1. Reader Brent Parrish is leaving Las Vegas, and we’re sorry to see him go. A magazine needs good readers every bit as much as it needs good writers, artists and editors, and Parrish certainly fit the bill, as his farewell letter makes clear. It’s also an excellent primer on how to settle in and come to love a place that isn’t always easy to love:
I hated Las Vegas. It is full of concrete, strip malls and ubiquitous housing developments. Worst of all, there is not a single ounce of sweet gray fog. My union with Las Vegas was an arranged marriage, one that ripped me from the love of my youth and the only home I’ve ever known: Northern California. I left Napa feeling an acute emptiness over all the things I had left unexplored. To make my stay more excruciating, the promotion promised to my wife (also our largest motivation for moving) was being given to someone else. Smaller misfortunes followed, and the reality of my location seemed like pure lunacy. I couldn’t have chosen this!
Things didn’t change in one day but I know for sure it started with a trip Downtown to a place called EAT. I was so thrilled to see things on a menu that were grown on a farm in the same state that I was living in! And right across the street was some construction project being built with shipping containers! That’s the day I knew there was hope, maybe this arranged marriage to Ms. Vegas could be something, maybe there could be love. … I was also introduced to the best free magazine I will ever read: Desert Companion. I read at least half of the November 2013 issue over one cappuccino that day. I was so engrossed that I nearly forgot how perturbed I was that it was November and it wasn’t cool enough to even wear long sleeves.
Even though my real marriage was in a rapid decline, everything else was getting better. I had some great new friends, and we started our own hiking club. After exhausting trails at Red Rock we spent nearly every Tuesday last summer hiking at Mount Charleston, then descending to the west side of town to swim in the shade and push our culinary boundaries with nothing but a tabletop grill. ... Of course there were copious amounts of craft brew consumed, too!
I would be remiss not to recount a little sandwich shack in front of a dive bar on the most famous street in Las Vegas. I don’t know what I ate before the Goodwich. I love seeing those same owners buying fresh greens from the grocery store I work at. I get giddy as a kitten with yarn when I get to see local celebrities shop where I work, like a lovely and personable food events coordinator or a magazine editor who always says hello to me. And how great is a city where you can attain ramen at 2 a.m. and which has more genuinely great pizza places than an octopus has arms? That city is so great I might not ever want to leave it. (
Sadly, as my marriage has ended so must my marriage to this city. I have to go back to start over. I never would have thought 16 months ago that leaving Las Vegas would break my heart, but it has already begun to. There is plenty that needs to change about Las Vegas, but there is an overwhelming tide of people who really care. This can feel like a stoic and unwelcoming place; Las Vegas isn’t a place where beauty has fully established itself, but it is better for that reason. There is so much to love but you have to find it, you have to make this city yours because it won’t do it for you.
Northern California may be my home, but Las Vegas will always be my city. Farewell.
2. There was some Facebook response to Heidi Kyser’s February report “ Waiting to Inhale,” about asbestos in the soil near Boulder City and the scientific/bureaucratic squabbles it prompted.
Bruce Reynolds wrote: “Interesting story, and perhaps the danger from the asbestos around Boulder City is minimal. And perhaps not. But I’d like to know more about where the asbestos is, how much of it is there and what the health risks are. The State of Nevada and the EPA need to do a lot more studies!!”
Norman Umberger, on the other hand, didn’t seem worried at all. “If you know anything about asbestos, you know the danger is minimal to the public and zero from environmental.”
Jason Reek, identified on social media as a research assistant at UNLV’s Department of Geoscience, countered: “I don’t think it’s very accurate to say there is zero danger from asbestos occurring in the environment. It doesn’t matter what the source is, the moment of entry into the lungs it become a hazard.”