The Good Fight
I wanted to share with all of you a section of my new book, The Good Fight which comes out Thursday. You can purchase The Good Fight by clicking here.
I come from a mining town.
But by the time I came along - December 2, 1939 - the leading industry in my hometown of Searchlight, Nevada, was no longer mining, it was prostitution. I don't exaggerate. There was a local law that said you could not have a house of prostitution or a place that served alcohol within so many feet of a school. Once, when it was determined that one of the clubs was in violation of this law, they moved the school.
As a boy, I learned to swim at a whorehouse. Nobody in town had ever seen such a fancy inground tiled pool in their lives as the pool at the El Rey. Or any pool at all, for that matter. At least nobody that we knew. The El Ray was the main bordello when I was growing up in Searchlight. Every Thursday afternoon, the whoremonger in town, a kindly bear of a man by the name of Willie Martello, would ask the girls who worked the El Rey to clear out, and he'd invite the children in town, usually no more than a dozen of so at a time, to swim in his pool. And we would live the life of Riley for a couple of hours, splashing in the azure blue of that whorehouse pool. This was a rare luxury in a hard town. When I was coming up, there were several other brothels in Searchlight - the Crystal Club, Searchlight Casino, Sandy's - thirteen in all, and no churches to be found.
In my home, we had no religion. None, zero. And when I say none, I don't mean 10 percent religious, I mean none. It wasn't that my parent were atheists or something, it was that religion just wasn't part of our lives. But Franklin Roosevelt was. In our little home, my mother had a navy-blue embroidered pillowcase with a little fringe on it, and she put it up on the wall. On it, in bright yellow stitching it read, "We can. We will. We must. - Franklin Delano Roosevelt." And that was my religion.
Otherwise, my fathers concerns were much more terrestrial, and he spent his time not gazing heavenward but downward, under the ground, looking for gold. Initially, that was the only reason anybody came to Searchlight.
Since the beginning, man has scratched the earth with simple tools to get at the richness that lies beneath. Four thousand years before Christ, the Neanderthals mined flint to make weapons and ever since then, when something of value has been found in the ground, men have come running.
The strike that created my hometown happened in 1897, when a man named George Frederick Colton found gold at what would become the Duplex Mine in the middle of town. By the turn of the century Searchlight was booming. But reversals come quick. Within a decade, the town was in a serious decline. In all, more than 250,000 ounces of gold have been pulled from the ground at Searchlight, half of that before 1909. Thirty years later, with the boom a distant memory, I was born in my grandmother's house, a two-room shack, delivered by a doctor by the name of Fenlon who would himself soon leave town for someplace more prosperous.
It's an interesting man who makes his way to the middle of nowhere seeking his life and fortune. That's what my grandfather, John Reid, did, when he was drawn to Searchlight from California just after the turn of the century. And that, of course, is also the story of our country--a certain vagabond spirit, in the best sense of that word. The middle of nowhere is a hard place to live. So many of our fathers were drunks, and some of our mothers as well.
When I was a kid I didn't realize Searchlight was the middle of nowhere. I figured everybody on earth lived like we did, and I thought my town was the center of the known universe. The landscape, scarred with hundreds of claims, some active, many abandoned, was so interesting to a boy looking for adventure. All manner of treasure was to be found down those holes, if not actually much gold. Over time the gold in the ore became harder and harder to find and more expensive to produce. Some of the mining outfits would dig a hole, find nothing there, and immediately dig another hole. And so there are hundreds of holes in the ground in Searchlight. Hundreds. Anyplace you look there are holes. When I was coming up, people always said, "Better be careful of the holes--better fence some of the." And my did would say," Anybody's dumb enough to fall down a hole, they should fall down a hole."
During the boom, if a modern convenience existed, it could be found in Searchlight - telephone, telegraph, a doctor, a dentist, a railroad, and electricity, which is astounding considering that much of rural America wouldn't be electrified for decades. Back then, Searchlight was bigger than Las Vegas. When I was a boy, it was barely hanging on. And we knew none of the luxuries that those who came before us had enjoyed on the same spot. Searchlight never became a ghost town, but it sure tried.
