Work of Art

Ever had chills up and down your spine? I used to think it was a myth — until I saw the famous pea-soup scene in “The Exorcist,” when Regan, the possessed child, decorated Father Damien Karras’s face with it.

That was in the early ‘70s, long before VCRs or DVDs, when we needed to go to a movie house, rather than view the film at home. Well, the second time, many years later, I enjoyed it at home, with selected members of the family — never my wife, who refuses to watch anything violent. With remote in hand, I prepped myself: “Self, you know what’s coming, and besides, you’ve got it on a small screen.”

Did that bit of homespun psychology work? Absolutely not! If anything, the shock I felt in my spine was more intense than the first time. Read the rest of this entry »

“You must’ve been such a happy family. All your movies prove it.”

That often came from people who sat through our home movies that showed us opening Christmas gifts sometime back in the ‘40s. Movies don’t lie, but they do exaggerate and can be manipulated.

Need proof? Well, all of the movies of us Trujillos show us much mirthier, earthier and girthier than we really were. Back then. But now, if we take the time to view those pre-historic flicks, we appear quite slim. See? The exaggeration works both ways.

The “Leave-It-To-Beaver” image of us was partly an illusion. Of course, love and warmth abounded, but when you have just minutes to make a good impression, things change. Read the rest of this entry »

The news that Community First Bank plans to move part of its operation to the Crocket Building has drawn attention.

Will the move itself revitalize downtown Las Vegas? We can hope. Irrespective of that, it’s great the bank’s owners, Ray and Joyce Litherland, chose to keep the bank downtown.

To many of us, the Crocket Building means a lot. For the uninitiated, we’re referring to the Murphey’s Building. For many years, that was the center of New Town. Ernie Thwaites, the original manager of KFUN, used to run a live radio spot: “Douglas at Sixth Street, where Las Vegans meet.”

So it was. That was the downtown I knew while growing up.

Let me explain: Read the rest of this entry »

Several people commented on the piece about the demolition of Mortimer Hall, the Highlands building at Eighth and National that was cleared to make room for a new student center. In that building, as mentioned in a previous column, was “The Door.” On it I kept humorous headlines from various newspapers.

In one move around Mortimer Hall, it was easier to move the entire door to a new location than to apply an Exacto knife to remove the clippings. But let’s be clear: The door was of the standard institutional variety, and it held up pounds of profundity.

One headline that I overlooked last time read simply, “Babies are what mothers eat.”

One reader, Cathy Stauber, mentioned rolling on the floor after reading some of the strange headlines in that column. Stauber, a naturopathic physician, ought to know more than anyone the benefits of a good belly laugh, one in which the laugher rolls on the floor. Read the rest of this entry »

It was wonderful yesterday writing about how next year’s Super Bowl will feature the Oakland Raiders pummeling Dallas by about 87 to 3. Yet, family members who realize I bleed Raiders black and gray interrupted the joy; this column needs to be about this year’s Super Bowl. Or so they say.

Nevertheless, I wanted to convince family members that the Raiders will be in the big game next year. So I asked around:

• Oldest son Stan: No particular interest.
• Middle son Diego (Tennessee Titans fan): Raiders don’t deserve it.
• Youngest son Ben (New York Giants fan): See above.
• Daughter-in-law Connie (Seattle Seahawks fan): See above again.
• Daughter-in-law Heather (Arizona Cardinals fan): See above yet again.
• Grandson and namesake Arthur Roland (Titans fan): See above one more time.

Read the rest of this entry »

Remember the fun we had two years ago with the letters on the marquee at the off-again, off-again running of the Serf Theater?

To review: Some time after the airing of “No Country for Old Men,” the management had a showing of “In Her Shoes,” starring Cameron Diaz. It was a flick my wife Bonnie and I practically slept through. The first rule of movie-watcherdom is to have a person we can admire, whom we can identify with, but in this movie, there were none. But I’m not a movie critic, so back to the marquee.

Certain unnamed people had fun playing marquee “Boggle” with the letters. The rule was to rearrange all the letters of In Her Shoes to create a different message. Someone waited until Easter to come up with “O He’s Risen.” Others were “Heroes Shine,” “Her Hose Sin,” “She’s Heroin” and “Hi, He Snores.” Read the rest of this entry »

As huge scoops of rock, mortar, wood and glass were loaded into waiting dump trucks yesterday, I waved goodbye.

It’s gone. Mortimer Hall, my home away from home for about 25 years — its parts being hauled off to a landfill somewhere — has been razed, with surprising speed, to make room for the new student center.

The Eighth-and-National location is perfect, but it was a mistake ever to move the old Student Union Building away from its long-time spot, across from Ilfeld Auditorium. And it was a bigger mistake to locate it in Siberia, a.k.a. Baca Avenue, across from the football field.

Because people don’t walk much anymore, the new location, Eighth and National, will be about as central as a building on campus can be. Mortimer Hall was erected in the early ‘50s and named after a local physician and Highlands regent, H.M. Mortimer. It began as a men’s dorm, then became a classroom and faculty office building. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s always been fun to play with the language. Rather than being a drudge, English can be fascinating. It is to me.

Let me explain: Several years ago, I served on a committee charged with the hiring of the editor for La Mecha, Highlands’ weekly newspaper. One of the applicants was Eva, an Austrian-born woman who spoke English, Spanish, German and French. She’d been my student in several journalism courses, and naturally, I recommended her. I told the group that Eva was a polyglot.

Well, that drew umbrage from one of the student members, a man just a few years younger than I. He used a line straight from Thumper in the 1942 movie, “Bambi” — “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.” Read the rest of this entry »

With 2010 coming up, we wonder what changes we can expect. And if there are changes, which ones and to what extent?

People don’t feel too concerned over the nice, even round number that 2010 will represent, nothing like when nature’s odometer turned from 1999 to 2000, or Year Two Thousand.

Ten years ago my wife and I were attending a Y2K party at the home of Prentiss and Nancy Childs, when we got a phone call requesting we go to my mother’s house on Railroad Avenue. My two older sisters, Dolores and Dorothy, had arrived from California to spend Christmas and New Year’s Day with Mom, but a few ticks before the year 2000, Mom insisted she needed “a man around the house.”

We left the party for Mom’s house, where she revealed the fear that everything electrical would suddenly melt down. But the main issue for her was whether she should make “cafecito” before midnight, just to have it handy. Read the rest of this entry »