Transcript of interview with Janice and Robert Spurlock by Claytee White, June 17, 2010

An Interview with Janice and Robert Spurlock An Oral History Conducted by Claytee D. White The Boyer Early Las Vegas Oral History Project Oral History Research Center at UNLV University Libraries University of Nevada Las Vegas ©The Boyer Early Las Vegas Oral History Project University of Nevada Las Vegas, 2007 Produced by: The Oral History Research Center at UNLV - University Libraries Director: Claytee D. White Editors: Barbara Tabach and Gloria Homol Transcribers: Kristin Hicks and Laurie Boetcher Interviewers and Project Assistants: Barbara Tabach and Claytee D. White The recorded interview and transcript have been made possible through the generosity of Dr. Harold Boyer. The Oral History Research Center enables students and staff to work together with community members to generate this selection of first-person narratives. The participants in this project thank the university for the support given that allowed an idea the opportunity to flourish. The transcript received minimal editing that includes the elimination of fragments, false starts, and repetitions in order to enhance the reader's understanding of the material. All measures have been taken to preserve the style and language of the narrator. In several cases photographic sources accompany the individual interviews. The following interview is part of a series of interviews conducted under the auspices of the Boyer Early Las Vegas Oral History Project. Additional transcripts may be found under that series title. Claytee D. White, Project Director Director, Oral History Research Center University Libraries University Nevada, Las Vegas • • • 111 Table of Contents Preface Interview Index 1-33 34 iv Preface Janice and Robert Spurlock were married in 1990 and each has a lifetime of Las Vegas memories. They have made Sandy Valley home for nearly 32 years. Together the couple recalls the people and places of Las Vegas' past from their points of view during this oral history interview. For Janice the stories begin in the 1930s after her family moved to Las Vegas from California. She was a youngster of about five. Among the topics she talks about is walking to Fifth Street Grammar School, graduating from Vegas High School, and fun had during Helldorado Days. In 1953, Robert arrived. He was a young man headed from Arizona to Colorado seeking work as a welder. He stopped in Henderson, Nevada and never quite made it out of the area. For the next two decades he worked construction and helped build many local landmarks. He shares stories about the range wars and about being accidentally exposed to radiation from the Nevada Test site. ORAL HISTORY RESEARCH CENTER AT UNLV Boyer Early Las Vegas Oral History Project Use Agreement Name of Narrator: jp/A Ai' f (3 s d c~ • /<d , /'lAlreg 7) Name of Interviewer: We, the above named, give to the ()k\l History Research Center of UNLV, die recorded interview(s) inidated on an@ u J7 1^01n^as restricted gift, to be used for such scholarly and educational purpose/ as shall be determined, and transfer to the University of Nevada Las Vegas, legal title and all literary property rights including copyright. Tliis gift does not preclude the right of die interviewer, as a representative of UNLV, to use die recordings and related materials for scholarly pursuits. There will be no compensation for any interviews. Date te Signature of Narrator of Interviewer Library Special Collections 4505 Maryland Parkway, Box 457010, Las Vegas, Nevada 89154-7070 (702) 895-2222 ORAL HISTORY RESEARCH CENTER AT UNLV Boyer Early Las Vegas Oral History Project Name of Narrator: Name of Interviewer: Use Agreement ^ ^ ^ ^ ft if <3 C~ /c^ M±tbjL 7") if / re. We, the above named, give interview(s) initiated on L/ |/;i' History Research Center of UNLV, the recorded WOfQ _ as an unrestricted gift, to be used for such scholarly and educational purpose/as shall be determined, and transfer to the University of Nevada Las Vegas, legal title and all literary property rights including copyright. Tliis gift does not preclude die right of die interviewer, as a representative of UNLV, to use die recordings and related materials lor scholarly pursuits. There will be no compensation for any interviews. ^77 - Signature of Narrator Date kmMo/o Library Special Collections 4505 Maryland Parkway, Box 457010, Las Vegas, Nevada 89154-7070 (702) 895-2222 This is Claytee White. This morning it is June 17th, 2010. I am in Sandy Valley in the home of Robert and Janice Spurlock. Mr. Spurlock, could you give me your full name and spell Spurlock for me? Okay. Robert Newton Spurlock. I was born July 31 in 1924 on Walnut Creek, a cattle ranch in Tonto Basin, Arizona. My dad ran cattle all his life from when he was a kid in Texas. That's where my mother was born. I think they were married in 1905, if I remember correctly. They ranched in New Mexico and then Nevada before moving back to Arizona. I think they moved back to Arizona in around 1911. Okay, so this was in Tonto? Tonto Basin. Tonto Basin. Did you have brothers and sisters? Two brothers, both of them older. We all grew up like I say way out in the sticks. Our nearest neighbor was one of my uncles about six miles away. Then in later years some people homesteaded about two miles from us and did some dry land farming. But