The Good Las Vegan

A certain man went down to Las Vegas from Bakersfield. And while en route he was crowded off I-15 east of Barstow by a wild carload of drug-crazed punks. They stripped him of his jewelry and credit cards, beat him to a bloody pulp, and then drove off in his maroon Chevy Malibu, leaving him half dead in the white '86 Corolla they had stolen only minutes before in Victorville.

By chance there came along a certain ultra-liberal democrat on his way to a Hillary Clinton rally at a posh Las Vegas hotel, and when he saw the battered old Corolla and the bleeding man inside, he slowed down his bright yellow Hummer and said conceitedly to himself: "Look what eight years of George W. Bush has done to this country. It's time we had an administration in Washington that cares about people." And then he passed by on the other side.

And likewise, a social worker from the Bay Area with a masters degree in public administration from Berkeley, when she was at the place, stopped her blazing red Mustang convertible and looked on him. "What a shame," she said sympathetically to herself. "I surely wish I could help this pitiful man but I am not authorized to dispense state or federal welfare funds outside Marin County." And then she passed by on the other side.

But a certain twice-divorced blackjack dealer from Las Vegas, who scarcely had made it through high school and was poorly instructed in the principles of humanism, as he was journeying homeward after a weekend of debauchery with some chicks from Santa Monica, he came to where the wounded man was, and when he saw him, he had compassion on him.

And he went to him, and bound his wounds, pouring into them some SPF 30 sunscreen and a little Jack Daniels, all that was left over from his misspent weekend at the beach, and placed him in his own '93 Grand Cherokee with torn seat covers and brought him to a seedy motel in Barstow, and took care of him.

And on the morrow, when he departed, he took out two Jacksons and a Lincoln, every cent that remained of the rent money he had imprudently taken with him to California, and gave them to the motel clerk, and said unto him: "Take care of him, and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay thee." And the unshaven and scruffy motel clerk rolled his bloodshot eyes and said blandly: "Yeah, sure. Whatever, dude."

Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was the neighbor unto him who fell among the drug-crazed punks?

Paths

Each of us commences our earthly existence and journey at a precise time and place. From that time and place we move inexorably onward through a series of ups and downs and twists and turns--some fascinating, some frightful--to our ultimate destiny, an event that also will be marked by a specific time and place. The interval, be it long or short, between beginning and end is called our lifetime. And though our beginning point in time and space is predetermined for us by choices our parents made, there is inevitably a moment when we begin making choices for ourselves, a point where we start selecting our own path in life. And this path, whether carefully or carelessly chosen, will unavoidably carry us across the paths of many others, some good and some not so good, and convey us to our ultimate fate. It has been said that if you could follow a person's path backwards, from the end to the beginning, and look at all the spots where he chose a certain fork over another, you would see that there really was only one place he could have ended up. So please take heed my dear friends, especially my young friends. Be wise and thoughtful in choosing your path, for if you are, the trip through life can be, despite the occasional disappointments and heartaches common to all, surprisingly beautiful and even breathtaking at times. And when you arrive at your final stop, wherever and whenever that might be, it will be the serene and natural conclusion to a worthwhile and lovely journey.

Separation Anxiety

A number of years ago, in a distant time some of you may not remember, a troubled magazine writer suffering from unresolved childhood fears wrote an article in which he described Highway 50 in central Nevada as "the loneliest road in America." When we who live along this delightful and enchanting route first learned of his smug and shallow assessment, we were damned insulted, but now the more enlightened among us are gradually beginning to realize that the poor man was profoundly disturbed and probably just couldn't help himself. Although debate among practicing psychologists persists to this day, and perhaps always will, most of the ones with licenses agree that because he could find no bustling 5th Avenues or glittering Hollywood Boulevards along the way to mollify his deeply rooted and neurotic feelings of isolation he concluded that he was lonely. In his sick and depraved mind he was confusing stark beauty and wide-open spaces with loneliness, which leads us now to believe he possessed a morbidly exaggerated sense of the role crowds and bright lights play in promoting feelings of acceptance and inclusion. Today we understand and sympathize with this anguished man and realize that he should no longer be held accountable for his regrettable remarks. After all, viewed through the lens of his twisted mind, things must have looked a lot different to him than they do to us normal people who live here in Nevada.