SEARCHING ~ for HARRY REID ( test )
SEARCHING ~ for HARRY REID ( test )
I just finished reading Nancy Pelosi’s book The Art of Power. She speaks often and with appreciation of and affection for HARRY REID, the late US Senate leader from Nevada.
In the fall of 2010 - I went to film him for a video Jesse Dylan and Wondros were making for his upcoming Senatorial election campaign.
Our Southwest Jet had flown into McCarren airport at Las Vegas. As soon as we disembarked, we were engulfed by the sounds of slot machines and neon seductions of shows and gaming.
But soon, in our car, the electric glitter of the Strip faded in the rear view, and the long road seemed to lead nowhere. It was far from Washington DC. A long way, it seemed, from anywhere. A Yucca tree drifted by, there weren’t many houses or any other structures and those few seemed abandoned.
Our GPS guided us toward the town of Searchlight, population 258. About sixty miles from Vegas, but seemingly cultural decades away.
This is where Harry Reid was born. This is where Harry Reid still called home.
From the days I flew my Cessna across the West, I remembered Searchlight on the aerial charts for its iconic name and thought it might be an interesting place to visit, but I never did.
We were early for our meeting, so we walked through the streets of the town. There was a cemetery at the edge, it seemed as though no one wanted their buried ancestors very far away, and it was neatly kept on a small hill, and it was larger than I would have thought for this small town. There was an older man in a blue denim outfit standing quietly for a long time by a small headstone. He was not interested in conversation
We stopped at Terrible’s Coffee shop, a social center where there was much conversation and a bit of campaigning going on. We were definitely the outsiders, from out of town.
We needed detailed directions to Harry Reid’s house. It was at the edge of Searchlight. It had an array of solar panels solar panels. There is a lot of sun in the Nevada desert.
It was a welcoming place, unpretentious. Rough hewn and of the land. Not much in the way of of Washington mementos.
We sat outside for a while and listened to Harry Reid’s stories. He seemed more comfortable outside and he spoke easily to us, with an authenticity, and occasional halting pauses.
This is what we filmed:
After this, I made a few visits to the Capitol in Washington for other projects. It is of course an inspiring place, magnificent with elegance and history. But it was hard not to recall the man who was a powerful figure here in his home at the end of a dirt road among the cactus desert flatlands.
Years later, at his memorial service Barack Obama spoke of Harry Reid as a “..driven, brilliant, sometimes irascible, deeply good man from Searchlight, Nevada.”
The last time I flew in to Las Vegas it was now named the HARRY REID AIRPORT.
Thank you.