Transcript of interview with Patricia "Pat" Marchese and Lamar Marchese by Stefani Evans and Claytee White, February 7, 2017

i AN INTERVIEW WITH PATRICIA "PAT" MARCHESE AND LAMAR MARCHESE An Oral History Conducted by Stefani Evans and Claytee D. White The Building Las Vegas Oral History Project Oral History Research Center at UNLV University Libraries University of Nevada Las Vegas ii ©The Building Las Vegas Oral History Project University of Nevada Las Vegas, 2017 Produced by: The Oral History Research Center at UNLV University Libraries Director: Claytee D. White Editor: Stefani Evans Transcribers: Kristin Hicks, Frances Smith Interviewers: Stefani Evans and Claytee D. White Project Manager: Stefani Evans iii The recorded interview and transcript have been made possible through the generosity of the UNLV University Libraries. 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 and 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 Building Las Vegas Oral History Project. Claytee D. White Director, Oral History Research Center University Libraries University Nevada, Las Vegas iv PREFACE Southern Nevada got lucky in 1972. That's when library director Charles Hunsberger reached out to Kentucky to recruit Lamar Marchese, a tech-and-media-savvy non-librarian to take charge of Clark County Library District programming. Because Lamar Marchese agreed to take the job and bring his wife, Pat, with him, Southern Nevada residents now enjoy two public radio stations founded and nurtured by Lamar and an award-winning youth theater company started by Pat and state-of-the-art Clark County park facilities developed by Pat. Additionally and over time, City of Las Vegas and Clark County residents benefitted from Pat's cultural programming in art, dance, music, and theater. In this interview, the cultural power couple recall their early impressions of Las Vegas, their beloved Ninth Street house built by Marion Earl, and the changes that caused them to move when spot zoning destroyed their close-knit downtown neighborhood. Lamar speaks of the founding of public radio KNPR and KCNV, of finding studio space, of obtaining grant money to build on the campus of the (now) College of Southern Nevada, and of acquiring the Peter Shire sculpture that graces the front of the studio. He talks about the vision of Charles Hunsberger, of Hunsberger's fall, and of politically appointed boards of trustees. Pat shares her experience of meeting people in a babysitting co-op and the UNLV Art Department, getting her UNLV Master's degree in public administration, and her work in cultural v programming with the City of Las Vegas and with Clark County. She speaks of creating gallery, classroom, and performing space at the City's Reed Whipple building and the Charleston Heights Art Center; of founding the Rainbow Company Youth Theatre; of developing Clark County's Desert Breeze Park, Flamingo Senior Center, and the Wetlands, among others; of placing exhibits of the Clark County Museum at McCarran International Airport; of the Public Arts Commission, the Airport Arts Commission, the Allied Arts Council, and of developing Community Development Block Grant programs for the City of Las Vegas and Clark County. Throughout the interview, Pat and Lamar Marchese exemplify why Southern Nevada got lucky in 1972. As the duo grew in their knowledge of and passion for the arts, they also honed their skills at bringing the arts to the public. And we, the Southern Nevada public, continue to benefit as their legacies live on through public radio, community arts programming, and useful and accessible parks. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Interview with Patricia "Pat" Marchese and Lamar Marchese February 7, 2017 in Las Vegas, Nevada Conducted by Stefani Evans and Claytee D. White Preface…………………………………………………………………………………………...………..iv Las Vegas 1972; UNLV Art Department; City/County zoning; Poplar Avenue house; Ninth Street house, Marion Earl, fireplace, neighborhood, Al Levy, and spot zoning. Golden Goose casino, Pat's mother, and current house ………………………………..……………………………………………..……….…. 1–20 Clark County Library District and Charles Hunsberger. Kentucky, Las Vegas, Library District programming, Las Vegas Clark County Library District consolidation, and Hunsberger's vision. Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Kurt Schultz, Nevada Public Radio Corporation 1975, and Willi Baer. Federal Communications Commission and licensing; KNPR call letters, U.S. Coast Guard, and Frank Mankiewicz; studio space, Musicians Union Local 369, Showboat Hotel and Casino ……….……. 20–40 Programming, professionalization, news and classical music, and second frequency KCNV; Nevada Public Broadcasting Association and state money, credit line, and on-air solicitations. City of Las Vegas cultural superintendent, Reed Whipple building, and Rainbow Company Youth Theatre. Nevada State Council of the Arts and muralist Bob Beckman. Charleston Heights Art Center and Public Arts Commission. Allied Arts Council, Community Development Block Grant programs with City of Las Vegas and Clark County; Clark County Town Services; Clark County lobbyist. Mike Saltman, event planning …………..…. 