By the 1940s, the town's regression was almost complete. There wasn't a single telephone in the town. No television set, no telegraph. Nothing other than the mail to communicate with the outside world. Unreliable electricity. No doctor, no dentist. You didn't go to the doctor unless you were on your deathbed. And even then, who's going to print the money for you to pay the bill?
The isolation and the dwindling prospects could put a dent in your pioneer spirit and take a toll on your family. Put the lens a little closer, on the Reid house. At the time I thought our house was really nice, but as I look back I guess it wasn't.
First, it is made of railroad ties. And railroad ties are soaked in creosote - oil - to keep the termites out. So this house of ours is as flammable as a house can be. My dad put chicken wire up and added a coat of plaster to make a rough stucco exterior. We had a little tree in our yard for a while. It died. The yard is just rocks - things don't grow.
My brother and I always go in the back door. There is a kitchen, and the kitchen has a woodstove when you come in, right next to the sink. And an electric stove, not a fancy one, but a stove, and a refrigerator. And then there is a little room with no door on it. It's where a bathroom should be, but it isn't a bathroom. We use an outhouse instead. But my mother stores stuff in this little room. She takes in laundry from the card dealers at the casinos and from the brothels, and this is where she keeps her clothes wringer and her wash soap. Continue the tour into what is called the front room. It's the biggest room in the house, and it's where the radio is, but otherwise we barely use it because it gets so cold there. The floors are linoleum. But don't leave the room until you look up and see the star on the ceiling, made of rough-cut pieces of wood arranged around the light fixture. It's the handiwork of a guy named Pop Payne, and it's real nice to look at. It really makes the house special. And then come back around to the two tiny bedrooms, and that's it.
Now, the back bedroom of our palace, measuring out at eight feet by eleven feet, in the room I share with my little brother Larry, who came along a couple of years after me. Larry lives like a king, because as the youngest he gets the five-gallon bucket. Me, I have to go to the outhouse, which at night in the wintertime seems like it's a mile away. The linoleum floor is like ice.
Look closer and you'll see my parents, Harry and Inez Reid. My father is a powerful man, a very good miner, and is very quiet. Brooding. He doesn't much like to be around people. Larry and I are quiet like him. Larry is especially quiet, and my father has a special feeling for him.
Pop always works, but because of unreliable and unscrupulous bosses, he often doesn't get paid. The checks bounce all the time, but that doesn't seem to bother him too much. I can see him always reading a book, some technical manual or, more likely, some dime novel. Never books written by women, that's his prejudice. Only books by men. I wake up in the morning and walk into the kitchen and Pop's sitting at the table, drinking strong coffee and escaping into some book, which some people might not expect, since he didn't even finish eighth grade.
But don't let his lack of education fool you, he can do anything. He just prefers to work alone, that's all. He's a carpenter, he can do finishing work, he is a blacksmith, he can sharpen steel and picks and saws, he can overhaul the engine of a car, he's a welder. He can walk around a pile or rocks or dirt, observe its height and slope, and calculate its volume in his head. This drives the engineers crazy, because they can't figure out how somebody like him can do something like that. He can do anything. But mostly, he's a miner. And he can go down in a mine, take a compass, and do underground mapping. That's something the college boys can't figure out either. And Pop just smiles.
Like I said, he keeps to himself. We live up on a hill, and if Pop sees somebody coming, he tells us to stay quiet. At nighttime, people come by and call out, "Harry, Harry!" but my dad won't let us answer the door. Part of it is that all his friends like to drink, and a lot of times he doesn't have any money, and they're already way ahead of him anyway, already loaded. My brother Don is the same way. His friends come by and he says, "Tell 'em I'm not here." I ask him why he does that, and he says because they're just going down for the girls. "I have nothing for the whores. What is there down there for me?" he says.
If quiet is a heritable trait, and we got quiet from my father, then we got confidence from my mother. Mom, now, she's not quiet. She loves being around people, and is more social and optimistic than my dad. She always just knows that things are going to work out. Love going to all my ball games. Sometimes she embarrasses me with her yelling, but I'm glad she's there. She's a reader too, when she has the time. Zane Grey is her absolute favorite. She has her eccentricities, too. She has a rule for me and my brothers: Don't you eat at anybody's house, don't you accept anything from them. I guess she doesn't want anybody coming to our place, because she doesn't have anything to give them. But Mother breaks her back to make sure that with our limited money we always have everything we need. And we do. She makes sure we have clothes that are as good as the other kids clothes. And they are.
