was the wrong approach. I need to say, "You're right. I am incredible and amazing. I am so advanced that I am barely human. I can accomplish things that ordinary mortals cannot. That's exactly why you should listen to me, and do things my way."

Or, don't take my word for it. You could look to the life of a 23 year old Olympic gold medalist.

Thanks, David, and congratulations. Congratulations not only on your athletic achievement, but your focus on what's truly important, what will last after your Olympic career is over. Thanks for bringing good publicity to Reno. Thanks for shining a spotlight on responsible, capable young adults - and the achievement and happiness they can obtain.

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?