40–59 Clark County cultural programming and parks, Jazz in the Park, Pat Gaffey, Las Vegas Blues Society, and Wetlands. B.B. King, Jimmy Carter, and pledge drive and Steve Wynn. Clark County Museum, McCarran International Airport exhibits, and Airport Art Commission. KNPR and Control Tower sculpture by Peter Shire. Bob Broadbent and the arts; Pat Shalmy, Jacob Snow, and Randy Walker. Vision for the Cultural Corridor: Reed Whipple, the Library, Lied Discovery Children's Museum, Cashman Center, the Neon Museum, and the Mormon Fort. Clark County commissioner Erin Kenny and Desert Breeze Park. Las Vegas-Clark County Library District, Charles Hunsberger, board of trustees, library staff, and Teamster's Union Local 14..…………………………………………………………………………………..…. 59–74 Southern Nevada Public Lands Management Act (SNPLMA), Bureau of Land Management (BLM), and Clark County parks. KNPR, Richard Moore, and Clark County Community College 1999. Studio, Bill Laub, Fred Smith, the Reynolds Foundation, and $4.5 million grant; $2 million endowment and recession. Arts community and Pat Gaffey. Don Reynolds, Channel 3, and FCC. Thomas Thomas, Roger Thomas and Peter Shire ..…………………………………………………………………………………………..74–92 vii viii 1 Good morning. This is [February 7, 2017, and] Stefani Evans and Claytee White are with Pat and Lamar Marchese. This is the second interview that you have done. You did another one for Early Las Vegas in...What year was that? Two thousand eight. Two thousand eight. I just looked it up. Here is the book. Oh, perfect. So since the details of your childhoods haven't changed since 2008, we're going to skip that part. I'd like to take off on a couple of things that you touched on in that interview. So you arrived in Las Vegas in 1972. Where did you first live? Where did you first move to when you came here? LAMAR: We lived in an apartment complex that was over on... PAT: Behind Roy Martin School. It was at Eastern [Avenue]... Yes, Eastern and Bonanza [Road]. Yes, okay. Now it's the barrio, but then it was sort of just affordable [housing]. The apartments were large. We wound up renting a place there. A colleague of mine, Jane Richardson, had just got to the library—we worked for the [Clark County Library District] at the same time. Jane was a single mom. Jane and I sort of met at the library because we got there at the same time. [Pat and] I were at a motel on Boulder Highway for a week or so looking for a place to stay. She and her son, Robbie, wound up renting there, too. So Jane was right next to us. Peter was a baby; our son was one, and Robbie was five of six. But as they grew up together, they would play a little bit together. I can't remember the name of the complex, but it's still there. 2 Cedar something. It could be. It was named after trees, but I can't remember which one. So it was an apartment complex, and we lived there for just a couple of years until we got ourselves oriented to where things were, where we wanted to be, and whatever. What was your first impression of this place? You talked about it a little bit. I came kicking and screaming. We came in a U-Haul truck with a baby with the world's worst diaper rash. I was reading Hunter Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, which was in Rolling Stone magazine at the time, and I kept saying to him, "Turn around; turn around." "This is crazy." And also we had come from Kentucky, where it was very lush and green and beautiful. The desert is also very beautiful, but I think if you've lived in lush, you have to get used to the kind of beauty that's here. It's an acquired taste. Yes. How about you, Lamar? Well, I had a different perspective. I grew up in cowboy-movie times, when we would go to the movies. We had a little theater, the Seminole Theater, our local theater when we lived in Tampa. It was within walking distance. So every Saturday they played cowboy movies that were always shot in the West. There were always mountains and big stones and desert. I wanted to go there when I was a kid, so I thought it was pretty cool because it was the desert. So did you think you were going to see cowboys? Well, we did see a few. No, not really. But it was the West. We had lived in the South. We grew 3 up in Florida. We lived in Kentucky; we lived in West Virginia. Those were all places where people really wanted to know who you were, who your family was, where you went to school; all that kind of stuff. Nobody gave a damn about that here. Nobody cared where you were from, what you did. They wanted to know, Can you do it? Can you do what you say you're going to do? If you want to do something, you can do it; nobody's going to stop you from doing it. I liked that. I liked that it was sort of a "live and let live" kind of tolerance here, much more so than I felt growing up in the South. If I might butt in? Sure. You always do. No, you're the one. It was so small and new. Lamar one time said, "You know, if we had stayed in Florida or somewhere on the East Coast, we would never be able to be on the symphony board or this, that, and the other, because all the seats would be taken." And he said, "But here we can start the symphony." And we did. So when somebody back East asks you your name and where you went to school, that's code for where they're going to place you in a social hierarchy and where they're going to assign your worth? Yes, yes. I think that's definitely true, but I think here, because it's the West, and because