They both drink too much. My father'll drink until he runs out of money. Sometimes they get loaded and whoop it up. Once or twice, Pop has run afoul of the law. One night after his shift, my dad and his brother Rob get in a fight down in the bars and when they come out the cops are waiting for them. They beat Pop on the head with a sap, a hard leather pouch filled with BBs, and then haul him to jail in Las Vegas. My dad has a nice new scar on his head to show for his night out.
Every now and then, he'll be too drunk to go to work. And sometimes Mom and Pop fight with each other, physically, in front of us children. My father can be mean to my mother. After Don and Dale are off at high school, Larry and I sit, wide-eyed, listening to what goes on on the other side of the closed door.
I am not confessional by nature, so some of these things are surpassing hard for me to say. I loved my parents very much. They gave life everything they had. But no child should be raised the way I was raised.
The foundation of our house is still there. It would eventually burn down.
And that's life in a boomtown gone bust.
Purchase The Good Fight here.
Reprinted from The Good Fight by Senator Harry Reid by arrangement with G.P. Putnam's Sons, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., Copyright © 2008 by Harry Reid.
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You, Mr. Reid, are a political, moral, and physical coward. You are also a Republican. When you let the FISA bill out of the Senate, that was when I knew. The Corporate Masters have purchased your integrity and your vote. You, sir, are a disgrace to the constitution and the country. You have proven yourself to be a traitor to the very people you say you serve. When this country disintigrates, and it will soon, I will not blame the Republicans. How can you blame a snake for biting you? No, I will blame the DemocRAT party for selling out to the same lobbyists that control the Republican party. Once upon a time, I believed in 'The American Way'. No more. You and every other member of congress should be tried and conviceted of treason and hanged by the neck until you are dead. You are a disgrace to the entire human race.
sorry about all the negative comments. I hope there are a few fights left in you because our nation is been methodically torn apart by corporate and political greed from people like dick and his dil do follower. Let's rev up the fight and not stop until they are all gone! What do you say?
I am embarrassed by these comments and I am ashamed of all of you. I bet most of you beat your chests too as you hold up your Christian values, right? He might be there in the Congress that can get nowhere, but he had extremely humble beginnings and worked his way up. Unlike "myfriends" McCain who has lived off the taxpayer from birth forward through his inherited status. There are lines a person crosses and it seems many of us have crossed that. Wish it weren't so.
Before I answer you unkindly. Can I point out to you that he is a Senator. Perhaps, before you come over here and point the finger at anybody, you just might want to do some research first. Otherwise, you will be flagged as just another "drive-by" poster.
Please spare us the false choices. It is possible to hold both McCain AND Reid responsible for their roles in the current mess this country is in. I don't really care what a lawmaker's background is, as long as that person at least tries to do the job he or she was elected to do. Reid fails miserably in that area.
Senator Reid is Senate Majority Leader. Note that last word: LEADER. It is his job to try to get Congress to work. But he has proven to be one of the most incompetent, least effective senators in that position in decades.
You guys are as bad as all the rest of sheeple in this country; you're taking what amounts to a sound bite and running with it, without bothering to learn any more.
Senator, this is wonderfully written; I found the description of your childhood home very evocative and the whole narrative quite compelling. I looked down the page at Amazon to see what prompted you to write this book (because as government bios and apologias go it's extraordinarily literary) and I found this, which I'd like to share with my fellow frustrated 'Posters:
"In a voice that is flinty, real, and passion-filled, Senator Harry Reid tells the tale of two places, intertwining his own story, particularly his early life of deep poverty in the tiny mining town of Searchlight, Nevada—“a place that boasted of thirteen brothels and no churches”—with the cautionary tale of Washington, D.C.: “If I can do nothing greater in this book than explain those two places to each other, then I will have done something important.