about everyone else in the country was occupied raising cattle. It was good cattle country back in those days. What was the work like? As a kid, taking care of the cows and the pigs and the stuff that we had around the farm. I've told many people probably the most spankings I ever got for anything, as I loved to run as a kid and we keep the milk cows in the day and turn them out at night and vice versa with the milk cows. So every morning being the youngest my job was to go out on the ridge above the house where the cattle grazed and bring in the cows. Well, when you see a wild turkey standing two and a half foot tall and strutting with his legs on the ground and gobbling and you're six or seven years old, the temptation is terrible—how my dad knew I chased those turkeys, I don't know. But he'd snatch me up and bust my rump and he'd say, leave them turkeys alone. I'd say, yep, Dad, I will—until the next morning I did it. That was almost impossible to resist chasing those wild turkeys. Now, that's different. The turkeys used to chase my younger sister. So, Janice, tell me about how you grew up and where. I was born in Glendale, California. We lived there in San Diego, California for a while when I was younger. Then we moved to Las Vegas. I was in kindergarten in Las Vegas. I went to school there. With movimnyg aroduandd when he was an electrician and a dealer and whatnot, we went where the jobs were because we weren't into the Great Depression at that time. So he got whatever jobs he could where he could. So we lived in Fallon, Gardnerville, Minden and Las Vegas, of course. I wound up in Las Vegas and 1 graduated from Las Vegas High. Did you have brothers and sisters? Yes. I have a sister and two brothers. And they're all still alive. I am the oldest. So tell me what Las Vegas was like, your first memories of Las Vegas. Oh, Las Vegas, I love Las Vegas because what is now Las Vegas Boulevard was Fifth Street back then. We lived at Fifth and Gass. I don't know if you know about Las Vegas or anything. Yes. Fifth and Gass. I could walk to school to Fifth Street Grammar School. Then like I said we moved to Fallon and I went to school there. Do you remember what Fifth Street School looked like? Yes. Could you tell me? Well, it was not a large building, one story. It was kind of a cream-colored building. It was on Fifth Street, Fifth and Gass, that area. Have you seen it since it's been renovated? It is now on the National Registry of Historic Places. I've not been inside. I've been by there. Okay, good. Robert, living like you did on a ranch, were you able to go to school as a young boy? Yes. We rode horseback over to where the post office was, a little settlement that is today called Young because of the post office. When the snow got too deep to ride horseback over there, we would get a place in town or in the valley somewhere within walking distance. And my brothers and I "bach-ed." Therefore, we all learned to cook, wash dishes and do all that culinary type of thing because we grew up doing it. You said that you and your brothers did what? "Bached." What does that mean? Well, that means we lived without parents or without anyone else. Bachelor is where it comes from, the word bachelor. Well, we were "bach-ing" to go to school in walking distance. So you lived in whose house? Any vacant place we could find. There were no rentals or anything like that until probably my last year up there. A fellow had about four or five little cottages that he rented. And before that there was no rent anywhere. It was just someplace where a homesteader didn't make it and there was a vacant house. Wow. Now, you told your son a story. Your son, Robert, told me that you knew something about some of the range wars. Well, I knew a lot of the people when I was a very young lad and they were old folks because that was years before my time. But I did know several of the people. Fred Haught was one. Henry Blevins was one and Sam Haught. I knew these people. I can't remember all their names. That's fine. Not Graham, but ~ I'm trying to think of the first guy shot there. I knew his brother quite well, the first man that was shot in the Pleasant Valley War. And I also knew the doctor that removed the bullet over in Pay son some 30 miles away that he had to ride horseback after getting shot in the back with a .30-40 rifle. So tell me who was fighting whom. Grahams and the Tewksburys primarily. But like in many skirmishes people took advantage of it. If they wanted to get rid of somebody and caught the right place and the right time, they got rid of them and laid it onto the Pleasant Valley War. I mean what were they fighting about? Sheep and cattle war. The Tewksburys joined a wealthy sheep owner who wanted to take over that country and run sheep. And where sheep graze, then cattle won't. So the fight was on just like it's going to be over water all over the country in the next few years. The battle will be on. But who gets the range or who gets the water? Here we don't have to worry about the range because it's dried up so much it's worthless. That was a great story. When did you move to the Las Vegas area? In the spring of 1953. And why was that? I was headed for Leadville, Colorado, because I had heard through the working man's grapevine that the mines up in Leadville were having all kinds of problems trying to weld