everybody was pretty much from somewhere else— That didn't hold here? Yes, that didn't hold here. You had the ability to rise above your social status whether you were born into... We were both in the arts, so we knew we knew the governor. We knew the senators. We knew the assemblymen. We knew the city council people. We just knew them because we bumped into them all the time at various events. So you felt like you had more to say about what 4 was going on in the state because you had a voice. It was real easy to pick up the phone and talk with somebody. You could call them. So I liked it. I really liked it. I liked the ability here to be what you wanted to be, do what you wanted to do, and to not worry about your family—we didn't have any family here; they were all back home—or where you went to school; none of that stuff. It didn't matter. I was sort of a snob about school. I went to undergraduate school at USF in Florida, and then we came here. After I worked for the City [of Las Vegas] for a while, I took a job with [Clark] County. The guy who was the County manager, Bruce Spalding, said to me after I had been there about a year, he said, "Okay, Marchese, you have to go and get your master's." And I said, "Where?" And he said, "UNLV." I said, "Oh, come on, Bruce." He was from New England. I said, "Come on, that's not a real school." And he said, "That's where I got my master's degree." And I said, "Okay, I'm on it." Well done. Is that where you got your master's then? Yes, in public administration. When we first got here, Pat didn't have a job, and I was working. She had a baby at home and she didn't have any family here. She didn't have any friends here. So for her it was much harder, I think, initially. The first couple of years she just did not want to be here. She hated it. It was tough, because she just did not like being here. Then when Peter got old enough that she could leave [him during the day], she got a job, and then she had contacts. It was different. It changed. So I think she changed over time. But that first couple of years, she did not like Las Vegas. Well, before I got a job, I went to the university. I had been doing art, print editing, in Kentucky. So I went to the university and I was taking classes there. I met Tom Holder, who at the time was the head of the Art Department, I think. Anyway, so I got into the art scene through that door. 5 When I finally went to work, it was to start the Cultural Division at the City. So at least you knew people you could talk to and at least speak the same language with. Exactly, right. Well, actually, it's funny that our first circle of friends was this baby-sitting co-op that was part of La Leche League, wasn't it? No. The people that were in it were La Leche followers, but it was a baby-sitting co-op. She was nursing Peter, our son. So we found out about this baby-sitting co-op. The idea was instead of having to pay somebody to baby-sit your child, they had this system. For every hour that they baby-sat [your child], you got a demerit, and for every hour you baby-sat for somebody, you got a merit. So you had this merit system. So thefirst people that we met here were people that had young children like Peter was. So you could have them baby-sit for you and actually sometimes she'd be nursing somebody else's child and they'd be nursing Peter. That was our first circle of friends were those people that we met. Kitty Heckendorf. Right. In fact, Bruce Spalding, the guy I just talked about, was in the baby-sitting co-op and that's how I met him. So it was through the co-op that you got your first job? No. I went to work for Bruce when he was County manager. When I went to the City, it was an open application. Who was mayor then? Was it [Bill] Briare? No, Gragson. Oran Gragson, yes. He was the first mayor when we first got here. I've been here forever. So what was the population here when you came? About two hundred thousand in the County. 6 Two hundred and fifty thousand; that was countywide though. So it would have been Mesquite and Bunkerville and all those places too. But two hundred thousand, probably, for the City. For the greater area. Yes. So it was tiny. Where we are now was desert. You know the seafood restaurant on Charleston? You're talking about the catfish one? Hush Puppy. Hush Puppy, yes. That was the end of civilization. That restaurant was the last place, and everything from there to Red Rock Canyon was desert. When did that place open? It was here when we got here. I don't know. But that was the last outpost of civilization. Where we were, when the [Clark County] Library was on Flamingo Road, there was a furniture store across the street. There was a bar. Are you going east or west? Going east from the library there was a furniture store across the street and there was a bar on this end, there was a bar down on the other end between there and Eastern. We were in between Maryland Parkway and Eastern. So there was hardly anything on that street. Then Tropicana [Avenue], there was hardly anything on Tropicana. That was '72. The university was there, of course, but not much on Tropicana; there was a Mexican restaurant we used go to. On Tropicana? Tropicana, right. We came in '80 and at that time Sahara Avenue paving ended at Jones [Boulevard]. 