Lynn S. Rosenberg - 50 States 50 Stories...I Never Thought Id Live Here: Enjoy Real Stories

Palmetto Publishing Group
Charleston, SC

50 States 50 StoriesI Never Thought Id Live Here
Copyright 2020 by Lynn S. Rosenberg

All rights reserved

No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted in any form by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy,
recording, or otherexcept for brief quotations in printed reviews, without
prior permission of the author.

First Edition

Printed in the United States

ISBN-13: 978-1-64990-109-5
ISBN-10: 1-64990-109-7

To my mother, Natalie.
She was my best friend and greatest advocate.

If there is a book that you want to read but it hasnt been written yet, you must be the one to write it.

Toni Morrison

In the early years of living in Las Vegas, I was thrilled to see such a diversity of people. I was raised on Long Island, New York, and spent the first fifty years of my life there as a student, young bride, mother, and teacher, as did almost all of my friends and acquaintances. So after we moved to Nevada, I talked to people about how and why they came to live in Las Vegas, and I found out the reasons were varied, as you will see. However, the tagline was always the same: I never thought I would live here!

After hearing this common ending to almost every story, I decided that there was a book to be written about this very idea, and many stories to be told. So before anyone else ran with my idea, I decided I would be the one to write it!

I, too, never would have believed that Id end up living in Las Vegas, based on my misconception of what this city really was about. People I interviewed talked about the great weather, access to beautiful natural parks, great food, and world-class entertainment. Few of them indicated that gambling was the stimulus that brought them here to live, contrary to the citys reputation.

Please read and enjoy these real stories collected over time from real people who ended up living in a city that they never expected to call home.

Lynn S. Rosenberg

September 2019

Some interesting facts about Las Vegas excerpted from Las Vegas Review Journal, article entitled Nevadas Speed of Growth Puts Silver State Natives in Vast Minority, by Michael Scott Davidson, January 25, 2019.

• The 2017 census indicated that only 26 percent of the states three million residents were born here. That is the smallest percentage of any state in the United States!

• During the Great Recession of 2008, thousands left Las Vegas due to the battered economy.

• From 2013 to 2017, 650,000 people moved into Las Vegas and 490,000 moved out. Former Florida residents led the influx, while former Arizonans led the migration away from Las Vegas.

• Californians are the largest group moving here. They cite less traffic, less expensive housing, and the cost of living in Las Vegas compared to California as reasons for the move. They can live twice as well for half price.

• Robert Lang, the executive director of Brookings Mountain West at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, says, Southern Nevada is built by and for outsiders.

• Among newcomers, 61 percent were under the age of forty, with 30 percent having college degrees. Among people already living here under the age of forty, 53 percent hold college degrees.

• Images of the 1957 winner of the Miss Atomic Bomb beauty contest became among the most publicized photographs ever used to publicize Las Vegas. In those days, nearby nuclear testing was thought to attract tourism instead of repel it!

Many celebrity weddings have taken place in Las Vegas over the past half century:

• Mickey Rooney was noted for marrying multiple times in local wedding chapels while he was a popular movie star.

• Elvis Presley and Priscilla Beaulieu were married at the Aladdin in 1967.

• Arlene Dahl, who was married four times, famously married handsome leading man Fernando Lamas in 1954 at the Last Frontier Resort.

• Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward wed at the El Rancho in 1958.

• Bing Crosby, fifty-three, married Kathy Grant, a twenty-three-year-old starlet in 1957, after dating her for five years, at St. Anne Catholic Church.

• Zsa Zsa Gabor married actor George Sands in 1949 at the Little Church of the West, now considered a historical landmark.

The beginning was at the end of a 3,600-mile family car trip in the southwestern part of the country. We lived in New York at the time, and my then husband, our two young sons, and I flew to Denver, rented a car, and explored ten states, including all the requisite national parks. So, on the last night of this marvelous trip, the teacher in me had everyone in the family rate our experiences from one to one hundred, one being the best and one hundred being the worst. Las Vegas came in with a whopping score of ninety-sevenclose to the worst!

That was 1985, and due to circumstances presented to me (I got a job as an assistant principal), I moved here in 1999. It was the last place on earth I expected to live! Once I got here, I loved the fact that people came from everywhere and had a variety of reasons for moving here. But nearly every story I heard ended with, But I never thought I would live in Las Vegas.

After the death of my first husband, Gary, I remarried in 1988 to a man who was very open minded and not fixed on a life remaining on Long Island, New York. Our children were out of high school and college, so our decision was really based on just the two of us.

My dad was a businessman, always looking for the next opportunity in life, and in 1993 he owned several California Closet franchises back east. He wanted to relocate to a place that would be tax friendly and provide warm weather for golf and outdoor activities. Much to my dismay, he called me one day and said that he was moving to Las Vegas to open a closet companyas simple as that! I was in disbelief that he would move so far away from New York and to Sin City of all places! We had neither family nor friends in Las Vegas. What was wrong with my dad?

In the beginning, when wed visit my dad in Las Vegas, he would pick us up at the airport, and on the drive to his home, he would point out all the new hotels, the glitter and the glitz that made him proud to live here. I tried to be polite and smile and feign enthusiasm, but in reality I thought the strip was way overdone for my taste and completely lacking any class.

One morning, on Long Island, in the dead of winter, I was pulling out of my garage in seventeen-degree weather. I was wearing a fur coat, driving down my block as the sleet was falling, and the defroster wasnt working yet. It was at that moment that I said to myself, I dont want to do this anymore! When I returned home from work that evening after enduring traffic, snowy roads, and freezing cold, I said to my husband, Ron, Lets move. What do you think?

Fast-forward about two years. My husband and I visited the southwest often: Arizona, where my son attended the University of Arizona; California, where my brother lived; and yes, Las Vegas! Much to our surprise, we actually started to like it. In 1999, when I was offered a job as an assistant principal in a Hebrew day school, we decided to make the big move. At the time my husband was able to continue working in the collection field from our new home. Our family in New York was dwindling and moving away in small groups to Florida, Arizona, California, and here; there wasnt much binding us to New York anymore. Frankly, the traffic and snow shoveling were big detractors at that point in our lives.