Moving to Vegas

At the age of 20, I felt that I needed to move to Vegas and transfer from The University of Washington to UNLV. The thought process was that my family business was going to get into gambling and I should go to a place that knows a thing or two about rolling dice. Neither my brother or myself left the Seattle area for school and this was a new thing for my family. 

The week that I left also happened to be the week that my paternal grandmother passed away. My father was very familiar with Vegas because of his 30+ year history with the town, but it seemed that he had a new and not so favorable view of the glitzy desert town. I packed up my car and drove from Seattle with my friend and co-worker Tom and left my family at a fund-raiser in Portland.

The trip revealed Tom's own history with Vegas. 5 years earlier he lived there to run an arcade that my family was involved with and the picture that he painted was not pretty. As we stopped in Reno for the night, Vegas did not seem like the best idea that I had ever had. The drive to Reno was very familiar as we drove through national forests and it smelled like someone had opened a case of Pine-Sol in the car. Reno to Vegas was entirely different.

The eight hours to Vegas was on a two lane highway and you get to experience old ghost towns as you drive right through their cold dead carcasses. Old nuclear testing facilities on the left and prisons on the right. And nothing but scorched earth in between. 120+ on the thermometer and the fear that if the car breaks down so will you.

As we drove into Vegas that mid-August night, we decided to cruise the strip and there is nothing like seeing that road during the daylight. All of the warts are revealed as people are getting ready for the nighttime revelers. Trash, hookers, homeless and millions of twinkling lights. I was finally home.

Early Memories

My childhood was not normal because I had the opportunity to travel that many other children (or grown-ups) never enjoyed. My father was Bill Cravens and he was the ultimate traveling salesman, but his trade was video games, no steak knives. Most of the traveling had him going all over the country and the world to visit customers, factories, offices and trade shows. The trade shows were where my brother and I were able to tag along and see all of the new games and other products that were coming out. Todd (my brother) and I also became quite familiar with airports as a result of these trade shows.

In the mid to late 80's, these trade shows constantly moved around the country. Reno, New Orleans, Chicago, New York City and Las Vegas all held these expos at one time or another. As time went on, the shows started sticking with one city in particular and of course it was Las Vegas. Because of my age, I do not really remember too much of the city since my focus was on the video games and how big the bath tub was going to be in the suite that my father's company had rented out.

A few years after they changed the name from MGM Grand to Bally's, my entire family was staying there for one of the trade shows. One evening we were glued to the scene that was happening across the street at the dunes (now the Bellagio). They were filming a movie in which several Elvis impersonators were parachuting down to the property. It ended up being the last funny movies that Nicholas Cage was in but one of several that takes place in Vegas.   

Amongst all of the times I visited Vegas, the one memory that always stands out as a favorite, is sitting on a set of tile stairs with my father as we ate deli sandwiches in the bottom of the Bally's casino. It was the only time I remember eating alone with him during a show, until the last night his life. There was no one there to interrupt us as we sat and talked about nothing and everything. No business associates or employees took my father away from me for those fleeting moments. I remember that we took a stroll by the lion that lived in the lower level and we never did get our pictures taken with it. A few hours later my brother and I were back in Seattle and we would not see my father for another few months.

Introduction

I do not consider myself to be a negative person, but I am the first to admit that I have a hate/love relationship with the city of Las Vegas, Nevada.  There are some wonderful memories and experiences that were born there, but some of my darkest moments lie in that desert and I do not believe that I will ever be able (or want) to shake them free. Vegas is a city that means a lot of different things to a lot of different people, but to me it means Love and Death.

I have spent more time there than I can even remember and it goes beyond the countless business trips that I seem to make there every year. At the age of 20, I packed up all of my belongings and changed my collegiate mascot affiliation from Husky to Runnin' Rebel. Nearly three years of living there did not and does not make me an expert on Vegas, but it did leave an imprint on me as it has for the millions of people that have passed through, lived and died there. 

This document will be an ongoing event as I do not see myself staying away from the glitz and glamor that so many travel to Nevada to see. Business always seems to send me back there and I always come back with more insight on what that town has given me and taken away.