7 Yes, right. Do you remember how far west it went in '72? About the same, because I remember a guy named Don Kemp, who used to own Southern Nevada Music. He had a house on Santa Margarita [Street], which is a few blocks over. I remember he did an event to raise money for the radio station; he was a supporter. I remember going out to his house and he had a music room. I'm thinking, where is this place? And you had to go on a dirt road? On these dirt roads and— When we moved to this house, this street wasn't paved. That was in '92. We bought this house in '92. There were no streetlights, no sidewalks. Oh, really? It's still that way, except now the road is paved. But, yes, this area is still zoned as RE, Rural Estates. So there are no streetlights, no curbs and gutters, and no sewer. We're on septic tank. There were a number of people that had horses—not in this house, but on the road. Yes, when we first moved here we used to see people riding up and down the street on horses; roadrunners, too. You don't see any roadrunners anymore. We used to have roadrunners. Yes, no roadrunners any more. They're gone. We lived at Oakey and Jones [boulevards] in a cul-de-sac. Everything was County except our cul-de-sac—for some things, but not for other things. These little doughnuts of City property versus County, yes. 8 Yes. I can't remember which we were or which we weren't. In general the City was, I believe, Sahara on up. Right. Except. Except for the little doughnuts. So was this that way, or was this pretty much County for everything? This? Oh, yes, this is County. When we came here this was the unincorporated Town of Spring Valley, which has a town advisory board, but is mainly run by the County commission. So where did you move to after the apartment? Oh, after the apartment, we moved to a little duplex off of St. Louis [Avenue] near... Fifteenth Street. Fifteenth and St. Louis, right. It was a duplex. It had a swamp cooler. It didn't have an air conditioner, but it had lots of shade. So it was not too bad for the heat. We lived there a couple of years. Then we bought the house on Poplar [Avenue], our first house. What was that address? It was on Poplar right off of [Bruce Street]—it's east side of town. It's between Bonanza and Eastern. And that was in the City of Las Vegas? Yes, that was in the City, yes. That was our first house. We lived there for some years. Pat loves houses, and she loves to decorate houses. Her idea of a Sunday afternoon was to cruise down Sixth and Seventh and Eighth and Ninth streets in downtown— Yes. And they were all residences then. And just go, "Oh." I know. I know. 9 Yes, neat old houses. She would look at the for-sale signs and call up real estate agents and whatever. What had happened with the Poplar house was that they decided they were going to build the I-515 freeway. It was going to be elevated, and it was going to be two blocks behind our house. So we were refugees from there, because we didn't want the noise of having a freeway zipping past our house at all hours, like two blocks away. And the look of it. Yes. So we started looking for a place to live outside from the Poplar house and we found the house on Ninth Street. Sammy Davis, Jr's drummer's house. Really? Yes, at the time. What was that address? Do you remember that one? Yes, 624 South Ninth Street. It was in between Garces [Avenue] and...What's the other street? Bonneville [Avenue]. Garces and Bonneville, right. Oh, what a great neighborhood. Oh, it was wonderful. When we moved there the house was owned by, then, this guy who was Sammy Davis, Jr's drummer. So we went and we were looking at houses. The whole house was full of drums of all kinds and sizes. It actually was built by and owned by Marion Earl—if you know of Marion Earl—who was a very early Mormon attorney. He was practicing until he was like ninety-five. Yes, until he was in his nineties. 10 So it only had two owners? Yes, I think so. It was Marion Earl that sold it to [the drummer], and he was leaving town and was selling it. Pat had always loved that section of town, and it was a great old house. It was built in the thirties, like '33 or '34. Marion Earl got the architect to build it. That was the first suburb of Las Vegas. It started out at First, Second and Third streets, downtown. Then they built Las Vegas High School, way out there. Remember, "way out there?" On Ninth Street. Yes, it's right there on Ninth Street. And the Mormon Church Library was right down there. Yes, the Mormon Church Library was right there. This house was built in the thirties—stucco walls, some Art Deco touches, all hardwood floors. It had a basement. A pink marble fireplace. I'll tell you a funny story about that. Anyway, it was a great house and we were very fortunate to be able to buy it. Julie had just—that was '70. [To Julie:] You were born in '79, right? So I think we moved there the year you were born because I think you were born at the Poplar house in August— JULIE: I was born in March. I mean, March. We moved in August. So you were only there a couple of months. No, I know when you were born. I was there. Barely. What do you mean? I was there. So anyway, we moved into the Ninth Street house. When we moved there it was all residential. Everybody knew everybody. Our neighbors next door brought us over a chocolate cake to welcome us to the