Vegas: Well-Spring of Story Ideas

 

A room with a view

So as it turns out the most wonderful woman in the world is both lucky at love and at cards. And the luckiest man in the world-that’s me by the way-got to do a ride-along when the aforementioned most wonderful woman in the world went to Vegas for a couple of days last week.

we had one heck of a time. My lady love has mad skills in the casino, and I wrote a bunch. Plus the Bellagio’s atrium is currently decorated for Christmas, if you happen to find yourself in Vegas, it would be a shame to miss it.

Longtime readers of this blog (Both of you!) will no doubt remember that back, when the world was young, I lived and worked in Vegas for a couple of years. It was the beginning of my public school teaching career. I could not have asked for a better baptism of fire than teaching in the Vegas public schools.

Because I worked with some of the best teachers in the world. Because they were generous with their time and their advice, and they were demonstrative and their example. I learned tricks of the trade that I use every day to this day.

Stuff like learning a kid‘s name. Using it. Making sure to pronounce it correctly. Letting them see you do that. It’s a great way to show you care, you care enough to say either name right, that means that you care about them. You build a relationship with these kids, and this is true anywhere in the world, and your work gets monumentally easier. My heroes, the Vegas teachers, taught me that.

So anyway, it’s always nice to visit Vegas, and I get out to places that tend to be far away from the strip most times (like Red Rock Canyon. Not to be missed!), and the best thing about it, is I always return home with ideas for stories. Because Vegas is full of characters. Let me give you just one example.

Robyn and I were headed to the airport to catch our flight home. We had eaten at an Italian place I knew of away from the Strip, so rather than cab it, we called for a Lyft. And that was how we met Mark.

Nice guy. Early 60s, so a few years older than me. Drove a sweet Mercedes SUV. Spotlessly clean. Told us all about how he was working on getting his CDL, because the money was so much better than driving for either Lyft or Uber.

Now, this was a guy whose entire appearance practically screamed “MONEY.” Manicure. $200 haircut. Expensive base layer fleece that retails starting at firm $150. So I was somewhat surprised to hear him complaining (however mildly) about money.

Then came the segue. While talking about money, Mark made an oblique reference to the recent election (full disclosure: I think Mark would have been surprised to learn that in this election I backed the accomplished brown-skinned lady with the foreign-sounding first name.). He said, “ Yeah, I was tired of seeing all of the money leave the country, and felt like we needed a change.”

Bear in mind that my origin story includes being born in, raised in, and taking frequent sojourns in what the chattering class have lazily begun to refer to as “Trump Country.” I call this “lazy,” because I am well aware that aside from campaign stops and photo ops, Donnie Dollhands wouldn’t be caught dead in places that bear such a moniker.

But I’m from there. I still have friends and family there, and I have learned how to either talk with the people I care about whose opinions differ from mine, or even more importantly, how NOT to talk to them about things like politics. It is definitely a skill.

I used that skill to evade being drawn into just such a discussion with Mark. But he wasn’t done trying.

When I mentioned I had worked on Vegas he asked what line of work I was in. I told him I was a history teacher and a writer. 

He immediately seized on the “teacher” part. Asked about whether I had any exposure to students categorized as “ESL” (“English as a Second Language”- an outdated term outside of Vegas. Several years back the state changed the acronym to “ELL” - “English Language Learners”, and more recently to “MLE” - “Multilingual Education,” but I wasn’t about to tell him this.).

I replied that I did. In fact I worked very closely with kids in that program. 

And then he said it.

“I bet they’re a real drag on your resources, huh.?”

Well.

No.

Far from it.

And I made a decision that I wasn’t going to avoid this conversation after all. I mean why not? I kinda liked the guy. And all he was really doing was the all-too human move of seeking confirmation/support for his biases. We’ve all

Been there.

So I told him no. I told him my hardest working group of students tended to contain high numbers of “ESL” kids. I further explained that I teach in one of the most diverse districts in the nation (we are situated right next to a big refugee resettlement center.) and something 240 different languages are spoken in my district.

And here’s the thing, I explained. I didn’t lecture. I didn’t proselytize. I kept my tone light, breezy, conversational. My very first response to his question about “those kids“ being a “drag“ was to say: “no, actually far from it. Some of the hardest working kids, I have, are newcomers. I teach in a very diverse district with a ton of different languages being spoken there. And I invite anybody to come on into my school. Come on into my classroom. Mark, if you’re any ever anywhere near Kent Washington, get in touch with me. Come on down. It will blow your mind.” 

To his credit, Mark listened. Or he at least seemed to. Our conversation stayed pleasant. And then we moved on to him telling Robyn and I a cool story about him watching a semi truck practically blow up on a part of the freeway where one of his CDL classes was using it for training. 

I told him I was going to use his description in this other story I’ve been thinking about. This is what I’ve told before about a former student I had who along with a friend stole cinderblocks from a construction site and spent a lot of time trying to drop them on cars on the I 15 overpass down there. 

I think I’m gonna put those two together and I think I might have something. I’ll keep you guys posted.

And I already promised Mark I would use his name.

So yeah, Vegas well-spring of stories! And as it turns out, civilized political discourse.

Who knew?

And on that note, my time here draws to a close with this, my final blog entry of the year. I wish you all the finest of holidays, and a blessed new year. See you in January 2025!