Small world

Things haven’t changed much since we last communicated. It’s been a crazy week, and frankly, I’m about done in. Kathleen, the kids and I moved—the greatest transport of human beings since D-Day. I don’t know how much you care to hear about this. I’ve mentioned the move in earlier columns, and I’m tired of writing about it, so I assume you’re tired of reading about it. This’ll be the last time.

It took my family and me three days to pack up, clean up and move up. We rented a 24-foot Budget truck to transfer our chattel, moving from a former fixer-upper in Sparks to a fixer-upper in Reno.

Let me give you some advice: Return your rental truck with a full tank. I took mine back a couple gallons short, thinking the convenience would outweigh the inconvenience of driving to Sierra Sid’s. They tried to gig me for $4.70 per gallon, so I took the truck to the Tesoro down the road. I’d like to say there were some “big” lessons learned in this move, some pithy, glib statement to segue from the relocation to this newspaper, but really all that occurred to me is that, as long as my family is along, pretty much anywhere is home.

I’ll tell you one thing that happened here at 708 N. Center St. while I had my nose buried in a cardboard box. Last week, we ran a profile of Abdul Barghouti, a Reno resident of Middle Eastern heritage, by a local grad student Brett DeGroff. I thought it was a pretty good story, a different view of a different kind of person than is often featured in the media. What I didn’t expect was the reaction to it. I’ve received five or six letters and at least one phone call stridently demanding to know why we’d have the temerity to tell Barghouti’s story from Barghouti’s point of view. I’m not quite sure what to think about that. Why don’t you send me a letter or an e-mail, so I’ll know? If you need a memory refresher, check out www.newsreview.com/issues/reno/2003-02-20/pulse.asp.

In the meantime, I’ve got some unpacking to do.