neighborhood. The man from across the street 11 came over and introduced himself, Joe Thiriot. Who, you probably know, was a teacher at Vegas High School. He was a long-time teacher at Vegas High School, Joe Thiriot. He lived to be a hundred. And the people right next to us were the Pappas [family], who started Fifth Street Liquor. Sort of catty-corner was Solange [Benedetti] D'Hooghe, who was a woman who lived by herself but was an airplane pilot. During World War II she was a woman pilot that would ferry planes from the factory. She would fly down to Brazil and then fly over to Africa and then drop the planes off. So she did that. They were a ferry service that women were— She was a pilot. Yes, she was a woman pilot. So it was a great neighborhood. I think one of the newspapers did a feature on her decades ago. I don't know if that's worth going after. Then to the left of us were the in-laws of James Santini. In fact, Mrs. Santini was the one that told me the story about the fireplace. No, they weren't Santinis. They were the in-laws of the Santinis. Remember their names? The people who lived there when I was growing up? The Hardys. No, that was her granddaughter. Oh, the Cranes. The Cranes, right. Right, yes, the Cranes. Thank you. I knew you were good for something. So Mrs. Crane told me that when Marion Earl bought the house, his wife decided that she 12 wanted to do something really spectacular with the fireplace. So she sent away to Italy and got Italian marble, pink with gray and white slurs through it and all that kind of stuff. But when it came she stuck it under her bed because by that time she was scared her husband was going to be mad that she bought it. And she didn't tell him. Right. So Mrs. Crane said, oh, about a year later she told him about it and they put it up. Oh, that's funny. Yes. It was a great house. Nice neighborhood, too. Yes, and the neighborhood was nice, but that was in '79. Then what happened is they started doing this spot zoning. The City started talking about doing spot zoning. It was a really tough time for me, because the first person that asked for an exception to the residential, to turn a house into an office, was Dave Cooper. He had an advertising agency called Cooper Burch and Howe, and they wanted to move into this house on Seventh Street. He was the chairman of the board of directors of the [KNPR] radio station at the time. So I had to have this discussion with him. I said, "David, I know that this is going to be tough, but once they let your [business] in, everybody is in. So I'm going to oppose everything that you're trying to do, because I don't want the neighborhood to turn into..." What it's turned into. So every time they would have a zoning commission meeting, every time they would have anything to do with it, I was there with people in the neighborhood to protest. We kept them out. He actually bought that house. We kept him out of that house for like a year or two, because they wouldn't allow the zoning change. Finally with the help of a City councilman by the name of Al Levy who happened to be a Realtor— Let's cap on Al Levy for posterity right now. 13 Well, he happened to be a Realtor and was on the City council. It was not right for him to do. So once they let David in, then people started selling their houses because they could get a lot more money selling their houses to residents. So over the years it started to change. I'll tell you a funny story. Julie was a little girl, and we took her to a zoning commission meeting. Julie's always been very forward. So she said to me, "Daddy, Daddy, can I talk?" And I said, "Sure." She was like five or six. So she goes to the microphone. She says, "When I go trick-or-treating at those places that aren't houses, nobody comes to the door and gives me candy." See, I would have thought that sealed the deal, but no. Me too. They all thought it was the most precious thing and then voted against us. Well, Al Levy had people that worked for him go through the neighborhood and give them this little talk about how, "Well, you know, if [the zoning] changes to Professional and somebody buys your house, you're going to get a lot more money," and blah, blah, blah. I threw them off my front porch, because I thought that was very inappropriate, because real estate was his business. That's part of the cronyism of those early days, too. There was a lot of that going on. So anyway, we lived in the house from 1979, and we lived there until 1992, and during that period of time we were robbed four times, burglarized. So you lived there as long as you could. Yes. I said, "Look, I'm just not going to put up bars on the windows. I'm not going to get a German shepherd. I'm not going to fence the yard. I'm going to move." And Otis [the dog] wasn't scaring anybody. 