some abrasive-resistant steel. And having been fairly well educated in welding, I knew how. I knew they needed somebody up there to do that. So I was headed for Leadville and I stopped to visit in Henderson. I went broke and never had money enough to leave on. How did you go broke? I didn't actually go broke, but I was encouraged to join a construction company here because of my abilities. I got into construction in '53 and I stayed with it up until about '72 I think. So what are some of the places that you worked on? Well, all of the old places in Las Vegas of any size I helped build. The convention center was one and the Tropicana, the Riviera, the Stardust and ~ Meadows Mall. Oh, yeah, Meadows Mall was one. That was kind of a funny one that was brought to mind the other day about bypassing the law. If a very high-pressure pipe is buried next to a cable, you're supposed to put sand in the bottom, put the pipe in and put sand over the top. I was up about the third or four floor at Meadows Mall working and look over the side and seen the rig moving. I thought he was draining water out of the counterweight. He was going up a steep hill. When he moved from over it, I got a bath because the water shot so high it came down on me on the third or fourth floor. You know, a high-pressure line in there with no sand, no gravel, when that rig ran over it, it busted a big rock in the pipe. So there's water shooting at least three floors high. That was enough to make you remember that job in particular. Oh, yes. What was it like to build the Riviera because that was one of the first high-rises I believe? Well, it was like in many cases a little bit perturbing to see how the contractors flaunted the building code. The fifth floor of the Riviera, maybe it was seventh, they were supposed to put rebar in the floor and all that. And they used what's called K-Lathing instead. And they were dumping concrete on it. And they put so much concrete up there it fell through. Fell through? Yeah, the whole thing fell through. Took the next floor with it down. I think that was only two it wiped out. I can't remember which floors. Fifth and sixth I think wound up on the fifth floor — or sixth and seventh I mean. It was just a lot of things like that. Some of the building that was allowed in Vegas was absolutely unbelievable. I bet an inspector that I could walk through every room on a given floor of the hotel without a tool and do it in ten minutes. And he wouldn't take me up on it because my back was hurting and I leaned against the wall like that and bent my feet way out behind me to bend my back a certain way. I went to straighten up and I broke the wall when I pushed against it. So you are saying that all of the buildings here, at that point anyway, were inferior? Well, not all of them because I didn't work on all of them. But almost every one that I did work on was. Some of them were real scary. So not up to code at all? No. No. Not even up to common sense. Wow. So what was life in Las Vegas like when you were not at work? What was it like at that time? \ Well, it was a friendly place. People seemed to care about other people more. I've told visitors from out of state, heck, I don't know anybody in town, and we go two blocks in town and somebody says, hi, Bob, four or five times. That's the way Vegas used to be. You could hardly walk down Fremont Street without meeting somebody you knew, more than likely three or four, maybe five people. Describe Fremont Street to me. And which year are we talking about? Are we talking about when you moved here in '53, that era? Yeah. In '55, '54 and in there. So describe what Fremont Street looked like. Well, it looked like the main street of many old western towns, the stores that they had. And they did have western stores here in those days because then there were a few cattle people still in the country. And you could go in and buy a pair of spurs. You could even buy horseshoes in town years ago. I bet you couldn't find a horseshoe now this side of Salt Lake City. But you could back then. And you could buy a hat or whatever you needed in the way of gear, saddles. Everything was for sale. There were saddle shops in Vegas, a couple of them. What kind of entertainment? Well, mostly western. The Strip brought in entertainers from all over the country and had a different type of show. But mostly outlying places and the places that locals mostly went ordinarily all country or western or a mixture of both. You used to have the Rat Pack here, too. Well, that was on the Strip. That wasn't out in the boonies. Oh, in the boonies. So what did the local people do for entertainment? Well, it's hard — a lot of them like myself liked to get out of town, get out in the country for entertainment. At night if you had company from out of state generally is what prompted something like that. I used to go to a good dance and hear some good country western music and meet a lot of people, like-minded. It was nearly always very friendly. Once in a while somebody would get their wires crossed and have a fistfight or something like that. But there wasn't any shootings and knifings like there is today. That was almost unheard of. So, Janice, when you came here as an adult — when did you come to Las Vegas permanently? That's what I should ask. Probably my sophomore year of high school. And I graduatedfrom