Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Home Means Nevada

I love Fallon. I love it even more now that I have lost the major reason for returning as mom and dad have moved to UT. I now get to choose to remember the best things about Fallon and have sweet sentiments of a place where I spent my formative years.

Some of my favorite things about Fallon are:

Tumbleweed Road. I mean, c'mon! Is there anything which screams dusty small desert town more than a dirt road named "Tumbleweed"? I recall a neighbor of ours making a 'tumbleweed' man one winter for Christmas when Fallon had no snow.



The view from the top of Rattlesnake Mountain. Really I just get a kick that something like this can be called a 'mountain'. I have spent many hours up here just staring out onto Fallon. Sometimes the view is more picturesque than other times, depending on the time of year.


Historic Maine Street. From my recollection, Fallon's main street is one of very few in the nation spelled "Maine". I'm not sure why, exactly. Perhaps everyone just really liked lobster. Anyhow, I love the theater and going there with my friends for midnight screenings of the newest release and wondering why the theater didn't look like the pictures of the historic theater they had on the walls.



Lizards. There were always lizards on the back wall of the house if you knew where to find them. This one was really easy to find once everything was out of the way. He was a big one, too: about 6-7" long head to tail.

Most of all . . .

I loved home in Fallon.
However, there are some things I won't miss about Fallon:
The cartoon high school mascot. (I think I can joke about this for a lifetime)
Rotten-egg water. Enough showering in essence of sulfur.
Burn-my retina-and melt-my-hair hot August sun. I know we get this just about everywhere, but sometimes it seemed especially bad in NV.
Smoking and mini-casinos in every business. I'll never forget the old Raley's and Safeway markets when we first moved in and needing to hold my breath to get through the doors on the way in and out because of the fog of cigarette smoke. (Now I get to ruin my lungs with the blessed inversions every winter instead!) It caught me off guard again last weekend to see slot machines and video poker in the airport and the gas stations. I had forgotten about them.
Oh well, despite all this, I will miss you, Fallon.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

I do share your sentiments Scott. There is a part of me that is sad that there is no longer an excuse for me to drive "Home" and see where I spent 3 long years in high school. Although there are things that I do not miss about Fallon- the thing that I will miss most are the people there (there are really good people there). Ernie and Carmen Schank came out to see Mom and Dad before they left and I could tell it was hard for Dad and Mom to say bye to them. But on the bright side I can go and visit old friends from Utah now that mom and dad live in Utah again.

Karen K. said...

You had LIZARDS?!? Ewwwwwwww.

Alisha said...

don't make me cry. . .okay, too late. i already missed fallon a lot. now, knowing that mom and dad don't live there makees me miss it more for some reason.
through my sorrow i do feel excitment for mom and dad. and can't wait to go visit utah more!

nettie said...

okay, since I don't have to be sad about never going to fallon again, I have to stand up for the Greenwave. I know it's kind of goofy, but it's unique and like nothing else anyone has, and it has local reference (which I love)! It's definitely not generic.

And maybe I have been gone for too long, but isn't it called Rattlesnake Hill, not Rattlesnake Mountain. (seriously, my mind is confused now!) And what were you doing spending so much time up there Scott? Isn't that the local make-out point?

It will be so strange to go home and not have your parents there. Jeff is going to be so bored. He'll be stuck at my house baking, quilting, gossiping...etc. He will no longer have the refuge of your parents house to run to! I guess he'll have to learn to drive a swather, or better yet, preg-check a cow!

Scott said...

Though I have never spent time on Rattlesnake for such a purpose as proposed, I HAVE preg-checked a cow on the Sorensen dairy ranch (which is near to where the Gurkha rides the waves of alfalfa swaying in the wind :)

Kristen P. said...

A-hem! We still live close to Fallon...Jeff can always come visit us and anyone else for that matter, unless we move to Wyoming.

Anonymous said...

Wyoming? Are you planning on moving to Wyoming?!

Kristen P. said...

Not planning on it but considering the possibilies....