14 No, he wasn't. He wasn't even with us yet. Pat hated [moving], because she loved that house; we all loved that house. I would have hated it to leave it, too. Pat's father, Walter died, so we were looking. Pat's mom had moved out here to be with us after her husband died. She was by herself in Tampa, so she would come out and visit and stay for a while; then she would go back, and then she would come and visit. So finally she said, "I'm going to just come out." So she wound up selling the house in Tampa and moving out. This is when she was still young enough and healthy enough to have a job. She got a job—she loved this—she loved to play slot machines, so she got a job as a slot shill. CLAYTEE: I love that. At the Golden Goose Casino downtown. Right. They would put her right in the doorway, where people could walk by. There were no doors and [people] could see that she was playing. She was lucky. So she would win all the time and people would say, "Oh, I'm going there." And she was enthusiastic. Oh, how cute. Yes, she was a slot shill. She didn't get it to keep, though, but she did get a salary. She did get to play, and she got to win money. And she got to do what she liked to do. Exactly, exactly. Then when we lived on Poplar, right down the end of the block was a Winchell's Donuts. She 15 also worked at Winchell's. That was great, because we got to go and get doughnuts. The kids thought that was her best job ever. Where was the Golden Goose? Those little casinos on the first block of— It's not still there? I don't know. In that first block of Fremont Street right by where the Las Vegas Club is, there was a line of these little casinos, and one was called the Golden Goose. [Sassy] Sally and Vegas Vic; that big sign was there. They were just slot parlors, basically. They had no table games. They had no restaurants. They were [wide] open, so there was no door. It was just an open space and rows of slot machines going back into the interior of the building. She worked at, I think, the Golden Goose. I'm sure it's not there anymore. If it's not maybe the sign is at the museum. It was the same block that Vegas Vic is on, that first block of Fremont Street. On the same side of the street? No, the other side of the street. Yes, I think it was on the north side of the street. Yes, the other side of the street from Vegas Vic. But anyway, we were looking, like I was talking about. We were moving from Ninth Street. Pat's mom was getting older and was having some health problems. So we wanted to find a place where she could live with us, but not live with us in the house. We were looking for a house that had a casita. So we looked around town. We found this place. It was built in '79, and it had a casita. The casita was right next door on the other side of the property there. 16 It was perfect. She liked the privacy and, yet, being right next door to us. So she was independent, but close by. Yes, she was right outside our door. So when she gave up driving and wanted to go grocery shopping, we would take her grocery shopping or to the doctor or wherever she wanted to go. She lived there until she died. It was empty for a while. We now rent it to a guy who used to work for me at the radio station. We have a deal with him. When we retired we bought a house in Florida at the beach, near where I lived in Tampa. It's on the West Coast there, on a little island called Sand Key. So we live half the year there. So when we're in Florida, our tenant, Jay, takes care of our house; we reduce his rent, and he takes care of the property for us. He's very conscientious. So it really works. Then when we were on our six-month around-the-world cruise, he took care of Otis, too. Usually we take Otis with us, but we couldn't take Otis on the boat. So we asked Jay and he said, "Oh, sure." Jay loves Otis and Otis loves Jay. So it was perfect. In fact, he told Julie the other day that he's now volunteering at the Animal Foundation, and he's doing that because he missed Otis. So how did you feel moving from your very tight-knit [downtown] neighborhood? Even though it had changed around you, you still had close neighbors, sidewalks. To— Sprawling. —this neighborhood that was dirt? I mean, you couldn't really walk from house to house without going on dirt. Yes. We've been living here since 1992, and we don't know the people next door. We know people across the street, and we know the people on that side have moved in and out fourteen times. So we don't know who they are. So we don't know anybody. Except we know the 17 Standishes across the street. So that's kind of weird. It's typical weird Vegas. These houses are half-acre properties. So they're big. So you're not right next door to people like you are in the City, where you have more contact with them. So you don't see people. Peter was in high school or the beginning of college when we moved here, and Julie was in junior high. So we had a pool. They had friends that came over and all that kind of stuff. So that made it feel much more homey. But I never liked this house as much as I liked the one on Ninth Street. When we got here there was a different wallpaper in every room. There was a different rug in every room, avocado green versus brown versus pink. Yes, every room. Flocked wallpaper in the bathrooms. So it was still very Vegas, very seventies. Oh, very seventies, right. Well, that's her favorite time [gestures toward Julie]. I like that stuff. She goes off to college and gets an apartment and makes it look like the seventies. I love what you've done to this kitchen/dining area where we're sitting. Thank you. Thank you. In fairness, all these cabinets were made by the people that owned this house. He was a fireman. So he had a lot of time. He did a beautiful job. He did. There's some in the other room, too. That was all built-in. But w