Vegas High. In which year? 1949. Okay. So 1949. You're here at the same time. You're here a few years earlier. So describe to me what it was like for a young girl at that time. It was very nice. Well, you could still walk to school from where we lived. All the kids were friendly. They weren't backbiting or anything of that sort. They weren't — well, how would you call it? You could ride your horse to the grocery store, couldn't you? Oh, yeah, I did. In fact, I kept my horse just across the street from where we lived. Where did you live? I lived on Mesquite, Mesquite and Bruce. Is that in North Las Vegas? No. Well, it's kind of in the southeast. Is Bruce the same as Maryland Parkway? I don t think so. But anyway, Bruce Street and Mesquite Street. Mesquite ran east and west I guess it was. But anyway, our house was on one side of Mesquite and on the other side was the county. So I was able to keep my horse in the county. So all I had to do was walk across the street, saddle up, ride bareback or whatever, and take off and go wherever I wanted. And down below that was where all of the affluent went. What was that area called? Well, it was Las Vegas. Was it John S. Park? No. But we had John S. Park. I remember that school, but I didn 't go to it. How close were you to the John S. Park community at Bruce and Mesquite or the Huntridge, that area? It wasn 't within walking distance. I'm trying to figure out where Mesquite — I know we used to go to the Huntridge Theater. Okay. A few minutes ago you made the statement — let me see if I can remember... Oh, I know what it was. Your horse was in the county. So you couldn't have horses in the city? No. Oh, not at that time you couldn't have them in the city. But in the county you could have horses. So it was really nice. What kind of entertainment for young girls in high school? What did you do for entertainment? Well, we belonged to different clubs in the school. We would all get together and maybe go to a movie or sometimes go horseback riding. I can remember we would get together, my girlfriend and I. I would ride my horse and she had a horse that she borrowed from a friend of mine. And we would pack a lunch. And we would ride down to a stream and go swimming, have lunch and 7 then come back home. We'd spend the whole day down there. So we had a lot offun growing up. It's just too bad it's not that way now. Did you work as a young girl as well? Yes. I worked for F. W. Woolworth. I did that after school and then part-time in the summer. I was an usher at one of the theaters. I got into sign painting and painting murals. My sister started that because she worked for a bowling alley, well, actually near the Huntridge Theater, in that area. She wanted me to paint a mural in her living room. Well, then this woman that was a big shot in one of the businesses in town, she happened to see it and she wanted me to come and do murals on the bowling alley on each side of the wall. And it just went from there. Then it got into sign painting. It wound up being that I was busy from four days after Thanksgiving and up to about four days before Christmas doing Christmas windows, painting decorations on the store windows. Oh, wonderful. So what is one of your signs that you remember that you painted? Oh, there were so many of them. But I did them for service stations. Which one do you remember because you liked it? Oh. It was for a Union 16 station. That was part of downtown area. It was one of those A-frames for things that they did there. Then I wound up painting the signs that went up over the bays that they put the cars in. Did those. But it just kind of snowballed because somebody — I never advertised. Somebody would just see it and say, well, now — That's wonderful. What did you charge for that? Oh, it would be by whatever size it was. Not a lot because I called that my Christmas club account because whatever I made I spent on Christmas. And I would spend it all. And I got everything that everybody wanted. And one year I had money left over. What did you do for a living in addition to the sign painting? Did you have a regular trade or regular job? I worked for a veterinarian. One of the early veterinarians here? Yes. Who was that? 8 Dr. Phillipson. Dr. Phillipson. Great. That was at Fifth and Main. You know where they come together? Yes. Yes. Today, yes, I know exactly. Well, that's where I worked. That was my favorite job. Good. Good. Well, Robert, getting back to you, you talked about all the hotels you worked in. Now, this was in the 50s. And this is really a question I want you to think about, too, Janice. Tell me about what you remember of the Test Site, of the bombs that were tested here. Do you remember any of those explosions and seeing the blasts or anything? Yeah. I've been there. Okay. Tell me about that. Well, the first one that I remember was long before I came here. I was living in Kingman, Arizona. I think it was probably in '50. Talk a little louder. Oh. Probably around 1950. As I got out of bed one morning the whole house lit up and I felt it shake. I went and grabbed the wife and out the door. I thought there was an earthquake coming. I didn't know what had happened. I got outside and everything was quiet and still. That was the first aerial bomb they set off at the Test Site. And clear down in Kingman we got the Shockwave and the light