I want some coffee!

There are several Reno's in the US. thanks to the USPS, however, Nevada has but one. However if you ever lived in Reno, Nevada you learned quickly there were actually 2 Reno's masquerading as a single city- There was (probably 'is') the town with the casinos, hotels, nite clubs, bars and hookers which catered to visitors who came to gamble & party; these businesses are scattered along Virginia St starting (at least in the 1940s) at the railroad tracks then continuing south in the direction of Carson City a little over 30 miles distant. And then there was the rest of town where the residents lived. You could go weeks without ever having to deal with the crowds of visitors and those that catered to them. Well... unless you were a kid and wanted to see a first run movie at the Majestic, Grenada or Crest theaters for 25 cents (50 cents for the matinee at the Crest). Or if you were ok with re-runs, then for 14 cents you could go to the Tower on Virginia but well away fro...

 ... except what you choose to recall." With apologies to Merle Haggard, here's a little of what I choose to recall about my time growing up in Reno- "The Biggest Little City in the World" according to the Reno Chamber of Commerce. I mentioned previously my time in the Catholic day home run by the Sisters of Mercy in Reno. That didn't happen completely by necessity of wartime. My mother, Doris Ross, may have had a father of Scottish decent (yeah- I'm named after Robert the Bruce, a genuine bad ass in the history of Scotland), but mom had a mother who was very much an Irish Catholic. And mom was raised a Catholic herself. Something that nagged at her about her marriage to my father was that he was emphatically agnostic: 'Fate', he was sure, was at the root of everything which happened to a person. They talked thru the dilemma and predictably my father said yes to me being baptized. I guess it was fate. I recall the baptism clearly. A guy in a black dre...

... I usually reply 'Reno, Nevada'. And that's true to the extent the listener/reader doesn't presume that's where I was born.  When I was about 4 years old my father, Wilbur (Bill) Vernon Bowman (b. 1911, d. 1995), was offered a job as business & office manager at Johnson Chevrolet in Reno. He was hired by then-owner, Marsh Johnson. It was 1942, the US was at war and it was only a matter of time before my father got his draft notice.  One of my memories of how the war affected me at the time was a train ride from Reno to Stockton. I traveled with my mother, Doris Agnes Ross (b. 1910, d. 1980) on a steam-powered passenger+freight train. There was standing room only; soldiers in uniform had exclusive priority for seating. One such soldier stood and offered his seat to my mother (the one with the whiny brat who was making a scene). I guess I sat on her lap and probably slept the remainder of the ride as I remember nothing else. WW-II in a child's nut shell. Th...