Let's not Wright the guy out of the picture without reading the WHOLE THING, huh?
I read the WHOLE THING, thanks. It doesn't make the timing of this book any less appalling.
Senator Reid and I can agree on this much: He has yet to do anything important.
For pete's sake relevancematters, reviewers are for sale just like all other flacks. Harry Reid has abandoned the people who elected him. This congress was our last hope, but we were forced to watch as bush continued the systematic destruction of our country, aided and abetted by the very people we elected to stop the madness.
Harry Reid is a traitor, as a poster above stated.
Harry:
Sorry about your circumstances with which you were raised. However, you seem to have the time to write a podantic account of your childhood while our country in on the verge of being torn apart.
WTF are you doing about it? Nancy Pelosi and you have shown no backbone by not standing up to an administration that has circumvented almost any known law and has flagrrantly thumbed it's collective noses at the constitution. You continure to allow them to wage a war that is producing no discernable results other than destroying our military and sucking our treasury dry while allowing the WH to borrow record amounts of debt to fund this fiasco. Your record of oversight is dismal with no real plan to address this criminal activity.
We voted for the Democratic Party in November, 2006 to change thef culture in DC. The number one issue other than the war was corruption. You have let us down, to put it mildly.
I agree. You seem to be too quite and passive about what is going down in our country and the crimes being committed against our constitution. How can we see you as a leader when it seems that you and the rest of congress is enabling this administration to turn this country into a land of criminals and law breakers?
"The foundation of our house is still there. It would eventually burn down. And that's life in a boomtown gone bust."
Prophetic last words of your post ?...for America.
You supported the resolution to go to war in Iraq...as did Hillary. A pox on all who did. Your leadership position in the senate during the last few years was like a wet rag. Even a symbolic shutdown of the senate for a period would have shown you possessed more of a spine than the noodle you possess.
Shame. Hope your book gets into the 50c bin real quick.
I can't believe the responses here.You guys sound like a bunch of spoiled brats.This a very interesting story Senator Reid has shared with us. It's so American.I
Harry is a touch little guy, a boxer. He has been waging a not so successful battle against the terrorists to our democratic way of life within the government
much our democracy has been under attack from the inside.I know I
wasn't until Bush II. We should have been electing progressives to fight the traitors to democracy.
Now that you know. are you going to continue to whine or are you going to get off your buts and give Harry a hand?
"bunch of spoiled brats."
I guess I am spoiled. I actually expect elected officials to do the job they were hired to do.
"This a very interesting story Senator Reid has shared with us. "
It would have been just as interesting if he wrote it after he was out of office. Is it too much to ask him to put all of his public energies toward doing his job right now, given the serious problems we are facing as a nation?
"Harry is a ... a boxer. "
If he was a boxer, he'd be the guy who always forces the other boxer into a clinch, to avoid getting into a real fight.
"He has been waging a not so successful battle against the terrorists to our democratic way of life within the government
Actually, he's been doing very little in that regard.
"most of us have been unaware how much our democracy has been under attack from the inside."
Many of us are very aware of that. We are also aware how little Senator Reid has done to combat that effort.
"We should have been electing progressives to fight the traitors to democracy.
That's what many people thought we did 2 years ago, when Reid and Pelosi took over. Little did we know...
"or are you going to get off your buts and give Harry a hand?"
What exactly is it that you think people should do to give Harry a hand? Serious question.
I do believe I have a pretty good feel for what has happened over the last few years. And I, sir, am not exactly a "spoiled brat". I am just not interested in Harry's little stories when the country is falling apart and the gap between rich (make that super rich) and poor is so wide it is obscene. Harry failed us progressives on the war ( its still going on isnt it?) and the thrashing of the constitution. Maybe it's his vocal chords or something.
This looks to be a good read. With the recent flood of poorly written memoirs, it is refreshing to find that may be engaging.
You are serious? Are you? Who would want to read it? I wonder if he published the episode of Rush making an ass out of him? After all, It was his most effective moment.
Yes I am serious, I do not understand how someone can read this excerpt and not be intrigued. As for all of the hotheads in here, can we please have a little loyalty and solidarity. Let us try to remember who are our friends and who are not.