from that bomb. That was number one. It was years later I worked at the Test Site, off and on probably ten years or more. So do you know anything about Area 51? Yes, ma'am. How much can you tell me about it? Not a lot I wouldn't think because a lot of it is probably still classified and I'm not sure which is and which isn't. But it was an extremely interesting place to work. I enjoyed it. I worked at 51 five and a half years. I enjoyed almost every day of it. Something different all the time. Not like the day-after-day punching a time card or something. So can you tell me what you did? Well, welding was my occupation, actually ironworker. We built a lot of hangars and built some towers and numerous things like that. And the hangars and the towers were used for? Well, the hangars, of course, to put airplanes in and the towers were mostly radio towers. The atmosphere up there was so — what would you call it? Everything was so secure till after you had been through all the clearances and all this, that and the other, the people you worked with were almost like your own family because everybody had been through the same bull and everybody knew everything. So it was a very pleasant place to work. We had an excellent superintendent up there for many years. All in all for a construction man you just couldn't beat it. Did you live up there or did you drive back and forth? Stayed there from Monday through Thursday, came home Friday nights for the weekend. And they had accommodations and food and everything? Oh, yes. Excellent food. What kind of living arrangements? Oh, we had first some little tiny trailers, two men to a trailer. And then later on they bought some houses somewhere and moved them in, big old houses. It was ten men to a house. That was a good arrangement because everyone had their own room and everything. There were two men to a room. But it was very convenient. And how did they serve the meals? In a mess hall, which was something of its own value you might say because the guy who was really in charge up there, he believed in feeding properly. And anytime that he came in the mess hall and found something that wasn't quite up to par, somebody got the word real quick and it was up to par. On top of that everybody's favorite up there was a little colored fellow named Murphy Green, who was the cashier. Murphy was not any bigger than you are. But when he expanded (indiscernible) to cut loose of the orders about the mess hall, everybody listened. It was like it was Murphy's own private place. You do things his way or else you hear about it. Everybody thought the world of "Murph." He kept everybody in a good mood all the time because he was a real 10 pleasant fellow himself, but then he had good thoughts. One Teamster in there one time weighed enough that they could easily have taken Murphy in one hand and held him out like that. He give Murphy a little lip and Murphy snatched him out of his chair, kicked his rear right out the door, dusted his hands, and he come back and says, there'll be no rough housing in my mess hall. So about how many people lived in Area 51? Oh, really I couldn't say because that's classified. But it was quite a bunch. And you can't tell me anything about the work? I'm afraid to because I don't know how much is still classified and what isn't. Probably most of it isn't anymore, but I've never been notified that it wasn't. I did get told many times keep your mouth shut. All righty. And I think everybody must have gotten the same information because nobody talks about it. They all got the same thing. So when you would drive back and forth from Las Vegas up there, did you car pool or did you have your own car up there? From out here I had to drive by myself most of the time. So were you living in Sandy Valley at the time that you were -- so how long have you lived in Sandy Valley? Since 1958, the first day of January. So you only lived in Las Vegas for five years? Yes. So where in Las Vegas did you live when you lived in the city? I didn't live in the city of Vegas. I lived out in Henderson. I bought a place on the road that goes down towards the lake and lived in Henderson, which beat living in Vegas a little bit because it was more country life. But it wasn't enough. Out here was far better. How did you find Sandy Valley? Because of a couple of drunks. They had been down to Los Angeles to the union hall. Of course, being out there without supervision, they got their noses wet. And then one of them wanted to show the other some property he had inherited. And they came through Sandy Valley and got 11 stuck because there was no blacktop here. It was just dirt. And they got their car buried and liked to starve to death before a farmer came along and got them out. And I overheard their conversation the next day on the job or the following Monday. And I decided I better come and find that place that was so isolated. When I saw it I said, that's it right there. Well, so what was out here at that time in 1958? What did it look like out here? A whole bunch of vacant land. A whole bunch of it. So were there any houses, schoolhouses, anything? No, there were no houses. I can't think of — well, there was, let's see, one, two, three, four. On the California side was four houses. The old mill that you passed over here was here at that time. There was a house there. And there