The Road to Reno

This post is to thank my new friend, Francessa, for honoring me in her recent fascinating post from Germany titled, The Road to Reno. Francessa's post concerns the relationship of an award-winning (2007) book titled The Road to Reno with the 1960 movie The Misfits that was filmed there, starring Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe.

Born and raised in Reno, I left there for Oregon when I was 25. I do so love Oregon and haven't regretted moving here. However, you can take the Nevadan out of the desert but you can't take the desert out of the Nevadan. So I travel there in my thoughts frequently, and make the occasional 500-mile trip back to my hometown for a dose of the land that raised me.

I was nine-years-old when The Misfits was made. My mother was a 21 dealer at Harold's Club and told Nel and me about seeing Clark Gable and some of the film crew in "the club." I don't recall that she sighted Marilyn Monroe or Arthur Miller, but I'm fairly sure that my mother wouldn't have known who Arthur Miller was at that time.

It became a part of Reno lore that The Misfits was Gable's last movie, some believing the strife with Monroe on and off the set to be the cause of his spiral into-illness-into-death.

But that was before a Kansas-based church (actually a hate group) proclaimed at the beginning of 2008 that "God hates Reno," and surely if they'd known this in 1960 Monroe would have been let off the hook and the location of the film might have been blamed for Gable's death. The original post in the iconic and irreverent blog God hates Reno describes how 21st-century Renoites reacted to the insane comments by the sect reported by the Associated Press. For one, that wickedly funny blog was born. It's listed in my Reno blogroll separate from my main blogroll. Just love that gaudy "neon" header.

This photo is from my solo drive to Reno in April 2007. I hadn't been "home" since 1999 and I'm sure it won't be that long until my next visit. That trip was to attend the surprise 80th birthday party of the mom of a childhood friend of mine. Carol's mom and mine worked at Harold's Club together and were close friends. My mother is gone now and I was anxious to represent her at the gala.

Mike couldn't be away from work so I hit the road alone. Every mile that took me closer to Reno held more excitement than the next. I just didn't realize how much I'd missed that familiar place until I saw the Sierras come into view and the air became drier and warmer and I heard Reno radio stations. Sure, I know I can get them online but there's nothing like knowing the music is coming from where I'm heading. Faster. Giddier. Younger. I drove straight into the pages of my past, passing this scene and then stopping and driving in reverse to take the shot.

Needs Wind to Fly

When I was a little kid my mother and step-father used to take my sister and me to the then-outskirts of Reno to fly kites at the base of Rattlesnake Mountain. Writing this now, it has a go play in the highway kind of ring to it! The rattlers must have been higher up on the hill because we never saw one, and they definitely were there. I wonder if they still are. When I visited Reno last year after an eight-year gap the growth stunned me. Some things were so familiar, like the University of Nevada grounds, but the development out south of town . . . well, it is no longer a town. That's why my eyes flooded with tears when I heard a woman call it a town on the national news after the horrible slaying in January of a college girl now known to all in the community as simply "Bri." The woman said that it was terrible for Bri's family and terrible "for our town." Isn't it sad that it seems to take a tragedy, and the aftershock of continuing fear because the asshole hasn't been caught yet, to bring a community together? The Reno Police Department, who always had my respect when I lived there, has FBI assistance in the search for the killer and I am praying for them to solve the case soon.

I like to think of the wildness still around Reno, places where the wind blows free and excited kids fly kites. My inner child still roams there, still catches the scent of sagebrush in the breeze, still feels safe dreaming in the sun.

I recorded this video last year at the Oregon coast when the conditions were perfect for kite flying. My earthbound spirit soared watching them that day.