The son also falls

Welcome to this week’s Reno News & Review.

I was walking from the office over to the Green Room a couple of weeks ago. It was one of those Friday nights when I was walking to a bar with the intention of getting blasted. Most of you didn’t know me in the bad old days a decade or so ago, when I pretty much lived for American journalism, literature and macrobrews. I took a year off of the drinking life the year my son was born, not believing it was fair to drink when my pregnant honey couldn’t.

Anyway, for the last nine years or so, I only get out to booze it up five or six times a year. That’s plenty. But when I do get out, I like to get hammered. I don’t drive. I don’t cause problems. I don’t get sloppy. I know that the 12-steppers would call me a binge drinker. Maybe I am. If so, I don’t care.

Now, I don’t offer this pathetic self-disclosure because I got intoxicated a couple of weeks ago. I did it just to show my own hypocrisy. Or something.

Anyway, as I walked over to the bar, I walked down the then-under-construction Virginia Street. On the block between Fifth and Fourth, walking south, I saw two drug deals go down. Broad daylight. One of the deals actually involved a baby carriage complete with a baby. I couldn’t tell for sure if the carriage was for storing drugs or cash, but there was definitely an exchange between the couple with the baby and the guy who appeared to be buying. The other deal was just a straightforward hand-off of either cash or drugs. Often in these kinds of things, one person takes the cash and another a block away hands off the dope.

Anyway, while driving south on Lake Street last week, I saw another exchange right next to me as I was stopped at a stoplight. One of the pair saw me looking and gave me a big wave. I waved back.

What do you say? I’m not wholly against drug use, but I don’t think Reno needs a bunch of drug dealers on our streets. Does anyone else think the rest of the beautification efforts downtown are for naught if the streets remain scummy?