What was the purpose of republishing the information that Harry Reid had a godless upbringing that involved weekly romps at the local whorehouse pool?
Make sure and publish the part about beating up homeless people and stealing from grandmas right before the next congressional elections.
Your votes suck and you didn't do squat on the war. You are a horrible leader in the Senate and hope the Democrats recognize you as such. Then again, Bob Shrum had to remove himself from influence because his atrocious track record apparently was copesetic with the Democratic power brokers.
Why do we tolerate such mediocrity?
Of all the real issues that you could have written about and you chose to hock your book?
Swam at a whorehouse as a child. Works in a whorehouse as an adult.
OK, you have a book. That'll help with the bills.
Today I heard Rep. Stark give three reasons for not impeaching:
1) It would reduce congress's power because they will be too busy with the impeachment.
2) Press would only cover impeachment
3) Would lose in any event.
First, congress currently has no power because they're not impeaching. Bushco has formally proclaimed that they are omnipotent (the unitary executive BS). Impeachment hearings are necessary to restore checks and balances, losing vote be damned.
Second, If the press actually covers something besides lapel pins, Rev. Wright, and Britney Spears, so be it. Hopefully Americans would learn about civics instead of child-custody hearings or $400 haircuts.
Third, at least it would force congress to make a record. Yes or No.
Any claims that it's too late is nonsense. This is a political process, not governed by FRCP or other procedure. Set a 30 day hearing schedule. Motion to impeach due by June 1st. Opposition due by June 14th. Reply due June June 21st. Hearing on June 28th. Case presented to senate for deliberation. Punt-Schluss.
I guess after reading these posts I don't need to make a snide remark..
you bunch of pompous asses!
and I don't mean Senator Reid....8)
some of the responses written in here really do not do the blog any justice at all!
where are the moderators when you need them???
Senator Reid...fir
The problem in this country is based more in the total disrespect that some have towards our system...
while it is true that there are some SERIOUS problems that need to be addressed.
such as WHY it is costing me almost 100.00 per week just to drive to work...and I drive a minivan...
the fact that there are so many people that are not familiar with the history that this country has gone through...
I too was raised in a poor family and have had to fight to get whatever I have aquired...
but as some of these near-do-wells didn't learn proper respect and manners...
at least my parents taught me that!
so all in all it would be nice to see some REAL improvement in our lives...
so that my little one will not have to grow up in a poor family like I was...
and have to search out the nearest whorehouse pool for a little refreshmen
now there's a gnarly thought...
it IS SERIOUSLY TimeforachangeNOW!
"you bunch of pompous asses!"
Is this a reflection of the proper respect and manners your parents taught you?
if the shoe fits I say wear it...if not what are you being so sensitve about???
Don't apologize I my behalf. I meant every word I said. This guy is as incompetent as they come. It is sad that you can't see that. People like the very wealthy Harry Reid prey on unsuspecting gullible people like you and they laugh all the way to the bank. Do you think he cares about your 100 dollar a week gas bill?
Would to God that they post my reply to this.
well...you got your wish...do you think God is now on your side...or is it just that the moderator doesn't have much work to do...8)
You have no right to apologize for me. I'm willing to go on the record as someone who thinks Harry Reid has utterly failed us.
"...there are some SERIOUS problems that need to be addressed.
Have you considered that one of the factors in your transportation budget being so high just might be your driving a minivan? Serious question answered.
Seriously though. You make a point about the lack of historical education in this country.
"...there are so many people that are not familiar with the history that this country has gone through...
I suggest you read the Federalist Papers and some of the writings of our other Founding Fathers. I strongly suspect that you will find that they repeatedly said that dissent is the highest form of patriotism and that one should always question authority. I suggest that the posters that you so abuse in your comment are more patriotic in the classical American sense than even such an erudite historian as yourself can possibly be aware of.
"As a boy, I learned to swim at a whorehouse. "
And then grew up to work in one.
LOL
You said it here on HuffPro! Now that is funny...
Senator Reid, you brought the Rockefeller/Cheney telecom immunity bill to the floor and you didn't have to do that. You're toast as far as I'm concerned.
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