was a little, tiny house on the mining clave further on down the road. I guess that's all the houses that were here. Wow. So how close am I to the California line? Within a pistol shot. So is that a couple of miles? Oh, not hardly. It's about, oh, probably 600 yards. Oh, really? I'm that close. When you crossed the runway down here, you were only about 50 yards this side of California. So right there at the runway? Yeah, where you crossed the runway and turned on Geronimo. Yes. Well, you were within 50, 60 yards of California. So is this your original piece of property in 1958? No. It's over on the other side of Cherokee Street. Okay. I saw Cherokee Street. Yeah. That's the last street on the east side of the valley. That was 200 acres of land that I could squeeze by and bought range to go with it to run cattle. This place at that time was part of my range to run cattle on. There was nothing here, absolutely nothing. There was no road that came up through here. Why after being a welder and working and probably making really good money, why did 12 you want to run cattle again? Because that's what I was raised to do I guess. That's the only thing I really knew. And I learned to weld because of the economics of the country because when I started welding in the late 30s, it was hard for anybody out in the country to make more than 35, $40 a month, not a week, but a month. And cowboying didn't pay. I was the highest paid cowboy on the last ranch I worked on before going in the army because I rode the bucking horses. And that was 14, 16 hours a day, seven days a week. It paid a grand total of $45 a month. So you were in the military, then, during World War II? Yes. Did you see action? Yes, ma'am. Where were you? North Africa and Italy and France, Germany and Austria. Wow. What were some of your memories about World War II? Cold and wet, mostly. In Europe it seemed like if it didn't rain every day, it rained every other day. And we went for months on end you were never really warm or dry. Your clothes would mold and your blanket would mold and everything you had smelled like mold. And it got awfully, awfully old. So, Janice, let's come back to you and let's talk some more about Las Vegas. So you were telling me about some of your jobs. You were getting ready to tell me about your favorite job. I waws orking for a veterinarian, Dr. Phillipson. So tell me what that work was like. Well, it was something I enjoyed doing because I could handle the animals. I wasn't afraid of any of them. In fact, the veterinarian himself wouldn't go and get one animal, a Kerry Blue, big dog, out of the kennel, but I would go get him. And I would do it in a hurry because I would open the door to the cage and I'd reach in there and pull him up, just boom, like that, put the leash on him and take him out to the run. But it was a job that I enjoyed. I got along very well with animals. I wasn't afraid of them. And it seems like animals can sense when you're afraid of them. You put 13 off an odor or something. Yeah, because I do it around animals, whatever that is. And so I've always been that way, just handled animals. Like I said sometimes Ifelt like I would almost pay Dr. Phillipson to work there I liked it so much. But that was my favorite job. Did you ever work in the casino industry? Yes. What kind of work? I was a cocktail waitress. Oh, really? Tell me about that. Well, it was something that I enjoyed, too. I got along very well with the bosses. Where did you work? At Binion's Horseshoe. Did you know any of the Binion family? Oh, yes, very well. What was that family like when it comes to getting along with the public? They got along with the public very well. Give me some examples. Well, there was only one I guess that was kind of a loner, but most of them did. They had about five kids. The youngest one, I don't know if she's handling the casino now or not. In the parades you'd see them all lined up in the parade. I rode in the parade, too, the Helldorado parade. Tell me about Helldorado. Well, the Helldorado Days is years and years ago when they had the old Helldorado Village. That was on Fifth Street. That was a lot of fun. Tell me some of the things that you did. Do you remember Shmoo? Do you remember Shmoo? I don't know. It was almost like a fgure like this. We had a sign, well, a front made like a Shmoo like this for the Helldorado at the Helldorado Village. There was a cutout place like this and we served 14 Shmoo juice. What was Shmoo juice? What was it made out of it? Oh, it was more like a pop. And the shape that you did is like an eight almost. A Shmoo was almost a ghost in the old funny papers some years ago capable of anything. Whatever was good, a Shmoo could do it. And whatever was bad, the Shmoos would fight it. It was a comic strip many, many years ago. I was just thinking you're giving your age away when you talk about Shmoo because people don't know. That's right. But it was popular enough that people picked up on it. And anything that was good, it was Shmoo juice or it was a Shmoo something else because it was good. And in the life of the Shmoo, they only had the very good things in life and they fought everything else. Okay. So getting back to Helldorado, do you remember the Helldorado parades when the casinos participated? Oh, yes. So explain the parades to me, the different parades each year.